The Emirates Airbus A380 is special. First class features suites with doors, though there are better first class suites. Emirates has an amazing food and beverage program, often including $500 wines and even more expensive cognacs. And it has two on board showers. There’s also the business class bar.
But it’s an expensive product, both spending cash and spending miles. You’ll have to spend a lot more miles than most programs require for comparable travel. Except there’s a route where they give the seats away for less than the wine you can drink on board.
However there’s an opportunity to try out Emirates Airbus A380 first class on one short route for much less than you’d ever expect to pay.
- Emirates flies between Hong Kong and Bangkok.
- A roundtrip originating in Bangkok is just $912 in first class. A one way is a little over $600. (HT to Loyalty Lobby who is actually seeing roundtrip fares as low as $875.)
- These fares are available pretty much every day.
Bangkok – Hong Kong is a highly competitive route. There are around two dozen non-stop flights per day, operated by at least 7 airlines. As a result, fares – including premium cabin fares – come cheap. You won’t get the ‘full first class experience’ on a 3 hour flight, but if you’re going to travel between the two Asian megacities, why not splurge? At this price you can legitimately more than eat and drink the full ticket cost.
You should probably credit purchased Emirates “A” fares to Air Canada’s Aeroplan where they earn 150% of flown miles.
This is excellent marketing. Sell a $900 First Class ticket on a short flight that’s roughly $800 more expensive than the cheapest option and roughly $500 more expensive than Business Class, but give an illusion of “value” by opening up a bottle of wine that probably costs EK $100 (or maybe less).
Before purchasing, one should review trip reports for this flight so as to calibrate expectations appropriately. The service level does not close to that seen on longer flights.
All the luxuries oil can buy. Wouldnt really care for the closing pods.
“Secret Route” is a bit of a stretch for a route that is routinely mentioned on blogs as the cheap way to try EK F
Do they open the shower suites on that route? If so it might be worth it for someone who has never had that very unique experience.
BTW it’s a 5 hour flight, not a 3 hour flight it’s more than 3000 miles
@Doug. Nothing can be very unique. Unique qualifies itself as absolute. You can’t be a bit pregnant or a bit dead. Unique is unique.
@Ly – it’s 1,049 miles.
Hot damn. Just in time gor our trip to Thailand next year.
Yeah,it’s overpaying but gets flying FC Emirates off my bucket list and I live the a380 bar.
I love old ITA Matrix. It’s the best and i hope it never goes away.
My bad, I was thinking of BKK-DXB
I prefer Emirates.
This is a horrible “deal”. Do not follow this advice. You will not get the true emirates first experience. Unless the flight time is above 7 hours don’t waste your money.
I could give you many examples, but here’s one to think about. There are 14 first class seats on the A380. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes for the seat belt sign to come off after take off and you basically have to be in your seat and they clean everything up 30 minutes before landing.
This leaves you 2 hours and 15 minutes of real time. Also, most of emirates flights arrive before schedule in my experience which will likley further deteriorate your usable time.
There are two showers in first for 14 people. You get 5 minutes of water time and about 15 to 20 minutes of usage in the bathroom for pre and post shower. Plus they have to clean it which takes another 5 or so minutes. We can call it 25 minutes per person.
This means that if everyone showers it would take 225 minutes or 3.75 hours for everyone to use the two showers. Math doesn’t even remotely work.
This also of course doesn’t include all the time to eat, drink and enjoy all the other amenities offered which take time to order, eat, and enjoy the food and service…nor does it alot time to experience the business class bar area and hang out with the pleblians back there.
If you love wasting money and want to pretend….then follow this guy’s advice.
Or, find a long haul and experience it properly. There are many ways to do it, but if I gave you them all then everyone would do it and id be relegated te economy. No thanks. Good luck and do your research.
I’m with JP on this!
Get a life JP. If people want to experience the other side of the travel experience, let them. You obviously are a bitter and twisted economy passenger who will never get into first class.
Popa you missed the point. Flying this route you WONT get to experience first the way emirates is known for. For 1k and some miles you can find routes with a stopover and free hotel in dubai, transportation food and two flights in first.
I flew this route round trip in first and it was an amazing experience. I’ve flown everywhere in the world and it was well worth it to me. Flight time was 3.5 hours and then 3.25 hours. You were allowed to shower. Caviar was served and I drank several glasses of the $900 bottle of Henny lol along with expensive champagne. There was lobster and something else I don’t recall but they give you anything you want. If you are flying alone to go have a good time in Thailand I can’t see not doing this option but everyone has different ideas on what’s worth what. I flew Cathay on their true 3 class first experience from ORD to HKG on AA points through BA points system and it was 120k miles each way but just as good as Emirates service wise, maybe even better.