Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Join me as I travel in style to Bangkok and back.
![2013-01-31 18.09.14_thumb[4]](https://frequentmiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2013-01-31-18.09.14_thumb4.jpg)
Greetings from Frankfurt! Time zone wise, I’m now half way to Bangkok. I flew out last night from Detroit on Lufthansa’s A330-300. This was an “old style” jet, meaning that it has not yet been upgraded to the best Lufthansa has to offer. I’ll be flying the really good stuff soon enough, so I was willing to rough it for one leg of the journey 
.
The first class cabin was big and airy. The seats were comfortable. The in-flight entertainment system was terrible, but since this was a fairly short (~7 hour)overnight flight, I didn’t mind. My plan was to sleep, not to watch movies. I was a bit disappointed, though, with the food. It was edible, but just barely. Even dessert wasn’t great. When I last flew international business class on Delta, I had excellent meals. I expected even better in first class. Ironically, the one part of Lufthansa’s meal I enjoyed most was the salad, whereas that was the one part of my meal on Delta that fell short.
Things picked up for me when I changed into my complementary Lufthansa pajamas. Yes, this was my first ever international first class flight and so it was also my first ever free set of pajamas. While I changed in the bathroom, the flight attendant turned my seat into a bed with a mattress pad, comforter, and a good sized, comfortable pillow. While I won’t pretend this was as comfortable as a real bed, it was still pretty good. I think that it helped, too, to be in comfortable PJs instead of jeans. I slept reasonably well for the rest of the flight.
Here’s a crappy photo of a fellow passenger’s bed:
The above photo makes the bed appear to be uncomfortably curved, but that wasn’t really the case. It felt flat and comfortable to me. That is, my bed did. I didn’t try out my fellow passenger’s bed.
Next stop, Lufthansa’s first class lounge…
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[…] Bangkok Bound: Lufthansa […]
William: I flew that route on Jan 31. Missed you by a day 🙂
Hello there I flew Detroit to Frankfurt on Jan 30 in First Class. We had four people in First Class. Besides me, there were two Germans and one American. Were you on board the same day?
No picture of the PJ’s? Come on! 😉
Con-man: you’ll find out tomorrow
BigRedBeafs: Wow, you’re going all over the place. Have a great time!
@Greg The Frequent Miler: We had this one old, mean looking flight attendant and two in their 20s. The older one was an example of awesomeness, and I think she controlled the quality of customer service with an iron fist.
I’m on:
EWR-MUC LH F (A340-600)
MUC-CDG LH C (A320-200)
CDG-NRT NH F (B777-300ER)
NRT-BKK TG F (A380)
Milking this award to try different F classes.
Are you on Thai A380 F?
I like your humor. Safe and pleasant travels!
I’ve also wanted to take an international first class flight. Glad you got to! What champagne were they serving?
FrequentMiler: I have always been curious about what it was like inside that LH A330 parked at D5 at DTW. Now I know. You totally deserve this trip for all of your contributions on BoardingArea, sharing your blogs, spends, and awesome credit card offers. It was good meeting you at the AADL at last July. You have inspired me to acquire miles and points this year, and I don’t regret it. I hope our paths can cross again soon. Have a great trip and good luck with your 1M challenge next month.
Good call on not trying out your fellow passenger’s bed. I haven’t flown FC yet, but I’m pretty sure they frown on that. 🙂
Jamie: Yeah, even if the flight attendants didn’t mind, I’m pretty sure the passenger would have complained
Andrew in A2: Thanks! Yes, now you know. Hopefully they’ll upgrade to the new suites someday!
Mark Jackson: The bubbly kind. No, seriously, I don’t know what kind of champagne they served.
Joel: Thanks!
I am trying to get to Bangkok as well and just took LH 413 EWR-MUC in F on A340-600
The flight was uneventful: some turbulence near Newark, but smooth sailing afterwards.
The connection from Penn station to Newark Airport is very quick and easy.
Once at EWR, I picked up boarding passes and went to a priority lane. Unfortunately, everyone else was there as well! I decided to opt out. TSA agent was friendly and efficient. He asked if I was through the drill before and we were done in no time.
Newark has two back to back lounges: Senator Lounge (First class) and a business lounge. Lufty, I am looking at you, you gotta be ashamed. Senator lounge was tiny and already full [of angry Germans] as one of the flights to Scandinavia was badly delayed. So I grabbed some food and a glass of champagne and went next door to more spacious business lounge.
Soon it was a boarding time. I was greeted and shown to the seat. There was some confusion because they thought I was German. We chatted briefly about RGN trip. Soon a flight attendant came back with an amenity kit, LH pajamas and slippers.
The flight was very pleasant (but didn’t wow), one of the better ones I had from US to Europe, though I’ll give a slight edge to new Alitalia A330 business class
The hard product (seat, entertainment system, food) was decent, but unimpressive for the first class. Cathay business class is better.
The cabin is very open, so there is not much privacy. It is clearly a previous generation. The seat was nice and wide, but a bit hard. Once FAs turned it into a bed (added a mattress and a pillow) it was very comfortable. TV was tiny and movie selection was sad, but I found a good thriller called In Bruges.
Food was either a hit or complete miss. Caviar, crabcake with avocado, and soba noodles appetizer was great. Braised beef short ribs main course was uninspiring [shoe sole!]. The salad was sad. Ice cream & fruits was nice, but not as nice as on American.
The was a good selection of wines: champagne, German/California/South Africa whites, French/Portuguese reds and this month special Argentinean Malbec from Calafate. I tried Portuguese red and quite liked it.
The soft product was a huge redeeming quality for Lufthansa. The crew of 3 flight attendants, was friendly, enthusiastic and anticipated needs well. They never hovered around, but checked often enough so you wouldn’t need to call them. When one of FAs saw I was takings photos, she offered to take a photo of me.
An interesting touch specific to Lufthansa is that they give each passenger a red rose. The seat has a small nook for a vase. The restaurant in MUC lounge has red roses everywhere too.
The flight was long enough (8 hours) to get a decent amount of sleep. FA woke me up an hour before landing and offered a light breakfast. There is Nespresso machine, but their Earl Grey tea was very nice as well.
Munich welcomed with an overcast and a light rain. I de-planed and went straight to First class lounge. The lounge has a booth with its own immigration officer, so no worries about lines!
The lounge is huge, airy, and mostly empty. There are excellent shower facilities, I took a shower right away.
There is also a restaurant in the lounge: you can either sit down and order from a menu or choose from a selection of hot foods and cold cuts. I also like that each coffee table in the lounge has either a huge [sometimes multilevel] fruit basket or Belgian truffles.
BigRedBears: Wow, it sounds like we’re having a very similar trip! The only difference in my case is that the service on my flight was unremarkable. What are you flying next?
Should be a cool trip. Stay out of trouble in Bangkok.
Wow, congratulations! I’m surprised this is your first International F flight! Although I haven’t experienced the new LH F, I thought the regular/old product was great. I thought the food was excellent although I have to agree with you as far as the IFE is concerned.
In any event, which lounge or lounges are you visiting? I hope you’re able to visit the FCT — it’s a real treat. You can take home a duck and have a nice ride out to your next flight.
Hua: I’m in a first class lounge, but not in the first class terminal. I still got the rubber ducky though! Can’t do the FCT without an ongoing Lufthansa flight.
You should post a picture of you in those pajamas.