The Frequent Miler team isn’t just sitting around earning miles and signing up for new credit cards. Ok, we are. But we don’t just do that. We also travel a lot.
Between all of us, we’ve quite literally taken hundreds of flights. But which ones stood out? Below, you’ll find the 2025 aerial highlights for each of us…and some may even surprise you.
Frequent Miler’s Favorite Flights of 2025
Greg *THE* Frequent Miler
Emirates First Class: Milan to New York
My wife and I flew Emirates First Class from Milan (MXP) to New York (JFK) on their A380 aircraft. It wasn’t equipped with Emirates’ “new” suites, but this was still a terrific way to fly! I enjoyed the on-board shower, top-shelf drinks, excellent food, a very comfortable seat/bed, and outstanding service.
The first-class suite is adorned with all kinds of bling. It includes an automatic door, a stocked drink selection that opens and rises at the push of a button; a pop-up vanity mirror with a tray of moisturizers and things; a lamp; a large entertainment screen; a tablet that can be used directly or to control the big screen; and a separate hand-remote for controlling the entertainment screen. Additionally, we were given comfy pajamas and slippers, and a thick mattress pad, blanket, and pillow for sleeping.
One of the coolest features of first class on Emirates’ A380 aircraft is that you can shower in the sky. Even if you don’t want to shower, the ability to change into pajamas and back into your clothes in a vast, beautiful, and clean room was a treat.
Finally, I let one of the flight attendants know that we were celebrating our 30th anniversary. They then surprised us with a tray of sweets, roses, and a card signed by most of the crew members!
Read Greg’s full review of his Emirates first class flight here.
British Airways First Class: Boston to London
This was a terrific way to fly to London! We flew the morning flight that was scheduled to depart Boston at 7:20 AM and arrive in London at 6:45 PM. There was a power issue at Boston Logan Airport that delayed our departure by almost two hours, but we were able to sit comfortably in our first-class seats during this time. There’s no question that the seat layout was dated and offered less privacy than the business-class suites on the same plane, but none of that mattered to us for this daytime flight. What did matter was that the seats were comfortable with tons of legroom, and the service was outstanding. We felt pampered throughout the flight. In the future, I would probably book business class for a short overnight flight, but for a daytime flight, I’ll definitely look to book first class when it’s available. And, I firmly believe that seeking out these rare daytime flights to London is the best way to avoid jet lag. We got up extra early (East Coast time) to make our flight, and then we arrived tired in London. We were able to go to bed at a normal time in the UK, even though it was only 6 or 7 PM back home.
Read Greg’s full review of his British Airways first class flight here.
American Airlines 787 Flagship Suite: Chicago to London
Service on this flight was mediocre, but the hard product—the suite—was excellent. It wasn’t ultra-luxurious like Qatar Qsuites or Starlux, but it is a step or two ahead of what Delta and United currently offer.
My favorite feature of AA’s Flagship Suite was that the seat is designed to be used in a chaise longue position (as shown in the picture above). With a pillow behind my back, this was comfortable and made the suite feel more spacious. I also loved various well-thought-out little touches like the slippers holder, multiple snack/drink trays, and a useful trinket tray. My only complaint is that the suite didn’t offer any storage space for a backpack or shoes. This isn’t a problem, though, if you’re lucky enough to snag a bulkhead seat (a preferred suite), which offers tons of storage.
Read Greg’s full review of AA’s Flagship Suite here. Also read his follow-up when he flew in AA’s Flagship Preferred Suite.
Nick
I have to be honest: 2025 wasn’t a terribly competitive year for my “best flights” list. Whereas in 2024, I had Japan Airlines first class and Etihad first class apartments at the top of my list, I flew no international first class at all in 2025.
Furthermore, while I traveled quite a bit in 2025, a lot of it wasn’t exciting from a flight standpoint: I had a couple of trips to Florida, a couple to visit family in the midwest, and we spent the month of August flying around on Jetblue in pursuit of the 25 for 25 promotion. All of the travel was enjoyable, but none of those flights will make my “best of” list.
For our 2025 team challenge, I flew Iberia economy class to and from Europe and noted that it was pretty awful.
In terms of international business class, this year I flew Air France, Air Tahiti Nui, SAS Airlines, and Condor in business class. In my opinion, Air France is solid, but not notable. Air Tahiti Nui is probably a step behind, but still fine. Instead, the real competition here was between SAS and Condor, both of which I flew on my most recent trip to Europe. Condor is going to get the edge here for reasons I note below, but I should note that I don’t feel as strongly this year as I do in most years about which flight(s) was best.
Condor A330neo Business Class: Frankfurt to New York
If I were judging Condor by its ground game in Frankfurt, it wouldn’t be anywhere near this “favorites” list. When I say that the check-in experience in Frankfurt was the worst I’ve ever seen in business class, keep in mind that I’ve taken a lot of business class flights over the last decade. It was a completely disorganized mess in Frankfurt.
However, judging by the flight itself, Condor business class narrowly edged out SAS business class to be my favorite of 2025. That was a close race where each side pulled ahead in different categories.
Condor completely refreshed their business class in recent years and now features fully-flat seats in business class on long-haul routes. The styling is sleek and the seats are reasonably comfortable. For me, there were a few things that made this flight stand out:
- I prefer Condor’s seating layout for families traveling with young kids. Here’s why: every other middle section has the seats directly next to each other, with the large side table facing the aisle. This type of layout makes it so much easier when a kid needs help buttering their bread or plugging their headphones into their tablet or adjusting their seatbelt, etc. I’d also be happy with this if it were just my wife and I traveling together.
- Condor has very wide footwells. While I’m not someone who gets bothered by the narrow footwells of some business class seats, I do still appreciate how much space there was horizontally as well as vertically. There was enough space in the footwell for a large rolled up bedding pad and a set of slippers.
- Extra padding: I found all of the business class seats I flew this year to be lacking sufficient padding to be really comfortable. When I recently reviewed SAS, I noted that I wished they had some sort of mattress topper-like bedding when it was time to go to sleep. Condor did provide that and it made all the difference.
- Catering was better than I expected. Food was surprisingly tasty. It did feel a bit stingy at times (more on that coming in my full review), but it beat my expectations.
Some pictures to illustrate the above:
Condor wasn’t perfect, but I’d fly them again, particularly for the price when booking via Alaska, as a one-way business class award between Frankfurt and New York will set you back 55,000 Alaska Atmos points plus taxes (keep in mind that you can add a free stopover on a one-way award, though the total price does vary by distance).
Tim
I’m a big guy – 6’3″. Because of that, both the roominess and comfort of a seat stand out to me far more than whether or not the suite has a door or if the screen is 22″ and high-definition (although I don’t mind either of those things for sure). Because of that, I chose one flight with superbly comfortable seats for their class and another that combined convenience and was a heckuva deal.
EVA Air 787 Business Class: Seattle – Taipei
Over the last couple of years, I’ve yapped on and on ad nauseam about how much I like Citi ThankYou Rewards, in no small part because it’s the only major bank currency that transfers 1:1 to EVA Air…and I love EVA Air. The airline has a good business-class product, excellent availability for its own MileageLands customers, tasty food, and competitive pricing on nonstop flights to Taiwan. Earlier this year, I travelled from Seattle to Taipei and was just as impressed as ever.
EVA Air’s 787-10 business class is a great way to fly to Asia. Catering is tasty, the beverage selection superb, the seat is spacious and comfortable – even for a 6’3″ behemoth like me. Service is on point and warm. Outside of the mediocre in-seat storage and relative paucity of entertainment choices, it’s tough to find downsides here
Virgin Atlantic Economy: New York – London
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I have a special distaste for overnight transatlantic flights from the East Coast, primarily because they’re too short to eat, sleep, and wake up rested. I’ve spent many bleary days after arriving in London, Dublin, Reykjavik, or Paris early in the morning with my body plagued by the twin terrors of jet lag and 1 or 2 hours of fitful sleep.
There are a handful of daytime flights to Europe from the East Coast, and I’ve always wanted to try one. Jet lag would still be an issue when you’re transiting five time zones, of course, but arriving in the evening and sleeping in a ground-level bed would be a novel pleasure. This year’s 100K Vacay challenge provided the perfect opportunity to finally sample one.
By far, the most affordable option on points (at its cheapest) is Virgin Atlantic’s flight from JFK to London-Heathrow that leaves ~8 am in New York and arrives in London ~8 pm on the same day. I was able to book an economy seat for 6,000 miles and $76 in fees (now the fees would be ~$100).
I wasn’t relishing the idea of spending six hours in an economy seat, daytime or no, but choosing an exit row seat for the flight was ~$95…almost 10% of my total cash budget for the challenge. I kept an eye on availability, hoping to snag a free seat change at the gate before the flight. After all, my buddy Nick Reyes says that you miss 100% of balls you don’t swing at.
On the morning of departure, it looked like there were still a couple of exit rows available, so I went to the gate and asked if I could be moved to one. No dice. They had just assigned them to other passengers. However, economy class was overbooked, so they were moving some folks around. The agent took pity on me and my bionic hip and moved me across the aisle from a staid, boring economy seat into an “Economy Delight” seat. At first, I thought she was having a joke at my expense, but they’re actually a thing, if a horribly named one.
It’s effectively just a regular, ole economy seat with extra legroom and priority boarding, sort of the Virgin equivalent of Delta’s Comfort+. Even better, I had “Reyes Economy Delight” because the seat next to me was vacant…so I was able to stretch out my legs AND cross them if I wanted to. What a…delight. I arrived in London a mere five hours and forty-two minutes later, just before 8 o’clock local time. It was so strange to arrive in the evening with a good night’s sleep still in my future. I loved it.
Carrie
Really, the only notable flights I took this year were for the 100K Vacay benchmark trip Greg put together to Malta (which he invited me to join!) While I definitely enjoyed our flight on Air Serbia business class from JFK to Belgrade with lie-flat seats for a comfortable sleep over the ocean, it was the Virgin Atlantic premium economy flight from London to JFK that impressed me the most, perhaps because my expectations were far exceeded. I was focusing more on the “economy” part than the “premium” part, but the reality was the opposite.
Greg explained a creative element of the booking here, which saved on fees, but I’ll describe what delighted me about the experience itself: The meal service and general service felt way more like a business class experience than an economy one. The flight attendants were indeed quite attentive and charming, and the menu was thoughtful in a non-economy way. And the seats were plenty spacious for sleeping, as you can see below.
Stephen
Most of my flights this year have been transatlantic as I’ve flown back and forth across the pond multiple times. The vast majority of those have been in economy; due to the distance and pricing, flying economy nearly always made the most sense versus the increased cost of business class, both in terms of award pricing and taxes/fees. I know many of you would probably disagree with my assessment that it made more sense to fly economy, but I tend to sleep pretty well sitting upright on planes. In fact, just a few days ago, I flew from the UK to the US on British Airways in economy and got several hours of good sleep even though it was a daytime flight.
We haven’t exclusively flown economy, though. One time, we took American Airlines business class from Norfolk, VA, to London just to treat ourselves. However, my favorite flight of 2025 was more due to the redemption itself.
As a result of the Million Mile Madness challenge last year, I was the proud new owner of one million SAS EuroBonus miles. Just a few weeks after completing the challenge, a friend in the UK messaged me to let me know that Thomas Dambo would be running a studio tour in Copenhagen on March 15. He’s the Danish sculptor who creates the giant troll statues using reclaimed wood that you might remember from past challenges, or you might’ve even seen them around the US or worldwide yourself.
I immediately booked two tickets for that tour and was very pleased when I managed to find nonstop business class award availability from Newark to Copenhagen just a couple of weeks before our trip. At the time, one-way standard business class awards cost just 50,000 miles + $5.60 per person, so getting to fly in comfort on that trip for just 100,000 miles for the two of us was excellent value.
I’d meant to write a review of the experience, but I completely forgot to do that. I was therefore grateful when Nick published his own review the other day, and it matched my recollection. The flight experience didn’t blow us away, but it was a perfectly comfortable way to fly across the Atlantic, and I certainly wouldn’t object to flying with them in business class again at the right price. As Nick observed in his review, business class availability can be hard to come by, and when I’ve checked on flights since then, I’ve found there’s often good availability a few days out, but little apart from that.
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