Hello. I just flew on QF 29 from Melbourne to Hong Kong today, and this was my first flight in Business with Qantas. I was rather looking forward to it from the moment the upgrade came through. I feel however I must provide some feedback as I found the experience underwhelming and a little disappointing. There were five issues I had. Taken individually, I would consider each one a minor problem, but experiencing them all in the one flight contributed to the overall feeling of disappointment.
The first issue was boarding. According to
International Business Class | Qantas I should have expected a dedicated Premium Boarding lane that I could have used during boarding. There did not appear to be one, so I lined up with everyone else -- which I didn't mind too much, as it was only 5 minutes or so waiting in line, but it is an advertised benefit of International Business Class. (I see on that page that Express Path Immigration is also mentioned. Is that something I should have been entitled too as well? I didn't receive the Express Path card when checking in.)
Second, once I was on board and sitting down, I did not get offered a pre-departure drink. I did see others with their juices and champagnes, and thought someone would eventually come around to me to ask if I wanted one, but apparently not. It being my first Business class flight, I did not want to speak out of turn or seem impatient, so I didn't say anything at the time.
The third issue -- and this is perhaps the most minor of them -- was the fact that the butter that came with our delicious bread for lunch was very cold and basically unspreadable. It really wasn't feasible to spread the butter on the bread, although I did try slicing the butter and putting chunks on it. A bit awkward. The cutlery too was quite cold, as if they had been refrigerated, which just made it a bit unpleasant to hold.
The fourth issue was with the main meal itself. I had ordered the chicken schnitzel sandwich. The sandwich came out quite a bit later than all of the other main dishes that others had ordered. No matter, that was apologised for. But I found when eating it that while most of the schnitzel was hot, there were parts of it that were still cool. Oh well, I had eaten most of it by that stage anyway, so I didn't say anything.
Finally, the most impactful issue, was the fact that the power outlets did not work for me. I was very much looking forward to getting a bunch of work done during the flight, but the power outlets at my seat did not work, even after a reset of the seat. I tried plugging my laptop into another (spare) seat's outlet which did have the green light on, but this just seemed to overload it and it turned off. In the end, I was only able to get a couple of hours work done before my laptop's battery was out. I should point out that the cabin crew were friendly and tried their best to get the power working for me, but to no avail.
So as you can see, these issues all added up to my feeling unimpressed with Business class, and it has left me wondering whether it was a good use of my 40,000 points at all. Thanks for reading, and I hope this feedback is useful.
