Has flying J ruined you?

[stopthecap]

Bear with me on this one.
I was a serious churner netting 600k points PA until I retired. Now i am PC+ from wine so points are easy to come by. The issue i am now facing i am getting incredibly fussy about flights.

I wont travel Economy, i need to have J at the right times, right airports otherwise i wont fly while the rest of my family happily get on a plane and just travel. Too much of a good thing has ruined me.

Just touching on this, I do appreciate the last year has changed in finding rewards flights and there are alot more in short notice and with other airlines such as Cathay, China etc however i am very dissapointed Qantas us JQ as a dumping ground for us to get our flights with. Specifically SYD-BKK Route.

anyone else suffering from the same condition as me? Finding a BKK-SYD is near impossible so im opting for Cathay pacific via HK for 90k points and 364$ which makes it severely unaffordable compared to the direct route at 68,400. Lets not even discuss SYD-BKK.

 

[opusman]

Flying J shows you that air travel doesn't have to be a completely horrendous experience. It's a wake up call if anything!

 

[levelnine]

If SYD-BKK-SYD is a regular route for you and you have flexible dates and you are happy to book at short notice, consider buying some Aeroplan points. Often good close-in availability on TG:

 

[oz_boater]

Generally speaking, if the flight is during the day then I am happy to fly economy, even long distance.

So SYD->BKK, SYD-HND, HND->SYD no problem in economy.
But overnight I would like a lay down bed.

I won't pay for one, but will do a lot of research and fitting around either the find a classic reward or a high chance of an upgrade to business.

When I turn the premium for an actual business ticket into $ per hour it just makes me gag.

Am considering a big (16 sector, 50K miles) DONE4 out of Japan though.

 

[Blinky]

I’m now retired. With most of my flights over the past 30 years paid for by my employers, economy was all I expected. Of course economy with status and lounge access was a decent experience and I didn’t feel at all deprived.

Since retirement nearly all travel has been J. I am flying to Bali with my wife in Economy X on VA soon and doing a cheap status run MEL-SYD return in economy. But still with status and the lounge. I don’t think I will suffer too much.

 

[Sprucegoose]

I’m now retired. With most of my flights over the past 30 years paid for by my employers, economy was all I expected. Of course economy with status and lounge access was a decent experience and I didn’t feel at all deprived.

Since retirement nearly all travel has been J. I am flying to Bali with my wife in Economy X on VA soon and doing a cheap status run MEL-SYD return in economy. But still with status and the lounge. I don’t think I will suffer too much.

I appreciate your stoicism.

 

[Blinky]

I appreciate your stoicism.

Taking one for the team…..

 

[Sprucegoose]

Taking one for the team…..

Look, I wouldn't expect anything less.............

 

[drron]

Those seats aero J awards are for TG. They come and go but useless if your points are with OW.

 

[elanshin]

anyone else suffering from the same condition as me? Finding a BKK-SYD is near impossible so im opting for Cathay pacific via HK for 90k points and 364$ which makes it severely unaffordable compared to the direct route at 68,400. Lets not even discuss SYD-BKK.

Whilst the route via HKG does indeed cost 20k more points, I would argue that it actually is worth about that much more. CX J is quite a lot better than QF J right now (unless you get the odd flight where they're training staff). This would be even more so if you end up on an aria suite 77w in the future.

One other thing you could possibly do is buy an EK J/F ticket with cash from BKK -HKG then rewards. From memory that leg in EK isn't that expensive.

 

[RooFlyer]

It was flying First that ruined me. Now suffer when flying J , paid or points.

 

[DejaBrew]

Ruined me? No, definitely not. Without a doubt, I prefer to fly in J or above when possible, but I certainly won't do so at any and all costs. whY can be a horrible experience, but status - and of course, a great crew - can make whY a great experience. And to be honest, some of the most memorable flights I've had occurred whilst sitting down the back of the aircraft courtesy of the shenanigans of other passengers or quick-witted flight crew.

 

[RichardMEL]

@RooFlyer beat me to it. I was going to say flying J didn't ruin me - but flying F did.

I don't mean your faux news "First" on an AA CRJ700, I mean EK F or SQ Suites...

OK but seriously, I hope to not be that kind of uber entitled person. Indeed I just came here after booking some intra-USA Y flights as it happens.

I guess we all get used to certain standards of things and find it hard to go back, or lower. From Salary to Coffee (you get say a capsule or espresso machine - you're not touching Blend43 again right?) to flights.

I follow a couple of the youtube flight vloggers and there's one who does 100% luxe, 100% of the time now. The best suites on a flight, train or ship and he's there almost to the point that to me I wonder how well... dull that would endlessly get, but mostly the entitlement that kind of thing can bring. He has a lot of followers and clearly isn't terribly financially constrained. That's great - I'm not jealous or envious, but I do watch and think.. gee, would it kill you to do Leo from Titanic and try out steerage?

But I digress (sorry)

We all grow older and hopefully, for many of us, we're fortunate through economic reasons(higher salary earnings etc) or playing the FF game as the OP has done or whatever - we are so very fortunate to get to enjoy these things and get used to them. Nothing wrong there (So I'm not saying we're all super Entitled.. )

The problems can be when circumstances change - retirement for example - and well.. what we're used to - it can all change. (Hello Nescafe!)

It's gow we deal with that - if/when it happens that would perhaps define to what degree one us "ruined"

Happy travels !

 

[MARTINE]

This is the wonderful thing about travel — its a broad church! And different life stages reflect the preferences and behavior

In my working life I did lots of Y (every other week and paid by employer but QFclub helped and upgrades were plentiful with points). The critical thing for me was early boarding, something to eat and getting away quickly with ability to change flights at short notice. So did not bother me.
Of course that was BC/pre 9-11/shoe bombers/DYKWIA-influencers-antisocial media
Travel has become much more complex (demanding) since the early 90’s and I may not feel that way if I was working today.

So— I am now old (older)
…given these more difficult and ever increasing irritations of flying - combined with my reduced tolerance means I fly J. It outsources aggravation as much as possible whilst keeping the spark of travel I love. I also feel more refreshed with a lie flat bed. Its not status so much as self-care.

That is just my take - I appreciate I am fortunate (and that others may take this as pretentious) but as I said broad church.

 

[stopthecap]

Whilst the route via HKG does indeed cost 20k more points, I would argue that it actually is worth about that much more. CX J is quite a lot better than QF J right now (unless you get the odd flight where they're training staff). This would be even more so if you end up on an aria suite 77w in the future.

One other thing you could possibly do is buy an EK J/F ticket with cash from BKK -HKG then rewards. From memory that leg in EK isn't that expensive.

Im excited to try CX J. My history on J is only on QF, Finnair and RJ my only gripe about HKG is im essentially travelling the wrong direction compared to SG.

Flying EK BKK-HKG is cheap $200 aud and a great idea as I can avail the plethora of lounges in BKK (JAL, CX, Qatar + EK if flying with them) but i just noticed the taxes out of HKG are crazy ( $732 on QF and $1440 on CX) which is just madness. I guess i should be happy now with 90k points and only $350 aud.

Just to put things in perspective the options around BKK-SYD were:
BKK - MEL - SYD in JQ (which i refuse to fly on JQ)
BKK - Manila paid ticket and Manila - Syd in J on QF (which i refuse to fly 3.5 hours to avail a J seat)
BKK - Jakarta is the same issue as Manila
BKK - SIN on Max bundle then hop on BA J (I love the experience of SG Airports + shorter distance to home except the track from T4 to T1) but BA J is seemingly thin around August end

 

[Denali]

Short answer, yes. Anyone that's flown J (let alone F) and then says they're happy to return Y is lying. No one wants to voluntary go back to Y.

Mr Denali won't even fly Syd-Melb in Y anymore.

 

[fletty]

After about mostly domestic flights in Y (and a return Y from BNE>LAX on the A330 which was by far my worst Y experience) we used points from churning to fly BNE>LHR on QR Qsuites, and back from CDG>SIN in EK F (A380).

Both flights were an amazing experience - have since tried to use points for international J when possible - have managed a trip to Tokyo in QF J, and Fiji's J on the A350.

For where we are, I'm happy with Y for under 10hr flight time, if it's overnight I'd obviously prefer J but can't justify it yet. For trips to Europe though, I'd be inclined to stump up the cash for 2 if we can't get CR.

 

[aikman]

J is obviously nicer than Y but I wouldn't fly J at any cost.

I won't pay more and double my flying time just to fly J. Even in J, you are still trapped in a small space for hours upon hours on end with nothing to do. I don't want to pay more to endure that for twice as long.

When I was younger I enjoyed visiting new cities, airports and lounges but now I just want to get to my destination.

I also won't pay more and compromise on dates due to low availability of reward J seats. I am still a full time worker and leave is precious.

I understand that everyone has different circumstances and priorities though.

 

[ellen10]

Over the last 10 years we have been lucky to fly our long haul flights in J. And yes I think it does spoil us for going back to Y.
On our last trip we flew Y to Singapore on QF to position ourselves for our J flights to Europe. Going over was ok a daytime flight and we had exit row seats. But the overnight return in Y, again exit row seats was not as pleasant. I could not sleep sitting up, maybe grabbed an hour, the young boy behind me kept hitting my seat. Husband took a sleeping tablet so got a little more. Food was very ordinary, I am allergic to fish and I found after enquiring that both the beef dish and chicken contained fish sauce for flavour. So no food for me.
We had the chance to upgrade with points and we though, no its a short flight but hindsight is a bugger!

 

[elanshin]

Im excited to try CX J. My history on J is only on QF, Finnair and RJ my only gripe about HKG is im essentially travelling the wrong direction compared to SG.

Flying EK BKK-HKG is cheap $200 aud and a great idea as I can avail the plethora of lounges in BKK (JAL, CX, Qatar + EK if flying with them) but i just noticed the taxes out of HKG are crazy ( $732 on QF and $1440 on CX) which is just madness. I guess i should be happy now with 90k points and only $350 aud.

This is a common mistake, those taxes are in HKD (ive made that too).