views from our balcony

Another business class flight (domestic) – which was again amazing.

How did we score this, you ask? Optiontown!**

You register (and pay) for an ugrade on certain airlines and if seats are available, they’re all yours. If not, you get a refund. Our Cambodia to Hanoi uograde was AU$90 (combined) and the Hanoi to Danang AU$50 (combined)!

You don’t get all the business class perks – no access to the lounge for example – but you do get incredible service, real cutlery and china, huge seats and vast leg room. On both of these flights we got comfy business class buses to the terminal while the economy peeps were squished-up in the manner of a peak-hour Sydney bus.

I could very easily become accustomed to this mode of travel! Though probably not enough to fork out the vast amounts required to pay for a business class seat outright.

Unfortunately Qantas doesn’t participate in Optiontown, so no upgrade for us on the long legs of the trip. We paid for the majority of the Qantas flights with points though – we push about 95% of our regular spending (groceries, utilities bills etc) through the credit card and the points accumulate fairly quickly – so basically those were pretty much free.

xxx

** Clever Joan-intrepid-traveller (and our go-to for all things travel related) first used this on an international flight a couple of years ago. I’m happy sharing because there are like 10 of you reading and I’m pretty sure that the likelihood we’ll be competing for the same flights is less than 0.0000023%