Cathay Pacific

You might think that it takes a lot of prep to go on a trip like this. You’d be right. This adventure started several months ago when Tripmaster EB, who was workin’ the miles like you can’t imagine, got wind of the fact that US Airways was going to change their frequent flier program around after they merged with American Airlines, and it most likely would not work to our benefit, especially since they were leaving the “Star Alliance” and their companion airlines would be changing.

Now zip ahead to the fact that EB finds tickets on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong.  First Class seats on Cathay Pacific.  Are you kidding me?  For miles. And we have enough (especially since they were having a sale). All of the sudden, we’re going to Hong Kong. We’d figure the rest of it out later.  If we had purchased a First Class round trip ticket on Cathay we'd have paid in the neighborhood of $20,000 per ticket.  Huh?  Are you kidding me?  We're going to HK in first class?  Awesome!!!!

We’ve done nice airlines before. First Class on US Air to Italy was nice, but nothing spectacular. Business class on Singapore Airlines – which was all there was on the plane – was very nice, with your own little cubical and television, and your seat (which was the size of a Barcalounger) folded down to a flat bed, was exceptional. You picked from the menu a week ahead of time, which would have been great if I could have remembered what I ordered. Whether it was or not, I remember that I wasn’t hungry.

By all accounts, though, Cathay Pacific puts all that to shame. That’s good, because we go Charlotte to NY JFK and then after a few hours layover we go from JFK to Hong Kong – 16 hours in the air.

16 hours that goes north out of NYC, then up OVER the Arctic Circle and down toward Hong Kong. The most frequent comment about the flight?

It’s just not long enough.

It’s supposed to be that nice. So we are like kids on Christmas eve, except when we get up really early tomorrow Santa won’t have come and we’ll need to haul ourselves and our little carry-on bags to the Hickory Airport to catch the Hop to take us to Charlotte, where we get to take advantage of our “Global Entry” cards that we worked so hard to get, skip the long lines at security thanks to TSA Precheck, leave our shoes and belts on, liquids and electronics in our bags and whisk right through with our carry on bag and backpack...oh...and the CPAP machine too.

Stay tuned.  We'll let you know if CP lives up to it's published reputation.