A First Class birthday

Partly by design, and partly by coincidence, I was booked to fly First Class on Qatar Airways on their Airbus A380 on the day of my birthday. If the difference between BA and Qatar’s first class lounges are anything to go by, this flight would be amazing and I was very very excited for it!

But before that, there was a 16 hour wait in Qatar’s Al Safwa lounge (where I’d already spent 12 hours previously). The lounge was as quiet as the first time and the novelty of the completely over the top grandness was still not lost. The lounge staff have the most boring job in the world. There were never more than 10 people in the lounge, which is as big as a medium sized terminal, and a staff to guest ratio greater than 1!

Possibly due to the lack of sleep, or maybe due to the lack of anything else to do, I just didn’t feel full despite eating lots. So I started my layover with breakfast, then 4 rounds of fresh sushi for lunch.

Two cheese plates were seen to over the course of the layover too.

Entrance to the spa (which I did not use!)

I could have reduced my layover by choosing an earlier flight on a Boeing 777 but that doesn’t have a first class cabin and choosing convenience over first class is not in the spirit of travel hacking! Indeed, I could have just flown from Doha to Tokyo but since only Bangkok flights have first class I opted for a quick layover there.

I had carefully planned my sleeping times in India to make sure I would arrive ready for the local time zone but that instantly went out of the window when I couldn’t sleep on my last night in India. To further ruin my sleeping plan, a 5 hour delay to my flight was announced, which would result in me missing my connection to Hong Kong.

This was more of a blessing than a curse because I had a bedroom in the lounge and few more hours of sleep was greatly appreciated. The reduced time in Hong Kong was also not so upsetting because I was never that fussed about visiting and my 1.5 days there was just forced upon me due my preferred flight not having any seats available. Also, I hadn’t booked accommodation in advance and there must have been some major event on because even dirty looking dorms were selling for £60+ this weekend.

So it was time to leverage the disruption to my advantage. In a haze of sleep deprivation (not the best state of mind for multiple time zone and flight option calculations!), I came up with a plan for rebooking that took me straight to Japan from Bangkok. This not only avoided expensive and horrible accommodation in HK, but also got me into Japan a day earlier, where I really wanted more time. The downside was missing out on my first class flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo and a 10 hour wait in Bangkok. I hope this shows that even I have limits to how much faff I’m willing to endure to fly in a first class!

I knew what I requesting was stretching the limits of what the airline would be willing to accommodate but it was worth a try. The first agent told me they could only change flight times, not the routing, which is fair enough. But before I accepted that, I deployed the best tool in travel hacking, i.e. hang up and call again! It seems like airline rules are hazy when it comes to anything non-routine and the interpretation of what’s permitted varies between agents, so you may as well try and find one whose interpretation is sympathetic towards what you want. As hoped, the second agent to answer the phone was perfectly happy to reroute me direct to Tokyo!

That settled, I had a few more hours of sleep and then waited in the lounge waiting for someone to come get me for boarding.

I was about to get my stuff when I saw a guy coming towards me but he indicated that I should stay seated. Next thing I know, a group of the lounge staff appeared with a cake and singing happy birthday! It was so embarrassing because the lounge is quiet enough that even whispering seems too loud. It was a nice touch but I have no idea how they managed to get the cake ready because I wasn’t even meant to be in the lounge at midnight. I suppose it’s not like the chefs had anything better to do.

Not long afterwards, the flight was called for boarding. There are 8 seats in first class and an entire air bridge is dedicated to it, which is quite ridiculous. I was quickly brought a glass of Krug, olives and a massive amenities kit as soon as I sat down.