When is it a good time to use up your Qantas frequent flyer points? When the economy cabin is full and the flight is 14 hours long. Come along and see what the Qantas business class service is like on a 14 hour flight from Sydney to Johannesburg. How many meals are offered and what is the food like?
At 5:45am on Friday morning my alarm goes off. My phone flashes as soon as I take it off airplane mode. The first thing I receive is a text telling me that they were unable to confirm my upgrade reward request to business on QF63. It’s a 14 hour flight from Sydney to Johannesburg so I was more than happy to part with my Qantas points to try and get into the business class cabin but I figure nothing lost, nothing gained. On the drive in to Sydney airport I check my seat: 55J positioned between two people in a very full economy cabin.
At the terminal, I buy a couple of bottles of water and join the queue at the gate. While waiting I check the Qantas app on my phone. I do a double take. My seat has changed from 55J to 1K. I blink once, twice and wonder if I am imagining things. But seat 1K is mine. I join the business class queue and board the plane. The crew on the Dreamliner 787-6 is friendly and busy chatting with a couple that are frequent flyers. They then introduce themselves to me: Kirk and Steve. Kirk can see how excited I am to be in this cabin that he stretches his arms out for a welcome hug.
On the seat are the bedding including a pillow, quilt and a mattress cover made from 29 plastic bottles. On the side is a mirror compartment that is propped open with a control panel for the television. There’s also an amenity kit with Li'Tya hand cream, face cream, lip balm as well as socks, toothbrush and toothpaste and an eye mask.
There’s also a bottle of water, noise cancelling headphones, universal power plus, USB plug and a seat control panel. A menu sits on the side too and I flick through this as we take off and sip on a glass of champagne.
My ritual is to order a Virgin Mary no ice along with the salted almonds although I am tempted by the Curatif Tommy’s Margarita on offer too. I start on a series called SisterS and then they take my order for lunch.
The first dish to arrive is a green leaf salad with Neil Perry’s palm sugar vinaigrette with a selection of bread: today’s choices are focaccia and white sourdough slices. The focaccia is a bit hard but the sourdough is soft and tasty with the Pepe Saya salted butter.
There is a three course meal on offer with a plant based option for the entree and main. I’ve had the pumpkin and ginger soup before so I order the confit duck and mushroom vol au vent with pickled fennel, roast lemon and radicchio salad. It comes out hot with a buttery, flaky pastry and a pulled chicken and mushroom filling and is very filling.
Usually the flight crew are the best people to ask about what’s good to eat on board because they’ve usually tried everything. After scanning the menu for a moment Kirk says that all of the mains are excellent so I go for the seared snapper with scallops that comes on a bed of creamy mashed potato and wedges of roasted kipfler potatoes. The shellfish sauce that ties this all together is distinctly Asian, reminding me of Cantonese sauces and this is actually delicious with the fish still moist and I eat most of this although it is quite a big serve.
Speaking of big serves, the verrine style dessert on Qantas’s business class is usually very substantial. The panna cotta is topped with apple jelly caramel and toasted hazelnuts. It’s quite a firm panna cotta and I can never manage to polish these off. The seasonal fruit salad is a medley of sweet fruit and a Lindor ball. I always love having fresh fruit on a plane as it gets so dry. I spent the first 4 hours of the flight watching the debut season of SisterS (which I definitely recommend). There are quite a few box sets available in the entertainment centre and you can look these up on the Qantas app before time so you can check out the reviews of everything so you know what is good.
There are now 10 hours remaining of the flight. I press the buttons to darken the windows and Kirk makes up the bed for me with the mattress cover. If I get peckish there are some tasty sounding hot snacks as well as whole fruit, shortbread, guacamole with crackers, chips, dried fruit and nuts and chocolate.
A fall asleep for 5 hours before waking up. I start watching the debut season of Rain Dogs which is fantastic. I really love that I had never heard of SisterS and Rain Dogs before this flight but they were so interesting and bingeable. I glance at my watch and see that it’s 6pm which is perhaps why I am hungry but I still have 5 hours left of the flight so I order the two hot snacks (I'm greedy and curious that way).
There’s always a toastie on board Qantas business class flights and today’s is a panini with chicken breast, semi dried tomatoes and mayonnaise on toasted bread. It’s nice and it is served hot and toasted although I would have loved a bit more filling to this as it’s a lot of bread.
My pick out of the two hot snacks are the stir fried tiger prawns with sambal, snake beans and fried shallots on steamed rice. I really enjoy the resoundingly spicy sambal sauce that really pulls no punches. I am enraptured by Rain Dogs and three hours before landing I hear the clink of the bottles and the rumbling of the trolley as they serve us a light dinner.
My main choice was a no brainer for me: any time I see curry on a plane I order it and this is a fantastic chicken curry with coconut, baby potatoes, broccoli and steamed basmati rice. The spice of the chicken curry hits just right and I enjoy this on the white sourdough and with the green salad.
For dessert there’s a panna cotta on offer but I just have room for a fruit salad before I get changed out of my Qantas pyjamas and we arrive in Johannesburg.
So tell me Dear Reader, are you really good at working your frequent flyer points and spending them wisely? Do you have any tips?
This flight was independently paid for.
Qantas
https://www.qantas.com/au/en.html
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