Introduction
This was one of my last ‘aspirational’ awards for the longest time. I had flown on Asiana, ANA, Cathay, and Singapore First already. This was the last “best” F products out there. I had booked 2 seats from NRT-LAX almost 6 months before my trip using Alaska miles (70K per person.) My flight over to Japan was using United on Asiana business class. About two weeks before my trip, I saw JAL F SFO-HND open up. I then cancelled my United booking, paid the cancellation fee of about $125 a person, and booked this SEA-SFO-HND for 2 people using 70K Alaska miles.
SFO-HND Experience
I remember the lounge at SFO was okay. First class members got a separate sliding door enclosed room within the lounge just to keep out the riff raff business class folks. They had some sushi, miso soup, ramen, wine, and beer etc. If I wasn’t going to be flying F, I would have gotten full in the lounge.
Before the flight, I had read they stopped serving Salon as well as Hibiki 21 in First Class and sure enough, that was my experience. Instead they served Cristal for the champagne and Hibiki Blender’s Choice (not even the 17 anymore.) I want to say they stocked probably 2 bottles of Cristal. The F cabin was full with 8 people, and I was sort of counting how many pours they were doing with the champagne. They definitely only had 2 bottles of Cristal (maybe 3 at most) because after the amuse bouche, I asked for more and they said they ran out. I’m not a DYKWIA type of guy and I hate entitled people, but c’mon, how are you only going to stock 2 bottles? I then asked for the Hibiki 17 that was on the menu, and was told they didn’t have that either (only the Blender’s Choice.) FACEPALM! I do want to note that the much hyped ‘royal blue tea’ definitely lived up to the hype. The food was okay; nothing to write home about.
I thought the pajamas were nice except the pockets are horrible, and you’d drop your phone every time you sat down. The Etro amenity kit I haven’t even opened just because I don’t know what to do with them. I had cabin heat issues on my ANA and Asiana F flights. I didn’t have any kind of heat issues on this flight. I slept pretty well on the flight. I thought the bidet in the restroom was unique although it was a pretty small bathroom. Make sure you wake up and eat the udon as a snack; that was great. I thought the IFE was a bit awkward – why have 2 remotes?!? and one of the remotes was slow to respond. The selection was okay; I watched the “Green Book” and then slept.
NRT-LAX Experience
The check-in experience at NRT was great. You had your own First class area checkin. Then you got to go through the ‘fast pass’ security. Immigration was the same however. In the F lounge, while not as great as the Middle Eastern F lounges, they had a sushi bar and they stocked Yamazaki 12 and Hibiki Blender’s Choice. If I had known my flight wouldn’t have either of these whiskeys, I woulda gotten lit on the ground. Too bad they didn’t have a noodle bar. Maybe I’ve been in the game for too long, but lounges don’t really excite me as much as they used to.
On the way back, NRT-LAX, they DID have Salon (only ex-Japan and probably only for a limited time) and Cristal, and with a full cabin, once again, they must have only stocked 2 bottles each of Salon and Cristal. They ran out of Salon around the amuse bouche and the Cristal was out before the main course even. This time, they didn’t even have ANY Hibiki on the menu. Once again, no cabin temp issues. I finished dinner and passed out. A few hours later I was woken up by the lights. I must have only slept for 2-3 hours, and both the wife and I commented that it was a very ‘fast’ 10 hour flight.
Oh, the best thing about both flights – in First Class, they gave you a code for FREE WIFI on the entire flight. It had a few dead spots and wasn’t super fast, but if you wanted to do some social media stuff, I felt it was fine.
Pictures
