Lufthansa's New Business Class

Flight #89 - Lufthansa 411
New York (JFK) – Munich (MUC)
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Depart: 5:25PM / Arrive: 7:35AM (+1 day)
Duration: 8hr 10min
Aircraft: Airbus 330
Seat: 3G, 3H, 3K (Business)
Earned: 0 miles (4,053 miles flown)
Cost:  100,000 miles + $163 / person
Redemption Value: 4.2 cents / mile
Lifetime Miles: 179,381 miles

It's finally time for our flight to Rome. As I mentioned earlier, we're flying on Lufthansa (so connecting in Munich) to our final destination. We could have flown on various routes to Rome, but we picked this JFK-MUC route specifically, because it would be served by Lufthansa's new business class product. How'd we know? We checked out the handy Lufthansa new business class seating website.

Remember, back in May 2013, we flew to/from Germany in Lufthansa business class as well. In fact, we were on this exact same route (LH 411 JFK-MUC). However, at that time, we flew on an Airbus 330 plane with Lufthansa's old business class product. You can see the blue seat color in the photos here.

Now, I'm definitely not complaining, because I completely realize that most people never have the chance to even travel, let alone fly in business or first class. But I'm still excited about getting to try the new and improved business class seats on the Lufthansa A330 plane.

"So what's the big difference," you ask?

Well, first, the new seats go down all the way so that when you're sleeping at night, it's easier to pretend like you're in a bed and not on a stretcher.

vs. 

Additionally, the in-flight entertainment system's screen is large and embedded in the seat in front of you - as opposed to our experience last year where the screens came out of the armrest.

 vs.

The tricky part is that the seats are arranged in groups of 2. So my mother and I will be fine sitting together along the window seats H and K in Row 3, but my father will be by himself across the aisle in Seat 3G with his feet angled towards next to his new seatmate.

 

When we arrived at the gate at the scheduled boarding time, we realized we were practically the last ones to board. Odd, but we just took our seats and got settled in. I like looking out the window at the water, so my mother took the aisle seat closer to my father.

 

As you can see, the seat adjusts in so many different permutations and combinations, it made my 2 year old head spin. But luckily, I had my mother to help me find my sweet spot.

About an hour and a half into the flight, they served us our dinners. I was pretty hungry so I went to town on my children's meal. My father on the other hand chose a pretty tasty (albeit dry) filet wrapped in prosciutto. Nothing to compare to the NYC steakhouses, but a great option for an in-flight meal.

My favorite part of dinner, however, was dessert. They had choices of cheese plates or fruit, but I went for the small cup of ice cream.

Pretty soon afterwards, they dimmed the lights, and I passed out for a few hours while my Asian father took out the camera and my mother photobombed me.

Before we knew it, they turned on the cabin lights and started to serve us breakfast. But instead of a tasty American style breakfast (bacon & eggs), they did it European style - cold cuts, fruit and cheese. Not my favorite but we couldn't complain given we just flew a redeye flight over to Germany in comfort and style.

I admit, I did wake up a few times during the 8 hour flight and definitely made some toddler crying noises. I was probably dreaming about having to fly in economy on our next big flight.

Since (a) I now have to pay for my own seat and (b) United raised prices for business and first class award tickets on partner flights, this trip will likely be our last time in a premium cabin. It's a shame the game ended early for us, but we're happy we were able to play for a few years.

So now, I'll just have to dream about flying in Lufthansa's amazing first class cabin. It won't be that hard, because as you can see from the seat map above, the first class cabin on our flight were just few feet in front of our Row 3 seats. And 7 of 8 of them were empty!