I’m currently in the midst of an extended trip to Hong Kong, the UK and France – the one that I summed up my planning for a few months back.
I’m travelling (yes, lucky us, all flights in Business Class thanks to points) with my better half and our 3 year and 3 month old daughters, and will be writing up my thoughts on each leg independently in due course, but here’s a quick sample of what we’ve been up to…
Packing was a 2 week ordeal, including bag purchasing, wardrobe questioning and despite being 90% ready the weekend before we were due to leave, we were still up late packing the night before we left.
Bags for the four of us for a month
We were booked on QF127 to Hong Kong on one of the couple of days a week it’s operated by a 747 in Qantas old configuration, so we had the front row of the upper deck. This came in at 60,000 Qantas points each.
Making use of the play area in the Qantas International Business lounge
Our 3 year old on the upper deck of a Qantas 747 to Hong Kong
In Hong Kong for 4 nights, I booked us into the Hyatt Sha Tin which is around 40 minutes north of Hong Kong Island on the MTR in a 2 bedroom suite – I’ll go into the reasons why and the benefits of staying out of the city when I come to write up the review, but we were really pleased with the decision and the Hotel.
View from the Hyatt Sha Tin
Lounge in the 2 bedroom suite at the Hyatt Sha Tin
After the Hyatt, we were off to London on Cathay Pacific. While I originally grabbed 3 premium economy seats, a couple of days before the flight 3 business class seats opened up on the same flight so I took a risk and rebooked us. This was using both Avios and Qantas points, and I’ll go more into this process (it was stressful!) and travelling with kids in the new Cathay Business Class in the write up.
Me and the kids hanging out in the Cathay Pacific Lounge, The Cabin, at HKIA
The most excellent CX Business Class seat
Little one sampling the evening food on CX253
We’re heading back on Malaysia Airlines on their A380 to KL and on to their relatively new A330 to Sydney. That will be an interesting 23 hours!
Reviews to come on these experiences soon – with an inevitable family focus given all of these bookings have been made with this purpose in mind.
From This Trip
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Qantas business class is best valued by British Airways redemption in domestic travel – ~10,000 for business class one way. United and BA are both Ultimate Rewards transfer partners.
On the passengers – no issues. I don’t take offence if people move when they see us in the cabin as I’d do the same – and it’s nice when we’re leaving, some go so far as a complement on the relative quiet. But it’s never always that way. We just do our best as parents to keep them happy and hope that others recognise that.