Trip Report: Asiana A350-900 Sydney to JFK via Seoul in Business Class (SYD-ICN-JFK)

A quiet, efficient, reasonably-priced option for getting back to New York from Sydney. It's a bit longer in the air, but a guaranteed lie-flat seat sure beats doing 14 hours in a United Premium Plus recliner to SFO followed by 6 crowded hours in Economy to NYC.

pros

good lounges
Seoul airport has Toto Washlets in the lounges AND in the terminal
very attentive service
split boarding and deplaning (aka, separate jetways for Business and Economy)
the A350 has decent wifi for $21 (full flight)
transiting thru Seoul you can bring sealed duty free items (liquor) through
transiting thru Seoul you don’t need a K-ETA visa like you do to enter Korea
bathrooms have toothbrushes and lotions and mouthwash so you don’t have to open the amenity kit to get just one thing out of it
seat is quite long when in flat mode
espresso!

cons

no personal air vents
ran out of korean style menu
fairly limited liquor selection. and like who’s ordering Drambuie?

neutral

food was good, not great.
IFE was also ok, not great

tips

you can partially open the table and it acts almost like a door to your suite
last row of Business Class is loud - the clatter of food prep in the galley behind really shakes your seat
on odd-numbered rows the center two seats are very couples-friendly
my "full flight" wifi from my first leg just kept on going when i boarded the next flight

intro/thoughts

Given that my husband and I were both lowly Star Alliance Silver/Gold at the time we were shopping for these flights, we really didn't like our odds for getting a PlusPoints upgrade without Tim there to bump our ticket up the upgrade queue with his 1k status. Furthermore, we would have bought a paid Premium Plus ticket to ensure we were as high as possible in the upgrade pecking order, and those were going for $3500 each. My old man brain can absolutely justify the pain of $1500 for being smashed into Economy for 14 hours (and I've done it, RECENTLY!) but it cannot justify $3500 for Premium Plus. No amount of lipstick will convince me that "Economy++" seat isn't a pig.

I searched a bunch and found a fully lie-flat itinerary for us to get home for an average price of $3770 per person. (I remembered this trick from a few years back and saved us a bunch of money by buying us each our own ticket.) I triple-checked this awesome PQP calculator to ensure that we'd each earn our final 2000 PQPs needed to make him Gold and me Platinum for 2024. We also earned 15,088 United miles for this flight.

The service on Korean, Japanese, Singaporean, and Taiwanese carriers is consistently amazing. No question I'd rather spend 25 hours in ANA or EVA or Asiana's Business Class than 20 hours in Polaris.

Sydney to Seoul

The flight leaves in the evening, so you're immediately served dinner and then sent to bed. There's a Korean menu (they ran out) and a western menu with three mains to choose from. There's also an appetizer, a soup, a cheese course (or fruit), and mango cake. Then bedtime. Snacks are available throughout the flight.