Flight Attendants Made Me Cry (In $3,000 Business Class Seats)

The anticipation and excitement were killing me. My husband and I had booked our dream vacation to the island paradise of Tahiti from Los Angeles. And finally, after six months of meticulously planning details for the perfect holiday in Tahiti — did you know there are 115 Tahitian islands to choose from?! — the time had come for us to board our flight.

Getting there in style was part of our grand plans — we had booked tickets on an Air France A350, and as an aviation nerd who has a particular fondness for this aircraft (what you don’t have a favorite plane?), I was more than happy with our 1A and 2A seat designations. We had jumped on Air France’s points-sale bonanza in 2023 and pooled our credit card points from two of the best travel cards on the market, getting these flights for the equivalent of a 2-for-1 deal in business class.

Pleased at our success, and eager to experience the luxury of booking in business class on an airline famous for its premium cabin offerings, my husband and I settled into our seats. While the hard product was fantastic (more on that later), we soon learned that this would be one of the most unpleasant flying experiences we’ve had in quite some time. And as someone who averages almost 100 flights a year in both domestic and international travel, with about a third of those flights in some level of premium cabin, that’s saying something! So what did they do? And what did I learn from it all?

Seat Review: A350 Air France Business Class

Air France’s A350-900 Business Class is among the best in the business

The airline recently rolled out a new business class upgrade in 2023 to its Boeing 777 fleet, and now the new A350s are following suit. With sliding doors for privacy, seats equipped with Bluetooth technology, and touch tablets as a remote control, secondary screen, or master seat control, Air France’s new product rivals some of the top business, and even first class, products on the international market.

• The new A350-900 is configured in a 1-2-1 seating layout in business, with 48 seats overall in the cabin and 292 seats in the entire aircraft inclusive of an economy and premium economy cabin.

Since I was seated in 1A, my seat had a much bigger “suite” space than the rest of business class, save for the other seats in Row 1. It featured a much larger footwell, a significantly more generous pitch, and far more storage than seats in the other rows.

Every seat, though, was well-equipped with smart touches like over-the-top, 20-inch in-fight entertainment screens, wireless chargers, personal reading lights, and “do-not-disturb” functions. And of course, every seat reclined to a lie-flat bed, accompanied by a blanket and pillow to make the flight extra luxuriously comfortable.

From the moment I got into the cabin, I was thoroughly impressed with the business-class seat, and I thought it was a sign of the luxe service to come — I was soon proven wrong.

How We Booked: The Points Were Points-ing

Avid proponents of leveraging the best travel credit card perks on the market, we used a combination of credit card points and AF/KLM Flying Blue Bank point purchases

Amex Gold Credit Card from American Express

My husband and I are American Express travel perks groupies through and through, and we keep tabs on any major airline points sales and transfer bonus offers throughout the year. At the end of 2023, Air France and sister-airline KLM had a fantastic sale.

Purchasing 100,000 points was matched with a 1:1 ratio, meaning we could purchase up to 200,000 points for half the cost of normal points transactions. Air France/KLM appears to mount sales like this throughout the year, so keepa lookout for good purchase and redemption times (if I don’t scare you off, that is).

These airlines are not the only ones who hold point redemption deals or purchase offers; here’s a small sampling of summer 2024 redemptions and promotions below:

Along with purchasing miles for our Flying Blue accounts, we transferred a small chunk of American Express Rewards points towards the flight as well. Overall, with purchasing the bulk of those points and paying taxes on each leg of the ticket, our overall cost came out to about $3,000 for two-round trip business class tickets from LAX to Tahiti.

Considering this route can cost upwards of $3,000 per person to purchase outright on a cash ticket, we were pretty proud of our “BOGO” strategy.

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Unfortunately, Our Flight Involved Cabin Crew Horror Stories

We experienced some major service woes

Air France A350-900 “Carcasonne”

I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again: luxury experiences are made and broken by the service one receives, regardless of how good the “hard product” may be. That was certainly the case on this flight, and I was so disappointed that the vacation that my husband and I had planned for over half a year started on this note.

This wasn’t my first time in business class, and not even my first time in Air France’s business class, either, so I did have some previous experience and data on which my opinion about this flight was based.

On the ground, it started with the little things like not being offered champagne though others had been and there was still champagne on the tray. At the time I thought “No big deal.” I do look younger for my age, I suppose (though at over a decade older than the drinking age in the U.S. I thought I had grown into looking like I could at least play a game of Blackjack legally).

While other passengers on the flight were asked what meal they wanted from the beautifully curated business-class menu, my husband and I were not. Rather, the flight crew told my husband he had been asleep when they came around and asked (he was not, we had been chatting about, ironically, what we wanted to eat) and proceeded to insist it had to be his fault that he hadn’t ordered yet.

A wid- lens view of Seat 1A on the Air France A350-900

Finally ending the conversation with an audible “hmpf” from the flight attendant, he approached me and asked what meal I had ordered. I replied that I had not been asked and finally gave my order. Perhaps they had forgotten us and were trying to cover it up?

Another flight attendant came up at that point inquiring what I wanted. I repeated myself. Then another, until finally, the last flight attendant said they actually only had one meal left, the vegetarian option. Again, not normally a big deal…but the miscommunication between cabin crew wasn’t something I was used to or expected in a premium cabin.

Incidentally, the passenger next to me was offered different dishes after I had been told everything else had run out. From here on out, I did notice just how pleasant the flight crew was to other passengers — kneeling down to be eye level with them and speaking softly and politely. I was getting curt replies from the crew and one continued speaking to me in French, though I didn’t understand her. She would eventually switch to English, but begrudgingly.

No matter, I could just sleep for the rest of this overnight long-haul flight and forget about it, right? As it turns out, the cabin crew on this flight seemed to fight over the lights. People would get settled, then the lights would accidentally be turned on. We would get resettled, and the lights would turn on again.

Finally, the lights remained off, and I tried getting back to sleep to take advantage of the lie flat in business. But when we hit some turbulence — which obviously, I can’t blame the flight crew for — I woke up to a cell phone flashlight shining in my face. Though I had buckled my seat belt outside my blankets, following the cabin crew instructions in case we did hit unexpected turbulence, this flight attendant still needed to check on me, with the flashlight on my face, and no one else…

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Alright, so no sleep, I could enjoy breakfast before landing, right? Well, with room-temperature coffee, I wasn’t getting caffeinated before landing, that was for sure. And without asking if I had finished my meal, a flight attendant looked at me and said, “Okay, I’m taking this.” We had plenty of time left in-flight, so I was a bit puzzled.

The continued curtness would repeatedly surprise me, but just like a cat lover trying to win over the affections of their apathetic feline, I tried to respond with enthusiastic politeness much to an unyielding wall of scowls and something else…maybe distaste? Disgust?

What Was The Big Lesson Here?

What was my silver lining on this transpacific flight?

Air France flight departure

By the time the flight came to a close, my people-pleasing anxiety was at an all-time high. Overall, the feeling I got was of distrust…it was as if they distrusted us and didn’t think we knew how to behave in business class. We were made to feel like a problem, and I immediately began wondering what I had done to elicit that sort of response.

Was I not dressed “rich” enough? — I was wearing a t-shirt and lounge pants…Did I act too young? — maybe wearing a backpack made me look too naive? …Did we make a mistake booking on points because that signaled we didn’t normally belong here? — but people used points all the time, right?

But I had every right to feel welcome in business class. Yes, I did book with points, but we still earned them. We chose to use our hard-earned and additional purchased points towards a premium experience to kick off a big trip, and that should not be seen as “lesser-than.”

By the time I stepped off the plane, I had a lump in my throat. I was so frustrated that I had given the airline my money, and so upset that this is how my dream vacation to French Polynesia started. I couldn’t help but let out some tears of disappointment. But here was my biggest takeaway: when searching to book your dream vacation, always make sure the airline’s service reputation aligns with their hard product reviews.

There are many airlines in the world — Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Asiana Airlines, to name a few — which hold service as one of their biggest brand markers and thus are awarded with industry recognition.

But there are other airlines where service is variable and not as consistent. To avoid letting that experience potentially derail your time away, do your research about what matters more to you: service or the hard product.

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At that point, it was time for me to buck up and enjoy the rest of my vacation. Tahiti is a beautiful place with so much to do and see — with so many gorgeous beaches — that I couldn’t possibly spend any more time dwelling on what had transpired over the Pacific. All I could do was enjoy the rest of my trip…and await eagerly that survey invitation from the airline.