Josh Hamilton
Junior Member
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2019
- Posts
- 33
Hi all,
First trip report here so go easy on me
but I welcome all feedback, questions and most importantly recommendations!
So my first flight does not leave until next week, 26th to be exact but a bit of background information seems to be appropriate for a trip report. My fiancée is a Brazil national and she is currently back in Sao Paulo organising the last part of the wedding and packing up her life to come to Australia after the honeymoon.
I have never flown F before but have experienced J class on both Qantas products and Latam. 9 months ago when we finalised the date for the wedding I jumped onto the Qantas website while in Brazil and saw a flight from Sydney to Sao Paulo via Dubai on Emirates F arriving ten days before the wedding, perfect! I live on the Gold Coast and have always wanted to experience the F lounge in Sydney so didn't want to waste a chance and leave from Brisbane and miss out on all the fun! Having always traveled the usual way to Brazil via Santiago I was ready for a new experience also!
I have enough experience of flights ranging from 11-14 hours in Y & J class so I am sure I can manage just fine with two long flights in F class The Sydney to Dubai flight on 26/3 leaving at 16:55 on the 777 (was originally an A380 but changed 
) and arriving in Dubai around midnight. This is followed by a 7 hour layover in Dubai this won't bother me much as I can explore the lounge, shower, eat, catch up on work and update the trip report with some photos. Dubai to Sao Paulo is longer at just over 15 hours scheduled however, this flight being on the A380 should help with the shower being available at the end of the flight and also catching up on a bit of sleep 
Side note this will be my first flight on the A380 so a tad extra excited for this also.
Wedding in Brazil will be on the 6th April so will be a break in the trip report and I probably won't update again until I am back in Australia. 10th April rewards flight from Sao Paulo to Barcelona flying Latam J class. We then have a short turn around of 3 hours to get our bags and check in for our flight with Aegean to Santorini via Athens. I have been told we shouldn't have any problems getting from one flight to the other so lets wait and see Santorini - 6 nights at the Limestone hotel, we had friends stay here last year and they raved about it so very much looking forward to this!
I had then booked us on reward return flights from Athens-Dubai (Y class) and then Dubai-Bangkok-Sydney in F again the plane changed from the A380 to 777 after booking but oh well.
This plan then changed at the end of January. My soon to be wife is an architect so we started assessing options of staying in Dubai for more than the 4 hour transit on the way home. I spent a couple of weeks everyday logging onto the rewards booking tool but nothing became available until one morning we had a win! Athens - Amman Royal Jordanian J class, Amman - Dubai Emirates J class. *2 days in Dubai* Dubai-Brisbane Emirates F Class.
Me still being relatively new to rewards bookings I was still short on points of this new itinerary so called up Qantas and asked about cancelling my originally booking and when the points less cancel fee would be returned into my account, followed by my explanation of wanting to change flights and spend time in Dubai. The wonderful lady on the other line informed me ''oh no that's not a problem at all we can just change this current booking and we just calculate the points difference, tell me your dates and I will change all of this now for you while you are on the line'' From memory it was around a 15k point difference total which to me was totally worth it as we will now be spending 2 nights in Dubai, have booked the Shangri-La with a chauffeur service to and from the airport. I have read a few trip reports including Dubai on the forum so have a decent idea already but any recommendations as to top priority to do list from fellow members experiences would be nice
I think that is enough rambling on for now! Will check back in on the 26th March first flight down to Sydney from the Gold Coast, followed by a few hours in the Sydney F lounge, by the way does anyone know what time I can check in for this flight that is departing at 16:55 - EK417? I will also open this up and say I believe I can have a guest into the lounge as long as they are travelling on the same flight as I am a Gold member so if any AFF members are on EK417 let me know If anyone else is in the lounge around lunchtime until 16:00 on the 26th I always enjoy meeting new people so always available even for a quick hello
First trip report here so go easy on me
but I welcome all feedback, questions and most importantly recommendations! So my first flight does not leave until next week, 26th to be exact but a bit of background information seems to be appropriate for a trip report. My fiancée is a Brazil national and she is currently back in Sao Paulo organising the last part of the wedding and packing up her life to come to Australia after the honeymoon.
I have never flown F before but have experienced J class on both Qantas products and Latam. 9 months ago when we finalised the date for the wedding I jumped onto the Qantas website while in Brazil and saw a flight from Sydney to Sao Paulo via Dubai on Emirates F arriving ten days before the wedding, perfect! I live on the Gold Coast and have always wanted to experience the F lounge in Sydney so didn't want to waste a chance and leave from Brisbane and miss out on all the fun! Having always traveled the usual way to Brazil via Santiago I was ready for a new experience also!
I have enough experience of flights ranging from 11-14 hours in Y & J class so I am sure I can manage just fine with two long flights in F class
The Sydney to Dubai flight on 26/3 leaving at 16:55 on the 777 (was originally an A380 but changed ) and arriving in Dubai around midnight. This is followed by a 7 hour layover in Dubai this won't bother me much as I can explore the lounge, shower, eat, catch up on work and update the trip report with some photos. Dubai to Sao Paulo is longer at just over 15 hours scheduled however, this flight being on the A380 should help with the shower being available at the end of the flight and also catching up on a bit of sleep Side note this will be my first flight on the A380 so a tad extra excited for this also. Wedding in Brazil will be on the 6th April so will be a break in the trip report and I probably won't update again until I am back in Australia. 10th April rewards flight from Sao Paulo to Barcelona flying Latam J class. We then have a short turn around of 3 hours to get our bags and check in for our flight with Aegean to Santorini via Athens. I have been told we shouldn't have any problems getting from one flight to the other so lets wait and see
Santorini - 6 nights at the Limestone hotel, we had friends stay here last year and they raved about it so very much looking forward to this! I had then booked us on reward return flights from Athens-Dubai (Y class) and then Dubai-Bangkok-Sydney in F again the plane changed from the A380 to 777 after booking but oh well.
This plan then changed at the end of January. My soon to be wife is an architect so we started assessing options of staying in Dubai for more than the 4 hour transit on the way home. I spent a couple of weeks everyday logging onto the rewards booking tool but nothing became available until one morning we had a win! Athens - Amman Royal Jordanian J class, Amman - Dubai Emirates J class. *2 days in Dubai* Dubai-Brisbane Emirates F Class.
Me still being relatively new to rewards bookings I was still short on points of this new itinerary so called up Qantas and asked about cancelling my originally booking and when the points less cancel fee would be returned into my account, followed by my explanation of wanting to change flights and spend time in Dubai. The wonderful lady on the other line informed me ''oh no that's not a problem at all we can just change this current booking and we just calculate the points difference, tell me your dates and I will change all of this now for you while you are on the line'' From memory it was around a 15k point difference total which to me was totally worth it as we will now be spending 2 nights in Dubai, have booked the Shangri-La with a chauffeur service to and from the airport. I have read a few trip reports including Dubai on the forum so have a decent idea already but any recommendations as to top priority to do list from fellow members experiences would be nice
I think that is enough rambling on for now! Will check back in on the 26th March first flight down to Sydney from the Gold Coast, followed by a few hours in the Sydney F lounge, by the way does anyone know what time I can check in for this flight that is departing at 16:55 - EK417? I will also open this up and say I believe I can have a guest into the lounge as long as they are travelling on the same flight as I am a Gold member so if any AFF members are on EK417 let me know
If anyone else is in the lounge around lunchtime until 16:00 on the 26th I always enjoy meeting new people so always available even for a quick hello 
