As part of my recent trip to Paris, I got to fly from EWR to ORY on OpenSkies, a subsidiary of British Airways that flies exclusively from NYC-Paris. They have one flight that leaves from EWR and another from JFK. Due to award availability, I dragged myself over to EWR, but was really excited to take this flight.

This is a unique product for British Airways because it’s one of the few routes they fly that don’t involve a connection at LHR, which can add a lot of extra money in dreaded fuel surcharges. I did pay ~$450 + 40,000 Avios for the flight, but in my eyes, it was completely worth it. This flight often retails for over $7,000!

Click here to read about the award redemption for this flight in more detail.

The seat and flight

The flight over was on a Boeing 757-200. The seats were only a bit dated, and the configuration is an awesome setup or couples or people traveling together. All of the seats face each other, meaning one person is facing forward and the other is facing back. I imagine it could be a bit awkward if you got seated next to a stranger, but luckily there is a seat divider that either passenger can put up.

When I got to the seat, it had a bottle of water, an amenity kit, pillow, blanket, and headphones already placed on it.

The seat felt ample and spacious. To make it lie fully flat, you had to unhook an ottoman and pull it down, then connect the seat to the ottoman.

There was plenty of room in a side compartment for my wallet, phone, keys, etc.

The amenity kit had the usual offerings: toothpaste and toothbrush, socks, lip balm, hand cream, and ear plugs. The skin products were provided by Elemis. What I really liked about this kit was that it provided a “to-do” card as a guide for the products. I followed it step-by-step and felt really refreshed by the time we took off.

Since this was an overnight flight, pajamas were passed out as well as additional bedding. The pillows were the right amount of firmness and the duvet was soft and warm. I loved the pjs!!!

And here’s what the seat looks like fully folded out and with bedding:

The bathroom also had Elemis products in it, including hand wash and cream (and flowers).

Meal service

We were offered pre-flight dinner in the lounge at EWR, and, this being an overnight flight, the menu didn’t have a lot of options. Here’s what they had:

 

I got the tortellini, and my partner got the chicken dish. I also got a glass of the Grand Cru merlot. As far as quick dishes on an overnight flight go, the food was pretty good. Solid basics.

Oddly enough, there were no cookies or hot chocolate on this flight even though it was listed in the menu. I kinda wanted the cookie :/

 

The service on the flight was prompt and professional. Mostly, people just slept. The FAs were always around and I never felt like I had to wait to get anything I needed (mostly just more water).

I watched a movie on the IFE (don’t remember which one), which was located on the back of the seat in front of me. The screen was pretty large and they did have a robust entertainment selection. I was pretty tired though, and fell asleep right after the movie.

Then I slept. Like, actually slept… for a good 4-5 hours. When I woke up again, it was to the tinkling of silverware as breakfast was being served. Soon after that, we touched down at ORY.

Bottom line

I was ecstatic to try out this unique product offered by British Airways and even happier with the price I paid for it.

I got most of the Avios for this flight with the Chase British Airways Visa, although Avios are super easy to acquire with Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, or through SPG.

Taking this flight and paying ~$450 made me seriously think about switching spend over to the BA Visa in order to get the companion ticket for a free flight after $30K in spend. I’m still thinking about that. For now, I am filtering most of my spend through the Club Carlson Visa. When I renew the BA Visa in March, I may go ahead and try for the companion pass. Taking this flight definitely made me think about flying British Airways more. I’m keeping my eye on them for the time being.

The product, hard and soft, wasn’t as phenomenal as the Middle Eastern or Asian airlines, but it was a damn solid flight, and I arrived feeling taken care of and refreshed. That’s really the best anyone can hope for on a biz class flight, and this one delivered.

BA gets a lot of hater-ation for their pesky fuel surcharges, and, admittedly, I’d take them a whole lot more if they didn’t have them.

Overall, great flight. Would fly them again in a second. Especially their OpenSkies service.

* If you liked this post, consider signing up to receive free blog posts in an RSS reader and you’ll never miss an update!