Introduction: A Double Daytime Transatlantic Journey On JetBlue, SAS

By Leila

a castle on top of a hill with trees in the background

Welcome to my next trip report, which will provide a detailed recount of my spring trip to London and Germany, with daytime transatlantic flights on both JetBlue and SAS.

A Late Spring Break In London + Germany On JetBlue + SAS

Every time I go to London I consider trying out the Park Hyatt London (in my quest to review every Park Hyatt property in the portfolio), but I simply cannot justify it when my sister-in-law lives in London and has such a lovely house in a lovely neighborhood…I don’t need a hotel in London.

While I have shared my “first impressions” of these flights, I’ll share a more detailed review of my first-ever daytime eastbound transatlantic trip, which worked perfectly for us (perhaps because we were already exhausted by the redeye from Southern California to New York directly before the morning flight to London). This was the return ticket of my outbound from Paris to New York to Los Angeles on JetBlue last autumn. We flew in economy class.

After a lovely 24-hour stay in London, we flew from London to Basel on British Airways, then spent a relaxing week in Germany before flying home from Zurich to Los Angeles via Copenhagen in SAS Plus (premium economy) class. You’ll have to be ready for a lot of SAS reviews in the months and years ahead on Live And Let’s Fly, as my son and I spend down the million miles we each earned last year on our SAS SkyTeam challenge.

This was my first time flying SAS in premium economy on a longhaul flight and while the food was a big disappointment, overall the seat is quite nice for a daytime flight. For 40K miles per ticket for Heidi and me (kids were 20K miles each), it’s a great buy.

I have to admit, though (and this was true for the JetBlue flight as well). I just wanted it to end…when you fly in economy class or premium economy class, it is not contradictory to say that a flight is pleasant but nevertheless, you cannot wait to arrive at your destination.

Germany was lovely as always (the image above is from Rötteln Castle)…I was there for the tail-end of the strawberry white asparagus season, and also enjoyed beautiful spring weather.

Here are the segments for this trip report:

  • JetBlue A320 Economy Class (ONT-JFK)
  • JetBlue A321 Economy Class (JFK-LHR)
  • 24 Hours In London
  • British Airways A320 Economy Class (LHR-BSL)
  • Biking To Coffee + Church In Basel
  • Eat, Drink, And Be Merry: Springtime In Germany
  • SWISS Business Lounge Zurich (ZRH)
  • SAS A350-900 Premium Economy Class (CPH-LAX)

(I’m not going to review the SAS flight from ZRH-CPH because I’ll review the same flight in the same seat in the same cabin with the same meal on my next trip report…SAS must rotate meals on a quarterly basis unless it is like Air Canada and simply never changes)

Let me know if you have any specific questions along the way, and thanks for reading.