Partner Booking Experience - Condor & Aer Lingus
Writing a post as I spent a long time looking for current info before booking a recent trip and didn't find all my questions answered. Maybe this will help someone else.
We decided to go to Europe pretty quickly and booked dates three weeks in advance for two people for late April. Played around with dates and combinations, and booking one-way flights were the best option. Cash prices for these flights were fairly high, so while we used a lot of points it worked out for us. Status points were earned on each leg.
Edit: Started the trip by accessing the Alaska Lounge (N) using the Atmos credit card lounge passes. Partner booking fees were waived due to using the Atmos card (a grand savings of something like $12 each way, each person).
Condor: SEA-FRA-CDG Economy, 60,000 points after applying the Atmos 25K Global Companion Award. $175 taxes & fees total.
Just under a 1.5hr layover in FRA, which was enough time to transfer planes; gates were near each other separated by immigration/security. 1 x 20kg bag per person was included (this info was hard to find until after booking and looking up reservation on Condor site). I ended up purchasing two seats together at an extra cost but shouldn't have bothered, plane wasn't full and we would have been seated together anyway.
Economy seats were very uncomfortable and felt cramped. The back seat pocket design wasn't great, things kept falling out the sides and bottom and it seemed to take up space. Blanket and pillow provided, dinner and a breakfast snack served. Entertainment options were fine, although about halfway into the flight I went to look for something to watch and almost everything was only kids and cartoons - this wasn't due to my settings. Close to breakfast time they seemed to reboot the system and all the other original options appeared.
Regretted not spending 130 Euros each to upgrade to Premium Economy - which was an option provided via SeatBoost. ANY extra amount of leg room would have made a difference to the overall flight. Landed in Paris exhausted, at least it was mid-afternoon so hotel check in was open. We would fly Condor again if it was saving us cash but it wouldn't be our first option.
Aer Lingus: MRS (Marseille) - Dublin overnight layover - SEA, Economy, 70,000 points, $260 cash. 1 x 23kg bag per person, checked through to final destination (we had one bag slightly under, one slightly over, no issues). US Immigration & Customs cleared in Dublin, so landed in SEA as if it was a domestic flight.
Economy seats here felt like they had more room - and no problems with back seat pocket design. Blanket, pillow, and earphones provided. Good entertainment options - got to see some Apple & HBO shows I don't usually have access to. They announced dinner came with 1 complimentary alcoholic beverage...but we were given two during the pre-dinner service so that started things well 😄 The service overall was great. Despite not sleeping on this flight due to the timing, we arrived back in Seattle not feeling like we had been squashed into a tight space.
I don't know if the seat pitch on both airlines is the same...but the difference in the feeling of space between the two was noticeable. We were prepared for Aer Lingus to be as bad as Condor but as soon as we sat down we remarked on it.
Carry on: Condor weighed and tagged as appropriate, Aer Lingus didn't.
Alaska Atmos BOA Credit Card: The Visa security settings made it difficult at times to book things online in the lead up to the trip. Some museum, train tickets and tours worked, some didn't.
I found one thread on Reddit discussing a Visa 3D Secure issue someone had encountered and that was extremely helpful when I rang Bank of America to work it out. The call center couldn't see any declined transactions, and as soon as I mentioned Visa 3D they investigated before transferring me to the fraud department who knew what I was talking about. I had to call multiple times to ask them to release the security settings so I could make transactions - and they would only do this for one hour at a time.
While there was a 24-hr direct number, we also took a Mastercard with us as a credit card backup. We purchased Paris metro daily passes online when needed, and the BOA card wouldn't work; we couldn't be bothered calling BOA each time we wanted to use it so Mastercard it was. I understand the security provided, but this was annoying.
We have enough points to do this all again so time to earn some more money and make it happen!