Welcome to my next trip report, which will recount in detail my trip to Tunisia last month, and include a number of new airline, lounge, and hotel reviews.
Business Class Journey To Tunisia – Trip Report
This trip came about when Delta (finally, after literally years of searching) opened up Airbus A350-900 business class award space, which I booked for 50K Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles – the rest of the trip was planned around that space.
Delta is notoriously stingy with its premium cabin award space, particularly what it releases to partners. It is even stinger when it comes to A350 or A330-900neo space, which includes its flagship business class suite. So when I saw space from Detroit to Amsterdam, I just booked it.
Looking at my options, I thought this would be a good opportunity to visit Tunisa and Algeria. Algeria proved a problem, however, because flights are still limited and demand is incredibly high. Most flights were sold out and those that were not were prohibitively expensive. Indeed, when my wife and I took a trip to Paris over the summer, we saw the huge line of people outside the Air Algérie city ticket office attempting to buy tickets and even a half year later, this shortage of seats remains.
I almost booked a $200 Air France economy class ticket from Amsterdam to Tunis via Paris, which I was fine with because I have SkyTeam elite status via ITA Airways (status match) and thus would have lounge access even though I was traveling in economy class. But then the price doubled and so I just used 35K Flying Blue miles plus $78 to buy a business class ticket. I was particularly excited to review both the Airbus A318 and the Airbus A330. I’ve never flown either on Air France and it would be my first A318 flight in my life (sadly, that was not meant to be).
> Read More: The Airbus A318 Eludes Me Yet Again
I flew United Airlines from Los Angeles to Detroit via Newark and won’t review those flights except to say that…