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Air Canada: YVR-YYZ-LHR (and a Dropped Phone)
Life lessons through business class: using e-upgrades on latitude fares, and learning what happens when you drop your mobile under the seat.
There are two types of trip report bloggers: those who get super excited by the extra one-inch of legroom on a Cathay Pacific economy class seat and those who wax poetic about not being given a glass of champagne when boarding a Delta Airlines first-class seat.
I proudly align with the former group.
I fly my share of business class seats. Still, every time I board Air Canada's signature class across the country, I feel like an interloper - a trespasser who doesn't belong in this secretive club of people conducting actual business and who works for companies that would actually shell out money for their employees on lie-flat seats.
Or so I thought until I heard about e-upgrades from the plethora of travel bloggers and friends who told me the secret of Air Canada Aeroplan points and how to use e-upgrades wisely to get into business class from a latitude-fare seat. The points were a lovely gift of not having travelled for two-plus years (and letting those points slowly rack up). The e-upgrades: an unfortunate side-effect of numerous back-and-forth trips cross-province because of a family emergency. While the flights to and from Edmonton were filled with many emotions, it did score a boatload of status-qualifying segments and status-qualifying dollars (thank you, Air Canada Flight Passes).
In mid-2022, following a gruelling and trying journey working as an essential worker during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was high time to go back and travel. Conveniently, my dear friends were getting married in a castle in Scotland, so I set out to the task as soon as my friend and I finalized the dates we would be in the United Kingdom.
- I used Aeroplan points to buy a latitude-fare economy seat from Vancouver to London, UK. The Air Canada website said there was no waitlist and e-upgrades should be approved, albeit it would be on a Vancouver-Toronto-London routing.
- I requested an e-upgrade from economy to business class for both routings. Since there would be four flight segments (two flight segments each way), it was unfortunate that I was essentially e-upgrading on double the flights compared to if I could get it direct. Still, I wasn't travelling internationally soon after that, so I was happy to bleed out my e-upgrade credits. Because I was e-upgrading latitude-fare tickets, the approval went through almost instantaneously.
The Flight
Fast forward to the day of travelling Air Canada's business class (i.e. signature class - and I may be using both terms interchangeably) from Vancouver to Toronto to London. Both flights would be on their Boeing 777-300er with two business class cabins.
On the Vancouver to Toronto flight, I was able to snag a bulkhead seat in the "mini-business class cabin." As a bulkhead seat, it benefited from having a wider berth to stretch your legs into. However, as a 170cm male, this was not entirely required (but still greatly appreciated). Otherwise, these Air Canada seats come with the most essential amenities: an 18" touchscreen IFE, a "mattress pad" to place on the seat for lounging about, an electronic display to adjust the seat's recline, a set of mediocre and questionably noise-cancelling headphones, and a small compartment for storage - able to store charging cables, a small bottle of water, and my cell phone [more on that later].
There's more than enough surface space for spreading out your belongings, not including the surface area needed for meals. Speaking of meals, the signature class comes with a lovely menu printed on some sort of high-GSM paper.
Note to self: The "cold breakfast" is served as the first course for all the hot breakfasts, so you might as well get the hot breakfast unless, of course, you're not particularly hungry and are rightfully against food waste.
The London-bound flight featured more or less the same seat, but I ended up taking the last seat in the front business class cabin. The benefit is that you can take photos of your seat without risking ridicule from the person behind you; the con is that it's missing a window. This wasn't too much of an issue as this was an overnight flight, and most of the trip would be in the dark.
For this evening flight, dinner service started with an exciting appetizer concoction of lukewarm bread and bits of vegetables.
This was followed by a messily plated beef short rib with potatoes and vegetables. But it hit the spot, so who am I to complain?
I finished dinner with a dessert tart and decaf coffee with Baileys, the perfect nightcap before the 4-5 hours of sleep I hope to get on this flight.
The Story of a Dropped Cell Phone
You'll notice that there are no more pictures from this flight. After roughly an hour of trying to get some sleep with the seat in the fully lie-flat position, I heard a thump. My cell phone, which I (slightly stupidly) kept on my body, fell between the seat and the storage compartment. The gap was too tight to stick my hand through. I tried looking under the seat and noticed that the underseat was inaccessible. Being one of the less than 2% of travellers who stay attentive during the in-flight safety announcement, I remember the explicit instruction to "not move the seat cushion if (my) mobile device falls into the seat." So, I go to the flight director.
"Hey, I accidentally drop my cell into the seat."
And she gives me a look of terror. Between her expression of "oh no" and her question of whether or not I got insurance on the phone, I knew this wouldn't be an easy retrieval. She and one of the other flight attendants try sticking their hand into the gap to no avail. She mentions that when we arrive in London, the ground mechanic might be available to open the chair (which is good to know) and retrieve the device. Unfortunately, there is also a slight chance that the device fell into the gears that operate the lie-flat mechanism of the seat. If I adjust the seat further, the mechanism might crush the phone. In the worst-case scenario, the phone might explode or catch on fire.
Excuse me?
So, I'm left with the seat in the lie-flat position for the remainder of the flight, even when the flight is ready to land. We've all wondered what the big deal is when we're nagged to return our seats to the upright position. Still, it's something else when you are literally lying down during landing—it is oddly unsettling and unnerving. A few minutes before we touched down, I decided to just sit cross-legged on the seat so I could look out the one window, at least.
With the doors open, the flight director informs me that the pilots called for the ground mechanic ahead of time, so he should be able to board once everyone departs the plane. Awkwardness abound as the economy class passengers walk by me as I sit suspiciously cross-legged on the seat. After twenty minutes, all passengers are off, and I notice that the pilots and flight attendants continue to loiter around, waiting for something. The flight director asks if the ground mechanic has come by, and when I mention he hasn't, she talks to one of the pilots (who is now standing by the entrance) and asks them to call the ground mechanic again. And that's when I realized:
They all have to wait until I leave before they can go!
After another 10 minutes, the elderly ground mechanic boards the plane and disassembles the seat. Note that this requires a bunch of bolt wrenches and screwdrivers, so don't think about doing this yourself while in the middle of the flight (lest a flight marshall come by to visit you at your seat). Underneath the seat cushions and underneath a conveyor-like mechanism (that probably runs the lie-flat mechanism), the light from my cell phone screen illuminates the seat frame. Still working and still active. The screen, however, is heavily - devastatingly cracked.
And then I remembered that I had a tempered glass screen protector. Underneath the devastatingly cracked screen protector was a pristine, intact cell phone screen.
The flight director hands me the phone and announces overhead, "We found the phone—we can all disembark!" I thank the mechanic and flight director profusely as I leave, moderately embarrassed. If there was one benefit, most of the passengers from the flight had been processed through customs/immigration, and the queue was miraculously short. As a business class benefit, my luggage was one of the first on the carousel - but of course, I was the last one off the flight, so I can't really report if that was the case.
On the return flight from London, I entered the business class cabin, where I locked eyes with the same flight director as my outbound flight. She walked towards me and cheekily asked, " Did you learn your lesson?"
Addendum: More Meals!
The flight back to Canada was more or less the same, but I did enjoy the meal service on this flight more. First was an appetizer course that was slightly more enjoyable.
This was followed by some delicious butter chicken and basmati rice.
But yet another tart for after dinner and some coffee.
When we arrived back in Toronto, it would land just after lunchtime, so the second meal service was a light afternoon tea consisting of several finger sandwiches, a scone, and assorted fruit.
And in honesty, having afternoon tea on a business class flight as a person who does not fly business class is a nice way to end a trip.
Author: Francisco Tenorio
Originally Posted: 2022/07/07
Last Updated: 2024/10/14