After traveling exclusively and excessively in business class on this trip I can say that I have enjoyed it but it is not something that I would pay for in the future. The only reason why we did it was because for whatever reason the increased price for the business class upgrade was only something like $20 more per leg of the trip. While I am actually quite a miserly person, I wanted to experience something nice because I rarely go on vacation to anywhere.
My experience after this trip is that the bigger seat and skipping the lines is kind of worth it, but only at a little bit extra. When I look at the fact that long-haul international fights have massive increased costs associated with them: Sometimes they can be 5x as much and I'll be damned if I am going to pay that much.
one thing I have noticed about travel that I never really thought about in the past is how much I truly enjoy having lounge access rather than sitting in the uncomfortable seats that are meant for regular travelers. I never really investigated these places until I had access to them because of my business class tickets.
Let's look at the first one that was in the Da Nang airport. It's a lot better than the regular seats in the general areas for sure, but honestly, it wasn't really that special. The food was not good and we didn't really have much of it outside of fruit and some bread. Having unlimited access to wine and beer was great but they only have the worst brands of both of these things. It was an inappropriate time of day to drink but I love a value so me and my partner had 2 bottles of wine and even stole a little bit extra in empty water bottles for the plane. The staff definitely saw us doing this and made no attempt to stop us.
Aside from the free booze and a quieter environment there wasn't really anything particularly special about it though. My travel partner smokes and they had a smoking area complete with sofas and I don't know how they get away with that. it wasn't a point of interest for me as a non-smoker but she liked it so that is great.
Now let's fast forward to the next leg of our trip where for whatever reason, we were denied lounge access in Saigon (HCMC) because our onward flight to the island of Phu Quoc didn't have a business class section. This was irritating as hell because we had actually paid for business class tickets. Since we had a 5 hour layover this was not something that I was willing to tolerate so we walked around and eventually found a lounge that anyone with any ticket can gain access to for 800K VND. This is close to $40 a person so I can understand why there wasn't a huge line to get in the place. I was apprehensive at first as well but once we sat down, I realized that we made the correct choice.
dude looks thrilled that I am taking his picture
For one thing, this was a proper lounge. It was quiet, the seating was luxurious, and they had a full bar complete with competent bartenders and top-shelf booze. It was clear to me very quickly that we were going to easily get our $40 worth during our 5-hour layover.
They also had menus with real meals that you could order and not just some shitty buffet trays that have been sitting there all day with hot dogs that they call sausages either. This was pork tenderloin and I watched as the waiter went to an actual kitchen to retrieve the food. It wasn't the greatest pork that I ever had but here's the kicker: you can order as many of them as you want.
We started playing around with various cocktails that I have never heard of before and at a certain point we started to feel a little bit guilty about how many drinks we were ordering. I am not an alcoholic but I do enjoy a bargain. I would say that we probably had 10 drinks each and there is no way that this lounge made any money off of us. We were somewhat apologetic towards the server who spoke excellent English and he assured us that we don't need to worry and that it is no problem! "Order as much as you want!" he said with a reassuring laugh.
Also, one benefit they have is they scan your ticket when you walk in so that the screens on the wall will highlight only the flights that pertain to the people that are in the lounge. This magic makes it so that you don't have to look at 100 flights that you are not getting on to see the status of the one that you are. This alone was worth at least $5 in my mind.
I even swiped a couple of beers in front of the staff who smiled and said "no problem!" I was fearing that the plane ride from Saigon to Phu Quoc wouldn't have any booze on it and my suspicions were correct: It was a dry flight. I likely didn't actually need any more alcohol at this point but since I don't go on vacation often I thought "why not?"
I don't know if this pay-to-enter lounge sort of thing is becoming popular elsewhere in the world but I know now from experience that if I ever have a multi-hour layover in some airport anywhere in the world that I will definitely at least inquire about if they have one. I hate airports just like most people and when you consider how overpriced food and drink is at airports anyway, I wasn't really spending all that much more than I would have spent by simply having a Burger King and a couple of beers anyway.
In the future I will fly economy and then pay to access the lounges in the airports. This is my new travel strategy and I think it should be yours as well. You don't have to be rich to feel that way for a few hours!
