BOOKED: EVA Air 787 Business Class (I’m An Idiot)

I’m an idiot sometimes.

This December break I found my schedule freer than I was expecting, and I also saw that my social media following was going quite well, so I decided to do a review trip to show my thankfulness. Obviously I’m a high school student so I’m broke (to say the least), but from previous travels I managed to rack up quite a number of Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles. Since I can’t be away from home for too long, I decided to book myself into a same-day return Star Alliance shorthaul business class product, so started looking at options.

I came across a Singapore Airlines roundtrip ticket from Hong Kong to Singapore and back for a total of 55,000 miles. This would seat me in business class on their 777-200 and 777-300ER, and would get me home in time (as well as letting me spend some time in my favourite city in the world, even if I wasn’t actually leaving the airport). However, for some reason Singapore Airlines wouldn’t let me book a ticket on their website, so I started looking at other options, thinking that it was to do with my unaccompanied minor status (which, being 17, I’d have to fill out a waiver form for).

Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 Business Class 

I looked at a flight to Taipei, and saw that EVA Air was offering a business class flight between Hong Kong and Taipei for 40,000 KrisFlyer miles with a lot of award availability. I also saw that the return flight was going to be on an EVA Air 787, which I was really excited about. I’ve seen Ethan’s positive impressions regarding the hard product, but he flew in economy, so I wanted to get the full experience.

I couldn’t price that either, so I decided I might as well call the Singapore Airlines call center. With all the adrenaline of a potential new review rushing within me, I decided to do just that.

The Singapore Airlines agent was incredibly competent, even though I didn’t manage to get his name. Soon I had myself a business class ticket on EVA Air’s 787, with the outbound on an EVA A330 (I’m hoping to get EVA’s new A330 product, but I’m not sure if I’ll get that).

EVA Air Boeing 787 Business Class Seat 6A

Then I took a deep breath and went to the gym, and thought again.

???????????????????

I gave up eight hours in business class on Singapore Airlines for less than half that time on EVA Air, despite getting to review the 787.

The 15k miles that I “save” are negligible. I can barely get an economy class seat with that. And the fuel surcharges were exactly the same.

While I get to cross an airline off the list (in theory, since I’ve reviewed Singapore Airlines before in premium economy, but never EVA Air even though I flew them once back in 2013), I spent 40k miles for a short hop over to Taipei when for less than 40% more I would’ve redeemed myself at least double the flying time. The quality of the products are similar.

That’s not even to mention that I know at least two YouTuber friends that have upcoming EVA 787 reviews, whereas I can’t find a really good video review of Singapore Airlines’ 777 product out there (if you’ve seen one, let me know).

Bottom Line

The first thing I learned is how amazing my parents are and how grateful I should be that they’re letting me do a turnaround for review purposes at all. The fact that they trust me with this is insane, and even though this trip is “technically” self-funded (I’m paying for the fuel surtaxes), I still owe it to them to make sure the quality of the reports I write are produced with the best of my ability.

But I also learned that booking by impulse is never a good thing. I was in a rush since I wanted to get to the gym before it closed, but I should’ve been patient; since I don’t have another source of miles at the moment (I don’t have a credit card, and my mileage situation is terrible to start with), I should’ve taken the time to look at other options and evaluate instead of making an impulsive decision. I also learned that alcohol doesn’t usually help with making good decisions, but we’ll leave that to the side for now. 🙂

So yeah, expect an EVA review to come up soon. This will be a great review nonetheless – I’m definitely not complaining about the fact that I’ll be able to bring you guys a comprehensive review of two new cabin products. I’ll be taking this trip in early January, so stay tuned.

Did I make the right decision? What would you have done instead?