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My wife and I were planning a last minute trip to visit some of her family in England, and as luck would have it, Austrian Airlines released 2 seats in business class on their 787-9. Austrian is known for having one of the best dining experiences of the European carriers ( most definitely within the Lufthansa Group ) and I was VERY excited.
The Austrian 787-9 features their newest, and best, business class featuring a fully lie flat Collins Aerospace Super Diamond seat found on many other airlines including British Airways Club Suites, China Airlines, Etihad A350-1000, Egypt Air, and certain American Airlines equipped 787s and 772s. It’s one of my favorite business class seats since it offers so much storage and overall comfort.
I was VERY excited to fianlly try out Austrian Airlines business class after years of helping others book it, hearing about the great food, and having booked and canceled it a few times… it was going to happen at last.
Let’s check out the entire experience!
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Table of Contents
Flight Details – Austrian Business Class ORD to VIE
- When: Feb 2025
- Route: ORD to VIE
- Flight Time – 9h15m
- Seat: 7A
- Booking – 70k Aeroplan + $100 USD
How to use Points and finding the award space to book the 787-9 and booking Austrian Business Class
Austrian is a member of the Lufthansa Group and so you could use their own miles to book it. There are no US partner programs that facilitate this aside from transferring Marriott at 60k to 25k ratio.
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Lufthansa Miles & More: 56,000 miles
Which programs can you use to book Austrian?
I wanted to book with Aeroplan since US to Europe is only 70k miles and they don’t pass on many surcharges. You can popluate Aeroplan with the following programs
- American Express
- Bilt Rewards
- Capital One
- Chase
You could also use the following programs
- ANA Mileage Club: r/t only
- Amex
- 100,000 miles
- Asiana Club:
- No partners
- 40,000 miles
- Avianca lifemiles: 80,000 miles
- Amex, Bilt, Cap1, Citi
- EVA Infinity MileageLands:
- Capital One 4:3 transfer
- Citi
- 65,000 miles
- Singapore KrisFlyer:
- Amex, Chase, Capital One, Citi
- 81,000 miles
- Turkish Miles&Smiles:
- Bilt, Cap1, Citi
- 90,000 miles
- United MileagePlus:
- Bilt, Chase
- 88,000 miles
The first thing I did was search to see which routes feature this aircraft. By far the easiest mode of accomplishing this is to use the Flight Connections where you can search across multiple criteria including the aircraft. As you can see below, across the calendar, the 787-9 flies to several east coast North American cities… Chicago, Toronto, DC, EWR, JFK, and Boston
I actually used the United search page which shows award availability in calendar mode. Initially the flight only had 1 seat available, but in the middle of the night, 2 days before departure, the 2nd seat opened up and I moved quickly.
Booking Austrian Airlines Business Class on the 787-9
After I found award space on United, I popped over to Aeroplan and used 70k Aeroplan Miles and about $100 USD per person to book
Choosing a Seat
The cabin on the 787-9 is quite small…only 7 rows in a 1-2-1 configuration.
Here’s what it looks like in real life
The Lounge at Chicago O’hare – LOT Business Class
I have an entire review of the lounge up, but it’s by far the nicest, though on the smaller side, in Terminal 5 which is an arid abyss of nice business/first class lounges.
The Austrian 787-9 Seat
Let’s do a tour of one of my favorite business class produced by Collins Aerospace. You may recognize it since it’s featured on many different airlines – some include a door which this does not.
Here is the Austrian Seat I choose – 7A. I prefer the last seat in the cabin, on the window, for filming.
Bed Mode
The bed is comfortable; however not the most comfortable of any business class seat. The seat on the A350-900 Qatar Airways older business class takes the cake in my book, or the A359 Cathay Pacific Business Class seat.
Dining
The is a highlight of the Austrian Business Class experience…the onboard chef. Yes…there is actually someone in a chef’s outfit preparing food. It’s quite the treat and the food, catered by Do&Co is very good.
Everything is delivered a cart and I tried the Almdudler – very refreshing sparkling elderberry styled drink.
I chose the pasta
and this was my breakfast
Overall
I would love to Austrian business class again in the future. It was great service, a very good seat, and a solid deal using Aeroplan miles. The only problem is that Austrian only has a couple of these planes, but has plans to add over a dozen in the next few years.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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