During this winter break, I went back to China. On the way back to the US, I realized I still hadn’t used the UR points from opening Chase cards or the miles I’d earned from flying United, so a friend and I decided to put together a different kind of return trip to America. The theme of this trip was basically doing it the hard way just because we could.

Since each of the three segments had interesting things worth talking about, I split the trip into three separate posts.

Award Bookings

  • Hangzhou-Hong Kong: Business class booked with 15,000 UR points transferred to British Airways; the operating carrier was Cathay Dragon
  • Hong Kong-Zurich: Booked using 80,000 United Airlines miles earned from flying plus the points from opening the explorer card -part 1; the operating carrier was SWISS
  • Zurich-Chicago: Booked using 80,000 United Airlines miles earned from flying plus the points from opening the explorer card -part 2; the operating carrier was SWISS

Total time spent on this journey:

  • 2.5h (HGH-HKG) + 6h (layover in HK) + 12.92h (HKG-ZRH) + 6.5h (layover in Zurich) +10h (ZRH-ORD) = 37.92h

The total flying time plus layover time for this trip was about the same as taking 3 normal nonstop US-China flights (around 13 hours each).

Hangzhou to Hong Kong

Hangzhou Airport Lounge

After arriving at Hangzhou Airport, I headed into a lounge on the second floor. I’ve been to three or four lounges at Hangzhou Airport, and this was probably the best one.

There was a staircase and a hidden elevator that was pretty hard to find
Overall, it felt fairly spacious and well-designed
Jet bridge outside the window
Highly recommend this Korean yogurt drink

Cathay Dragon Cabin and Seats

Next up was boarding. Since I got in line early and was flying business class, I was probably the first person on the plane. There were separate jet bridges for business class and economy. The aircraft was very old; if I remember correctly, I looked it up at the time and it had already been flying for more than 20 years.

Too bad it wasn’t a solo window seat and there was someone next to me, but it was still very spacious.
Seat layout

From the window seat, I could see the jet bridge connected to economy.

Economy-class jet bridge
It was a touchscreen, but not a very responsive one

After the plane left the jet bridge, I saw an ANA aircraft next to us.

ANA aircraft

In-Flight Meal

Menu
I recommend the Cathay Dragon special drink; it was very good
I heard economy class also gets Häagen-Dazs? :shock:

Arriving in Hong Kong

I had a few hours in Hong Kong, and because I had a US visa, I could leave the airport and head into the city for a quick look around. I bought an Octopus card at the airport and took the Airport Express straight to Hong Kong Station. The Airport Express was very fast; it took only about 25 minutes from the airport to Hong Kong Station.

I went over to Victoria Harbour and took a few night shots.

We wandered around a bit more, and then the two of us headed back to the airport. Next up: the airport lounge and travel experience.

Final Thoughts

The plane was old, but the food was decent and the flight attendants were very friendly. One area that could be improved is language service: on this flight from mainland China to Hong Kong, none of the flight attendants spoke fluent Mandarin. I could see they were really trying hard to communicate with me in broken Mandarin, and I appreciated their effort and care, but I also hope the airline can provide more Mandarin training for its flight attendants.