Upgrading to Premium Economy: Is It Worth It?

We Flew Air France Premium Economy to Seoul: Here Is What It’s Like

Would you also like to be able to fly Business Class to your dream destinations? Same here. And is that also outside your scope of disposable income? Same here. 🥺

But did you also know there’s an upgrade from Economy class that won’t bankrupt you? It’s called Premium Economy and we tried it on our way to South Korea in March 2023.

Why did we Upgrade to Premium Economy?

If there’s one thing you should know about Mike, it’s that he loves finding the best flights. Especially when flying intercontinental. So when we’d decided to travel to South Korea and Japan, Mike set off on his little adventure for flight tickets.

The initial plan was to fly Economy both ways, and the flights would’ve cost us 550 euros per person. Considering it was a 12-hour flight with a good carrier (Air France/KLM), we were quite happy with this.

You can see our flight route below: After a short layover in Paris, we flew straight to Seoul, South Korea!

After booking the tickets, Air France gave us the option to upgrade parts of our journey.

When Mike noticed that the upgrade to Premium Economy for a single journey (Amsterdam → Seoul) was around 300 euros per person, he felt a strong urge to try it out. Mike loves aviation and the thought of more comfort on a 12-hour flight.

So after convincing Hannah of the perks, we decided to try out Premium Economy for the first time.

On the 22nd of March 2023, we boarded the French Boeing 777-300 for AF264 from Paris to Seoul, traveling in Premium Economy.

Perks of Flying Premium Economy

So what are the perks of Premium Economy you ask? Every airline is a bit different and in the case of Air France, we were provided with the following:

• Seats: The seats are maybe the biggest improvement compared to regular Economy. Seats are 5 centimeters wider, they have 15 centimeters more leg room and the seat reclines 8 centimeters further. Also good to know, Air France has a ‘fixed shell’ seat in Premium Economy, which means that the seat moves within the shell, but the shell remains fixed. So when you recline your seat, the person behind you doesn’t get your seat smacked in their face.

• Baggage Allowance: We could check in 2 bags of 23 kilograms per person. A nice addition, but we didn’t need more luggage. Dragging four big bags across South Korea and Tokyo? No, thank you!

• Boarding: We were given priority boarding access, which meant skipping the dreaded queue during boarding. A nice benefit in our eyes.

• Check-in: We received priority access for check-in as well. In our case, there were designated desks for priority customers which significantly speeds up this time-consuming process.

• Food: Air France offers an appetizer similar to the business class menu, and the choice to choose between two different meals. We had more choices in alcoholic beverages during the flight.

• Entertainment: The options for In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) are the same as Economy, but the screen should be a bit bigger, expect 2-4 centimeters in diameter. We also got noise-cancelling headphones for the flight.

Increased Comfort, right?

To start, the seats would be the most important part of the upgrade. The seat has significantly more room than a regular seat, both in width and legroom. We were both able to stretch our legs fully when seated, which was amazing and definitely helped us sleep a bit better. However, the seats were not comfortable and felt pretty old. The airplane itself was also on the old side (17-year-old Boeing 777-300) so the seats were pretty worn down already.

For our seat selection, we chose the first row in Premium Economy, seats 14A & 14B. This means we had nobody in front of us, but also that we had the screen stowed away in our armrest. The screen was pretty bad since it didn't respond half of the time, it was bulky and it became pretty hot after some time.

‘Better’ Food and Champagne Service

We did not notice a significant change regarding the food service in Premium Economy. We received similar meals as the people in Economy would get. One advantage is that they serve champagne in Premium Economy, which we generously made use of, even though the flight was at 10 AM.

Did you spot Hannah’s inflight entertainment? If you know, you know.

Our Grumpy Flight Attendant

Alright, so the chairs aren’t state-of-the-art. And the food wasn’t all that. At least the service must’ve been great, right? Unfortunately, not in this case.

The cabin attendant wasn’t particularly eager to provide us with a nice "Premium Comfort" experience. Since we were flying with Air France, she primarily spoke French, and Hannah attempted to do the same. However, she displayed very little patience when things were not immediately clear to her. Given the considerable noise inside the plane and the need for a few seconds to remove earplugs or adjust personal belongings, one would expect some understanding. This was, however, not the case. We got several impatient sighs and annoyed responses even when we tried to stay friendly.

The situation becomes even more disappointing when you observe the same flight attendant laughing and engaging in friendly interactions with passengers around you. These were mostly in French, so perhaps the language barrier was the biggest thing. Nonetheless, Premium Economy or not, the level of service was below average.

Service quality can be crucial, especially on long flights. It's possible that we simply had some unfortunate encounters with this particular attendant. Let's hope that's the case!

Overall Thoughts

The experience was fun and slightly more comfortable, but not amazing. The legroom was nice, but the seats felt uncomfortable, the entertainment screen wasn’t working half of the time and the food wasn’t significantly better (except for the 10 AM champagne 😉). Although it did not feel like we got our money's worth, Mike still wants to try other Premium Economy products (especially KLM). We now realize that the experience greatly depends on the aircraft type and its age. Ours was old and had disappointing features, but new ones are supposed to be a lot nicer.

So, would we do it again?

Not with this aircraft and maybe not with Air France. But we’re curious to see what other airlines like Singapore Airlines, British Airways, or KLM offer their passengers. And we learned the importance of double-checking the aircraft type before booking any upgrades.

If you want to learn more about booking Premium Economy at KLM or Air France, read our small ‘travel tip’ article about it here!

Have you ever flown in Premium Economy class? Did you have a better experience? Or are you looking to upgrade to Premium Economy on your upcoming flights? Let us know in the comments!

Also for the people who’ve read the whole post, you deserve a sneak peak to one of our upcoming posts 👀. Remember how we said that we only upgraded to Premium Economy for one leg, and the return flight should’ve been Economy? We kinda hit the jackpot for our way home, and got one upgraded ticket to Business Class! We’ll tell you all about this adventure in the coming weeks, stay tuned!