I am going against the grain here and telling you that price alone should dictate whether to upgrade from Delta’s main cabin to Delta Premium Select class on international flights.
If it is more than $500 more, I would say it’s not worth it.
Upgrade to Comfort Plus instead if available.
Here’s the reasoning:
Most people don’t know it, but Delta international flights do not have first class, per se. It has Delta One, which of course you would think is first class because of the “One,” but no, it’s business class. That’s the one with lie-flat seats, its own cabin, own bathrooms, own boarding and pampering.
Because most people think Delta One is first class, they go for Delta Premium Select seats, which they think is business class. Wrong! It is basically just an upgraded version of Comfort Plus with slightly bigger seats, real silverware and better headphones.
Worth it? I just flew Premium Select both ways between Detroit and Amsterdam. The seat is wider and reclines, but it is not anywhere near flat. The footrest barely works and is extremely awkward. There is no dedicated bathroom, so you are lining up way back in the main cabin with the masses. The food is ok, but nothing to pay $1,500 extra for. The under-seat storage is miniscule. In other words, if you are paying for Premium Select because you think you will sleep better or are getting the luxury treatment, think again.
Premium Select is the purgatory of airline seats – neither heaven nor hell. But its premium price is steep.
A typical fare for a Detroit-Amsterdam round-trip flight in January 2025, non-stop on Delta, shows the cost of the upgrade:
Main cabin: $1,119
Comfort Plus: $1,319
Premium Select: $2,633
Delta One (Business Class): $4,609.
That means that Premium Select is essentially double the Comfort Plus fare. But you do not get double the benefits.
Some reviewers have said they can sleep with the extra angled seat and the little footrest in Premium Select. They love the squishy pillow, larger entertainment screen, nice headphones and the toothbrush kit. If that is you, go for it.
But is it worth $1,500 more than flying main cabin? Not to me. Maybe I will fly economy instead a few times, then splurge on Delta One someday.
The equivalent to Delta One on other airlines varies by name. Some airlines still call it business class. Some have other cute names. But a true business class seat on an international airline should have a “flat bed” or “lie flat” seat. That’s the key.
Thinking of Lahaina, Maui today. This photo I shot for the Detroit Free Press in 2015 shows how green the hills of west Maui were and how green Lahaina was. I also reported from charming Lahaina in 2005 and remember rain showers passing by each afternoon. Hard to believe what’s happened.
The Viking Polaris, the cruise ship damaged by a rogue wave near Antarctica last week, is the same ship Viking also uses on its Great Lakes cruises in Michigan.
Polaris and its sister ship, Octantis, just entered service this year. During the winter they sail in Antarctica. But during the summer they sail on the new Viking routes that stop at various ports in the Great Lakes, including Detroit, Alpena, Mackinac Island, the Soo, plus spots like Georgian Bay and Toronto, Ont., and Duluth, Minn.
Viking built these specific ships just for these Great Lakes markets, plus Antarctica. They hold 378 passengers and are just 665 feet long. Yet they are built very strongly as “Polar Class” vessels.
Given that, it is puzzling how a rogue wave could crash right through the thick glass of several stateroom windows as if they were flimsy plastic. Flying glass killed one woman, and four others were injured.
From accounts now coming in, Polaris had made it all the way across Drake Passage, one of the most dangerous waterways in the world, to Damoy Point in Antarctica. The day before the rogue wave hit, another accident occurred. Some kind of explosion on a penguin-watching Zodiac vessel threw passengers into the air, threw one man briefly overboard, and another woman broke her leg, according to eyewitnesses Kansas couple endure explosion, deadly rogue wave on Antarctic trip (usatoday.com).
Polaris at that point canceled the rest of the Antarctica trip and headed back toward Cape Horn, Chile. But then, the notoriously turbulent waters of the Drake Passage, with gale force winds and heavy waves, swirled into a giant rogue wave that bashed the side of the ship and blew out those windows. It killed a woman in her stateroom and injured others. The ship eventually limped into Cape Horn.
But in the meantime, there will be questions about these vessels and the decisions made by Viking. Cruising the Drake Passage to Antarctica leaves very little room for error. It is not Lake Erie.
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Time to End the Spirit Airlines Experiment?
Spirit Airlines began as a small charter airline company out of East Detroit, Michigan. Later, it got too big for its britches, moved to Fort Lauderdale and adopted a lowest-common-denominator business model in which passengers sacrificed dignity and reliability in exchange for cheapskate prices.
The model worked fine, except when it didn’t. Then, regularly over the years, we would see sad passengers left in the lurch, complaining about Spirit’s terrible customer service. And Spirit would say, hey, remember? You wanted a flight for $89 and this is what you get.
Spirit is on the verge of selling itself to Frontier Airlines now, another airline that is less sketchy but of the same mindset — ala carte everything. The problem now is that due to labor shortages, the ravages of the pandemic and high fuel prices, two things are happening, neither good.
First of all, other airlines aren’t doing so hot with reliability anymore. Delta, Southwest, American and United all have experienced staff shortages, planes out of position, hours-long delays and worst of all, over-promising and under-delivering. Greedy for profitability again — and who can blame them? — airlines are taking any and all reservations, even if they don’t have the staff and equipment to provide the service. It’s like taking 100 dinner reservations at your restaurant when you only have 80 tables. It’s not gonna turn out well.
The second trend is the effect of high fuel prices at a time of high travel demand. These factors are so high that even cheapo airlines Spirit and Frontier have had to raise fares, so by the time you pay for a bag and a seat, their heavily advertised “cheap” fares are not. So now you have the situation where people are paying an arm and a leg for a ticket but still getting bare-bones service.
A lot of people over the years have asked me if they should fly Spirit. My answers have been basically no, no and no. However, today the reliability of the other airlines has declined so much that perhaps, hey, it doesn’t matter. Perhaps this spring, Spirit is no worse than Delta, Soutwest, American or United in reliability and a tiny bit better on price. Want to gamble? Your call. You never know which airline will run smoothly the day you fly.
At any rate, Spirit likely will be swallowed up soon by Frontier, and then, that experiment will end — and a new one will begin.
OK, so everyone is getting back to travel. That is great. A few tips:
Don’t be the first person on the cruise ship. Royal Caribbean, and perhaps other lines, now say vaccines not necessary. Covid cases are sure to follow onboard.
Book your rental car in advance or extremely far in advance. You always can cancel or update. Prices are fairly high now but keep checking closer to the date of travel. I see prices coming down by summer’s end.
Ditto for hotels. Book rooms you can cancel. If something cheaper comes up down the road or you have an issue, you can escape the reservation. Also, it is preferable to book directly with the hotel online.
Don’t worry too much about gas prices. They always, always, start falling after Memorial Day and I see that already. After July 4, they will slide more.
International travel? Adventuresome folks are booking and traveling now. I’d wait just a few months more to let things shake out before heading abroad. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start looking at catalogs and fabulous online trip planning sites.
That’s it. Have fun. Enjoy yourself. We all deserve it.
I want to give you positive travel news, but it is getting harder to paint Pandemic Year 2 in a much cheerier light than Pandemic Year 1. Until most of us are vaccinated, travel remains quite risky. I know you don’t want to hear this. We yearn for fresh sights and new faces and places. I get it. So here is my two-cent risk assessment.
Cruises. Yes, some lines are planning to restart routes in May. All passengers must show proof of vaccination, those little cardboard cards, which honestly seem extremely easy to forge. I understand the imperative for cruise lines to set sail once again, but still…let’s say 95% of vaccinated passengers are indeed protected from Covid-19 on a 3,500-passenger ship. That means a sailing still could have that other 5% (175 people) come down with mild cases circulating aboard. Risk assessment: Pass on cruises that sail in spring or summer 2021 until we know more. Pitfalls abound.
Flying. As of May 1, airlines are throwing caution to the wind, and even Delta, the most cautious airline, will be packing their middle seats and returning to full loads. Again, it is totally understandable. You can’t limp along forever. Business must recover. Still, flying may become riskier in the next three months than it is now. Risk assessment: If you have been vaccinated and must fly, go ahead.
Train. Speaking of limping along, Amtrak last year slashed the number of trains on routes, and that is still the case. For instance, in May, Amtrak lists only one train per day from Detroit to Chicago on the Wolverine line. That is down from three in pre-Covid days. Risk assessment: Vaccinated people should be fine, because the cars are so old that fresh air does circulate. Plus Amtrak is still blocking many seats.
Driving. In the past year, this has been the only travel that seems safe to most people, so look for more and more travelers hitting the road. I drove from Michigan to Tampa in January. It felt safe. Risk assessment: Fine, especially for vaccinated people. The hardest part of a road trip is finding a safe place to eat on your journey. It may be another summer of camping and campers and bring-your-own food.
Throughout the pandemic, I have been asked continually about whether it is safe to plan a trip. A real trip. A trip that might take you abroad. Or on a cruise. Or to a crowded city. A trip that has been off-limits in the past year.
I do think we are starting to see glimmers of hope, but it is not for spring or summer travel. Not yet.
However, I am starting to think about planning a trip to Egypt for February 2022, a year from now.
I would think about planning a warm weather trip for next winter.
And I would definitely think about trips in 2023.
And here is something you can do right now: dream. A lot has been taken away from us during this pandemic, but last time I looked, it was still safe to dream about trips you want to take someday. Go onto travel sites or look at catalogs. Viking Cruises already is advertising 2022 and 2023 trips. That is smart. Other travel providers also are hustling to get long-range trip options ready.
It does not hurt to put a refundable down-payment now on a trip or vacation rental for next fall or winter. But make sure it is a real refund option, not just a credit.
Avoid paying for any non-refundable trip yet. Wait until maybe summer – when we know for sure if the pandemic is receding — to lock yourself into a trip for early 2022.
As for airline tickets, think about booking fall airline tickets around May or June, if they can be exchanged without penalty. As things get back to normal later this year, keep a close eye on fare rules, because as demand rises, airlines will tighten up on their flexibility.
International travel? Take heart. Globetrotting will not be off limits forever. No one knows when international borders will reopen to Europe, Asia or even Canada. But the moment those borders open, you can bet there will be pent-up demand for travel. So you want to be monitoring your destination closely.
Going forward, travelers will want to find that window to travel where a) it is safe; b) fares and trip costs still are discounted, and c) not everybody in the world is traveling yet. That will be a bit tricky, but if you have a destination in mind, start following the news there. Keep tabs on the costs and restrictions. And when the time is right, go for it. You will not be trapped at home forever.
Surveys show people are restless to travel but are frightened of going anywhere.
So I wonder: what is going to happen over the upcoming holidays? Nobody is sure.
This yearning to see family and friends is getting more powerful. But so is the virus. Push. Pull. Ying. Yang. Go. Don’t go. It reminds me of the old poem my mother used to recite: “Mother may I go down to swim?/Yes my darling daughter/ Hang your clothes by a hickory limb/ But don’t’ go near the water.”
I still do not recommend flying unless you are under age 40. It is not the airplane. It is the terminal, the gate, the security lines and crowded boarding process that concern me. Cruises? Don’t book anything yet for next year even if it looks enticing and cheap. But hotels are ok. Driving is ok. Meeting up for a giant Thanksgiving dinner indoors is not ok. But I have a friend whose family plans to cook Thanksgiving Dinner, each person one dish, and then meet in a parking lot and exchange the food so all can have a complete dinner. Clever.
Another way to feel more confident if you are traveling is to take a Covid-19 test before you go. It is a layer of care that will be appreciated by others, even though it is not foolproof.
The prospect of a bleak holiday season is sad. But hosting just one or two visitors, or meeting outside, or having open windows in your dining room, or staggering get-togethers so they are small – all could work.
Buck up, do what you can this year, and look forward to better travel days in 2021.
Traveling in Michigan? Hotels, attractions and driving are the easy part. The hard part is dining.
This week my husband and I did a five-day driving trip and spent time in Gaylord, Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island, Petoskey, Charlevoix and Traverse City. We stayed on Mackinac, took the ferry, hiked at Sleeping Bear Dunes, and strolled the streets of Charlevoix and the paths of Hartwick Pines’ old growth forest. It was my first trip up north since March. It was our first vacation since February. It was glorious and wonderful.
Yes, it was a bit tiring to constantly have to remember to put our masks on, then off, then on, then off. But it was a small price to pay for the freedom to travel our beautiful state.
Although indoor dining and air travel are two things I still don’t feel ready for, I still felt confident on this trip. Staying at hotels, I felt safe. Rest stops along the freeway were clean and open. The ferry to Mackinac was fine. Riding bikes on the island was freeing and splendid.
The only bad experience we had was at Friske Farm Market on US 31 in Ellsworth, where we stopped for apples. We did not know it, but they are embroiled in a big legal fight with the state over mask wearing. The cashier and many customers wore no masks in the crowded store. We hurriedly left.
Other than that, everyone the entire five days was considerate, kind, thoughtful and respectful to one another.
So I’m going to make a few suggestions here. If you want to go on a trip, do it.
The mighty Mackinac Bridge. PHOTO BY ELLEN CREAGER
Hotels: They are functioning at probably about 20-30%, which is reassuring. We stayed at 4 hotels, a different one each night, and never felt unsafe. We brought our own pillows, used the readily available hand sanitizer and brought Clorox wipes to skim the light switches and door handles in our room, even though the rooms were all spotlessly clean. Housekeeping will not clean a room until after you check out, so you need to make your own bed and hang up your towels. Pools and hot tubs were open at 3 of the 4 hotels, and when we saw no one at the pool, we swam. One more thing: there are no amenities in hotel rooms right now except soap and shampoo, so bring paper, pen, cream and other necessities.
On the road: We felt completely safe on I-75 and side roads, at gas stations and at roadside parks and rest stops. Because most fast food restaurants are open only for drive-through, make pit stops at rest stops instead. This may be an issue for people who have to go to the bathroom a lot.
The Mackinac Island ferry: The issue was not with safety. We felt safe on the boat because we sat outside. All wore the required masks. But I do think there was an issue with staffing – a lot of folks this year are still going to Mackinac Island even in September, and the ferry was late both ways. That’s unusual.
Passengers boarding the ferry in Mackinaw City, wearing masks. PHOTO BY ELLEN CREAGER
Mackinac Island: If you rent bicycles, rest assured they are sanitized. Downtown sidewalks were a bit crowded, but most people wore masks. Even some of the horse taxi drivers were masked. Beyond the main drag, you have plenty of space to spread out. We hiked above the town, went to the Grand Hotel to absorb its reassuringly stable aura, and rode our bikes around the 8-mile perimeter road. That road was closed most of the summer due to high water and road damage, but it’s now reopened, with a gravel surface in some spots. The water is still high. By the way, you know all those cairns (stacked stones) visitors have been erecting along the shoreline for years? Gone. All gone. Swept away by Lake Huron.
The park below Fort Mackinac, Mackinac Island, Michigan, a good place for an al fresco and safe social distance lunch. PHOTO BY ELLEN CREAGER
Sleeping Bear Dunes: This fall, Pierce Stocking Drive is being upgraded and is completely closed. That is bad for visitors, because that is the driving route that puts you right at the dunes. Instead, we hiked the one-mile Empire Bluffs trail for its view of Sleeping Bear. The trail is suitable only for fit folks, which means people who use wheelchairs or are slow walkers are out of luck right now.
Now to the tough part. Dining. We don’t feel comfortable eating inside of restaurants, so we tried hard to find outdoor dining for dinner. It was not easy, especially when the temperature was only in the 50s.
We brought granola bars, a bottle of wine and two glasses, a tablecloth, silverware, paper plates and cups, just in case we needed them. We did, because our meal experiences were a little sub par.
Breakfast: The Fairfield Inn in Gaylord normally has a free breakfast buffet. Now, they simply put out brown paper bags with cold egg muffins or bagels inside. They do pour coffee for you. The Lake View Hotel on Mackinac similarly had to abandon its buffet due to the coronavirus. Instead, it left a bag outside our room with rubbery hard boiled eggs and a pastry. Two Courtyard by Marriot hotels we stayed in in Petoskey and Traverse City sold a limited breakfast in the lobby, but at least the coffee was hot and they had real cream.
Strange breakfast at our Mackinac Island hotel. PHOTO BY ELLEN CREAGER
Lunch: On Mackinac Island, many people did eat inside restaurants. Not for us. We twice got sandwiches from the case at the local market and ate them al fresco at a picnic table below Fort Mackinac. One day we ate outside at a small restaurant in Traverse City, which had two tables on the sidewalk. We also went through the McDonalds drive-through in Holly, then ate the food at a table at a rest stop off of I-75. Not ideal, but OK.
Dinner: It was hard, because part of the fun of travel is dining out. The destinations we visited had very limited outdoor dining, plus it was cold. In Gaylord we ordered carryout from Gobblers and ate our turkey dinners at a back table inside the empty lobby of our hotel. On Mackinac Island, we ate a nice dinner outside at Gatehouse Restaurant, the only actual “dinner out” we had. In Traverse City, we got Mexican carryout and ate in the hotel lobby again. The upside: our meal costs were really low.
All in all, we found everyone in Michigan’s hospitality industry trying their hardest to give people a good time while complying with the harsh regulations Covd-19 has imposed. We were impressed with the kindness and good spirits of almost everyone we met. And we were pleased most of all that our state’s enduring fall beauty worked as a balm for our tired souls, allowing us to return home to survive whatever crazy thing comes next.
Ellen Creager and husband Christopher Mengel on the ferry, leaving Mackinac Island, pandemic style. PHOTO BY ELLEN CREAGER
Six months into the pandemic, it is clear that most things that make life worthwhile are not functioning well or at all. Travel is one of those things. How quaint it seems now to plan an exotic trip abroad or even to Ohio! I am going camping tomorrow, and luckily that is one activity that still seems like it will feel normal, at least for a couple days.
So many things that are critical for human beings’ happiness seem distant dreams just now. I hope you find something to do and somewhere to go that makes you content until this is all over. Take care.
