Bookingīusiness-class award space for China Eastern is generally very easy to come by, and we had no problem booking a one-way award for 85,000 Delta SkyMiles (transferred 1:1 from American Express Membership Rewards) and $289 in taxes, which we paid for with the Platinum Card® from American Express. My experience made two things abundantly clear: The airline has made a serious effort to improve its onboard product (and there was no smoking on this flight!), but it has a long way to go if it ever hopes to compete with five-star Asian airlines like EVA Air or ANA. A number of factors combined to create this reputation, including inedible food, apathetic and indifferent service, and the more-than-occasional bout of pilots and crew smoking on board.Įxactly seven months to the day after moving to Shanghai, I got the chance to fly China Eastern's business class on one of its longest and most prominent routes to New York-JFK. It wasn't that long ago that China Eastern was on the short list of major airlines to avoid at all possible costs. Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available.
