My $6,400 FIRST CLASS 15 Hour Flight to South Africa on Delta… Is Delta One Worth It?

Delta is one of my favorite airlines. I've probably taken over 100 Delta flights at this point, but never in the coveted Delta One suites. If you're not familiar, Delta One is the highest tier Delta ticket you can get, and they can get pretty pricey. So I always wondered, is it really worth it? Well, I finally booked one, and now I'm gonna show you guys what it's like, how the food is, and if it's worth it. And stay tuned till the end, because I'm gonna go over how you can actually get these flights pretty much for free. And subscribe and give this video a like. Okay, now let's get into it. Let's start with the cost, because I actually paid for this one fully out of pocket, because I did not yet know the strategies that I'm gonna share with you at the end. This flight round trip was $6,146.35. And that was for 31 hours of travel round trip. So this ends up being $198 per hour. So yes, it's a lot. But for the amount of hours being flown, it was a better value than a lot of international flights I've looked at. I like to look for fun, and so often I see first class to Europe is like $10,000 for only a 10 hour flight. So I was actually surprised to see that this, a longer flight, was less expensive. But yeah, it's still crazy. However, there are ways that people are able to get these flights extremely discounted. So I'll talk about that later in the video. So the first class experience actually starts before you're on the plane at the airport. So when you fly first class internationally on Delta, it does come with complimentary lounge access for the day. This is really the only way you can get into a lounge without having the proper credit card. With the Delta flight, you get access to the Delta Sky Club. And these can be hit or miss, honestly, but there's a lot of new ones on the West Coast that are really nice. There's food, free drinks. I've done a full video review on airport lounges. So I'll link that below if you wanna check it out. But this is definitely worth noting. Before the flight, I actually took a shower and had some time to relax and get a little bit of work done, which was really great. Onto the actual seat. The best thing about these seats are, of course, that they fully recline into a bed. That's really what I'm paying for here, right? But I was surprised to find there was a lot of space on the side as well. There's a whole shelf I can put my camera on, headphones, a little goodie bag. So this was really nice because I felt like I could keep my bag with me without it interfering with my foot space. And it was way easier to access. To my right were all of the controls to make it into a bed. You can also change up the lighting. And there's also a remote for the entertainment screen. So here's a quick look at the whole thing. It really did feel very spacious and so much more private. Just settled onto the plane. First impression, this is insane. I have like a shelf for my camera to lay on and they just brought me some champagne. I couldn't believe it. So with this kind of flight, it's laid out so that you can have a window seat that's also an aisle seat. And this window seat is pretty awesome because you get two windows. The window seat is always a great call. Or if you are traveling with someone else, it's fun to take the middle seats actually because you have this little partition that you can open so you can hang out with whoever you're flying with or you can shut it if you want to sleep. So when you fly First Class International, they give you a little goodie bag of stuff. So let's see what we got in here. Nice. Okay, so we've got a pen, a toothbrush, a sleep mask, hand cream, and lip balm, and earplugs, which I use every night. So always down for more. Overall, the amenities kit is pretty good, but I think some airlines actually have better ones. And it's interesting to compare this to a Delta One flight that I took from Seattle to New York. The amenities kit in this one was a little bit different. It was the same products generally, but just different brands. So it might be different depending on where you're flying. Some other things you get are this bag that has a pillow and a blanket. They offer you champagne as you board, and you get some really nice over-the-ear headphones. And the sound quality is actually so good. Unlike the normal earbuds that you get on a flight, those are not that great. The seatbelt is also different in these seats. It is more like a car seatbelt with the shoulder strap. It wasn't uncomfortable or anything, and you do keep it on when you sleep. This being such a big plane, the boarding process starts a full hour before you take off. But this seat is so comfortable, I did not mind at all. Once in the air, they brought by these pre-packaged hand towels by Grown Alchemist. Not as luxurious, I suppose, as a warm hand towel like a lot of flights do, but still nice. So after boarding the plane, they actually brought this little snack with a glass of wine. It's basically a cup with some cheese in it and some nuts. It was actually really good. I was not expecting that. And then soon after was the dinner service. You have a choice of about five different things, and you can pick a few days before what you actually want to guarantee that you're gonna have it on your flight. So I went with the chicken leg quarters. I feel like on camera, it doesn't look that appetizing, but it actually was very flavorful. It really was delicious. I think it just doesn't look that good because of this lighting. And I mean, it's still an airplane, so this is food that's being heated up. It's not being cooked on site, right? But they really were sure to make sure that it tasted good. I really liked it. I also had a soup, a side salad, and a little roll. Overall, this dinner was really good for an airplane. I was impressed. Delicious, I love that. And then they brought around a dessert. So I chose the ice cream sundae. It occurred to me I've never had ice cream on a plane before. Like, how crazy is that? So that was delicious. So in the middle of the night, there is another meal service, but I slept through it as did pretty much everyone else. They did give me the option for it, but I honestly didn't even want it because I just wanted to sleep. In the morning, we had breakfast and I had some orange juice. They were offering mimosas, coffee, everything. And I had this frittata with potatoes. There was a bagel and some fruit. The frittata, I would say, is a little rubbery. Definitely not as good as the dinner, in my opinion, but still good enough, you know, for an airplane. I still ate it and thought it was pretty tasty, but you know, it's an airplane, so it's like, the texture sometimes, I think, gets a little bit weird. The food on my flight home was a little bit different. For dinner, it was chicken, again, that I picked. There was more options than this, but it looked really good. It had risotto, a creamy soup, and salad. And this was really good, too. I liked both the dinner dishes a lot. I thought they were just so flavorful. Like, you wouldn't expect it for an airplane. They don't come off at that photogenic, but it was delicious. But once again, the breakfast was a miss for me. It was another frittata. I don't know, I mean, I feel weird criticizing this at all because it's such a luxurious thing to have even this kind of food on a plane. I want to be honest that it wasn't really that good. The frittata wasn't doing it for me, and the croissant was, like, pretty stale, if I'm being honest here. I still ate it, though. I have, in fact, had better breakfast on other Delta flights. I took this Delta flight to New York, and they gave me the most delicious pancakes, fresh fruit on them. It was so good. I would have preferred this. I think the eggs just get weird in the air for whatever reason. Maybe it's just me, but that is my honest review on that. Okay, now let's talk about sleeping on the flight because that is really the whole point of paying this much for a seat. Am I right? To start getting ready to go to sleep is a lot easier because First Class has its own bathroom. So there's a lot less people using it. Here's a look at what it was like. It's got some mood lighting. It actually does have nicer soap and lotion than the other bathroom, and it's just nice to not feel rushed or like you have to time when you're gonna go brush your teeth. Anytime I wanted to use the bathroom, it was available, and that was nice. So the seat does lay completely flat. You have a pillow and a blanket, but you don't have a mattress topper or anything like that. I know some other airlines now provide either a sheet or an actual little mattress topper, so it does feel more like a bed, not just an airplane seat. But there wasn't anything like that on my Delta flight. It is still an airplane seat texture. It's not like it's a mattress. Sometimes I see photos of these like Emirates flights, and it literally looks like a mattress. It is still almost like sleeping on a couch. It is similar to that, which when you're in the sky is a luxury. I know even American Airlines just introduced a Casper mattress topper, so gives Delta some competition. But I still did sleep decently well. I didn't sleep for that long, maybe like five hours, just because of the timing of the flight was a little bit weird. But it did make a huge difference when I landed. I didn't have that fatigue from a long flight. So was it worth it? Yes, because this to me was like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It really made me look forward to the flight. I was more well-rested on the trip, and it was just an incredible experience. But I would not pay for this again, because I know how to actually get it way cheaper. I actually just booked a flight to and from Europe for only $300. First class, lie flat seat, everything. So I'll explain to you guys how to do this, because normally when you Google first-class international flights, it's gonna be anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000. So the way you're able to do this is by using credit card points in conjunction with very specific flights. So let's go into more detail, because this doesn't work on just any flights or with any credit card. So the first step in doing this is you do have to get a lot of credit card points. But this is pretty easy to do with a sign-up offer from a credit card. Realistically, you're gonna need at least around 100,000 points for this to work. But let me show you how really anyone can do this. So the type of credit card you need is a bank-branded card like Chase or Amex. You don't wanna use an airline-branded card for this. The reason you want these cards specifically is because you can redeem the points for a number of different airlines. This is a key part of it, and you'll see why later. Each of these cards has a different annual fee and a different amount of bonus points that you can earn when you spend a certain amount after opening the card. Right now, you can get 90,000 points with Chase Inc., 60,000 with the Chase Sapphire Preferred, and 80,000 with Amex Platinum. Keep in mind, you do have to spend a certain amount with the card in the first few months of opening it in order to get the bonus, and I'll go over that later. So say you open both of these cards, that could get you 150,000 points if you were to open it today. The bonus amounts are always changing. In fact, the Chase Inc. one is actually changing in a week. So I'm gonna be getting that ASAP. So now 150,000 points, this is something we can work with. But you still have to be strategic on which one because if you just go to book any flight to, say, Europe, most of them are gonna be 500,000 points. So let's talk about how to find those deals. So often these deals are found by redeeming points for one airline, let's say Virgin Atlantic, but using the points to book a flight that's operated by a different airline. This is why you want the bank-branded credit cards because you can redeem the points for a number of different airlines. That same flight, if you had booked it directly on Delta's website, would have been hundreds of thousands of sky miles. So for whatever reason, it's a better deal if you redeem it through the Virgin Atlantic points. And with both the Chase and the Amex points system, you can redeem it for a number of different airlines, including Virgin Atlantic. So it's a better value for your points to redeem it this way. So this is one example of one of these crazy flight deals, and this one doesn't exist anymore, it got sold out. But I'll show you guys one that I actually was able to get. It wasn't as good as that one, but it's still pretty good. And here are a few other ones people have gotten that are really great deals. It's always kind of changing based on availability. Sometimes there are deals within one airline and you don't have to transfer it around. I just booked a flight basically from Seattle to London, and I got it for under 200,000 points round trip, which is not typical. It's usually much more than that. First thing, I looked for a flight within the window that I was going. So we're doing the 25th to the 6th is what I did. I'm gonna check my dates are flexible and I'm gonna do advanced search for Delta One. So we can see in US dollars, these flights are almost $5,000. So we're gonna transfer that to miles. And now on the price calendar, it's showing 195,000 miles. That is a really good price for that flight. You can see you can even get it for 180,000 miles, round trip, first class. And then you just pay the taxes and fees, which are $319 on this specific flight. Most of the time I look a Delta One flight to Europe is over 300,000 sky miles. So getting it for 180,000 is equivalent to $2,700, which is significantly less than the dollar cost for this flight. So I think this is a really good redemption of miles. And there are even better redemptions that are possible to get. I always see these bloggers posting them, but so often they aren't available anymore. So I wanted to show one that I was actually able to get, like what is actually possible. Basically, once you have a really solid number of points, you can just Google what points redemption deals are available at that time, because they are often selling out and changing. So I wouldn't even really look at that until you have the points. But yeah, that is basically how you can fly first class internationally for a significantly lower cost. I mean, $300 is what I got it for, which is really good. But I'll explain a little bit more about these credit cards I mentioned, because there are some things to note with each one. A good one for a lot of people is the Chase Preferred. So this card only has a $95 annual fee, so you're not spending a lot for it. And with this, the signup bonus is usually around 60,000 points. With the Chase Sapphire Preferred, you have to spend $4,000 in the first three months. So you wanna make sure that you're opening this card when you're already planning on spending $4,000 in the next three months on it. This card also comes with a $50 hotel credit, and you get additional miles on travel, dining, et cetera. Overall, it's a good card to get the bonus points without having to pay a really high annual fee. Another card that a lot of people love is the Amex Platinum. Now this does have a high annual fee, it's $695, but you get airport lounge access. This card also comes with a bunch of other credits, like a hotel credit, Uber credit, Walmart credit. So if you're planning on using the stuff anyway, that could make it more worth it for you. And with this card, you have to spend $6,000 in the first six months to get the points. And the last two are really amazing if you have a business. If you have a business, you can open the Chase Ink Unlimited card, or the Chase Ink Cash. This card is gonna get you 90,000 points if you spend $6,000 within the first three months. And the amazing thing about this card is that there is no annual fee. And you do get cash back when you make purchases with this card, so that's always great too. But the no annual fee is just, it's amazing. Okay guys, so those are a few credit cards that you can utilize to do this. But little credit card talk, you might not need it. But always, if you have a credit card, make sure to pay off your monthly balance. You don't wanna get hit with fees. That would defeat the purpose of this whole thing. If you know that you're not great with your money and credit cards make you nervous, maybe don't do this. But if you are good with your money and you wanna be diligent and get some good deals on flights, it is possible. I did in fact book that one to London, and I am so excited for it. So this video was a ton of research. I hope that you guys enjoyed it. If you did get some value out of it and you wanna learn more about these cards, this video is not sponsored, but I will use affiliate links of these credit cards. So it does support my channel if you use that link. You can learn more about them below. I'll have links to all the ones that I talked about and a few more different ones. But I think the ones I talked about are really the best if you're looking to do this kind of thing. You can still get the same bonuses, but if you're watching this a year later, they might be a little bit different. If you want more videos like this, be sure to subscribe because I will be posting another flight review when I take this flight back from London that's operated by Virgin. So look out for that. Give it a thumbs up if you got some value out of this, and I will see you guys in my next video. Bye.