travel tips
Written By stray sleep eat
When you’re planning a long-haul trip, the details of the flight can be critical in ensuring that you’re as well-rested as possible once you get to the destination. It can cost a decent chunk of change to upgrade, so if you’re anything like me, you want as much info as you can before you pull the trigger. That’s where this blog post comes in! Here’s a detailed look at my 14+ hour flight from ATL to JNB on Premium Select (September 2023), which I hope you can use to gauge what to expect and help make a decision on whether or not it’s right for you.
Before the flight
Travelers ticketed for Premium Select are automatically upgraded to Sky Priority status, which means you can use the “special” counter with accelerated ticketing and baggage check-in. Once boarding starts, you’ll also be in the first group invited to get on the plane.
FYI: If your travel plans require a connection aboard a smaller plane before or after the main flight, you’ll be seated in Comfort+ for those in-between legs. For example, we flew from MSP to ATL first, and as Comfort+ is the equivalent to Premium Select on short-distance flights, that’s where we were seated.
In the sky
The flashiest part of a Delta upgrade is probably the freebie amenities that greet you when you get to your seat. Delta seems to change up their vendor partnerships fairly regularly, but during our flight, our amenity kits were branded by Someone Somewhere and Grown Alchemist. These included a handmade pouch, an eye mask, earplugs, a bamboo toothbrush & toothpaste, Delta-branded socks, and lip balm.
Each seat is also supplied with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones that you can use during your flight, a pair of slippers, and a pretty decent memory foam pillow and blanket.
Now, let’s talk about your me-space. Premium Select seats have guaranteed overhead bin space, so you don’t have to panic about getting to your seat and being separated from your bag. The seats are wider and offer deeper recline, and there’s a nice footrest that you can pull out to make it feel closer to laying down. Naturally, this also means you have a little more legroom than you would in economy (and it also means you don’t really have to worry about the person in front of you invading your space with their seat or your tray table.
As far as entertainment goes, you’ll have the usual selection of movies, TV, music, and games that you’re used to in economy, but Premium Select seats offer a much larger screen to watch them from (think full-size tablet). There’s also a remote which you can pull out from the arm rest, though the TV screen still has touchscreen capabilities so I’m not sure what the point really is. The window itself is much larger, too…and I’m going to group that into entertainment because some of us like to stare out at the scenery the whole time instead of watching movies 😂
Finally, eating is my favorite, so we can’t forget about the food. There’s a printed menu that you’ll receive informing you of the meals that will be served during the flight, which feels fancy and special at first, but it seems that these meal options are the same as the ones in economy (which means they’re not exceptionally tasty). With every meal, they do a silly thing where they set up a “tablecloth” for you every time you dine, which is essentially just a cloth napkin laid over your tray table. I guess the concept is cute, but I kind of feel bad for the flight attendants who have to take this extra step.
Flights originating from Atlanta seem to support local businesses, as we saw an Atlanta-area BBQ place’s dish on the menu, and we also received savory biscuits by Cooper’s Gourmet—a Georgian business—along with our premium “sparkling wine or water” snack course. Not sure if that’s true of all US locations!
In conclusion…
You’re not going to see a whole lot of difference between meal quality or entertainment between economy and Premium Select so if you’re looking for a 5-star hotel experience, you’re going to have to shell out more cash and go for first class.
However, for flights over 10 hours, I’d personally say that Premium Select is worth the upgrade just for the additional leg room/seat recline…if the upgrade is under $1000. For me, it really made a big difference in the quality of sleep I was getting, which was my #1 priority.
stray sleep eat
