Well that was a pleasant suprise!

Tuesday was a travel day. We were going from the city of Xi'an to the city of Zhangjiajie. The original plan was trying to travel between locations using China's efficient high speed train network, but when I went to book it, the route was a bit complicated and I found out that China Eastern Airlines does a direct flight.

So I booked us on the hour and a half domestic flight from Xi'an to Zhangjiajie.

But the flight didn't depart until around 8:00pm, so we had all day to relax. We had a late breakfast at the hotel, and relaxed in the room for a while. Then we headed over to a shopping mall across the street to find some lunch and some snacks before returning to the hotel to pick up our bags. 

Shopping mall lunch in China. 16.9 yuan ($3.55 CAD, $2.50 USD) each.

Then we took two metro (subway) lines to get to Xi'an International Airport. Cost for the 25 km trip was 7 yuan ($1.50 CAD, $1 USD) each.

Xi'an Airport.

At the airport, we found the check in desks for China Eastern. We were quite early... it was only 3:45pm and our flight didn't leave until 8:20pm. But we figured that if we could check in and get rid of our bags, then we could waste a couple of hours using two of our lounge passes.

I had tried to check in online, but the system wouldn't let me. And the check in desks at the airport were all self serve, but there was someone there to help you. She scanned our passports, but then canceled the check in, saying "Your seats have already been assigned in business class, so you have to go to business class check in".

Huh? I didn't book business class seats. Certainly not at the $157 CAD ($110 USD) each we had paid. And I hadn't even booked extra legroom seats because it's only an hour and a half flight. But we sure as heck weren't going to question her! 

So off to business class check-in we go!

Sure enough, we were issued business class boarding passes!

And the check-in lady put two special stickers on our passes saying which lounge we were to go to. So now, we didn't have to use our lounge passes, and we got to stay as long as we wanted rather than the time being limited which is normal with our passes.

I've said it before... the VIP lounge at the airport is a great way to waste time before your flight!

Our plane, ready for boarding.

Boarding happened right at 7:45pm and we were sat in our first class seats. There were only 8 seats for first class, but economy seemed quite full, so we're thinking maybe they oversold economy and put us in two of the empty first class seats. We'll take it!

It wouldn't be hard to get used to this!

The flight attendant came and told us that the flight would be an hour and twenty five minutes. I asked her to tell the captain to fly slowly so we could enjoy the comfortable seats for longer!

But, an hour and a half flight goes by quite quickly, and we were soon on the ground. We were in the very front row, so first ones off the plane where we (and one other guy who had been in first class) were directed to a fancy private shuttle bus that whisked us to the terminal while the economy people were left to crowd onto one of those buses where 90% of them have to stand. 

Our bags had been tagged with "Priority" stickers, so they came out near the front. All in all a great free business class experience. Now if only that would happen to us when we're on a 12 hour flight!

We took a Didi taxi to our guest house. We were only there for one night so didn't book anything fancy.

Not bad for 134 yuan ($28 CAD, $19.70) for the night with breakfast included.

Straight to bed because we wanted a fairly early start for our day on Tianmen Mountain!

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