Delta Coach Review: New York to Venice [JFK to VCE]

Our latest trip took us to Italy, where we saw Venice, Florence, and Rome. I booked this as an open-jaw ticket (flew into one airport and departed from another), but the itinerary wasn’t too complicated. The first review in my upcoming articles is the Delta coach review from New York to Venice.

Delta Coach Review: New York to Venice [JFK to VCE]

Booking:

As I have mentioned in previous post, my goal from Bangor is to fly to New York, either JFK or LGA. This is mostly due to the cost of 15,000 Delta miles round trip per person. Once we are in New York, it opens the world to us, with many more options than in Bangor. This strategy works well for me and I’ll keep using it as long as it benefits us.

The flights from Bangor to JFK, cost a total of 30,000 + $22.40, which I used my American Express Business Platinum. I had airline credit remaining, so this cost me $22.40 total (because I paid for that airline credit).

I was able to utilize my American  Express Business Platinum 50% rebate benefit for our trip. Since Delta is my selected airline, this made my choice a little easier. I booked this ticket from JFK to VCE and the return flight was FCO to JFK. The ticket price for this itinerary was $1,176.12, or 117,612 Membership Reward points. Around 10 weeks after I booked this trip, I received my 50% rebate of 58,806 Membership Reward points.

The total cost for my flights were 30,000 Delta miles and 58,806 Membership Reward points, plus $22.40 for my taxes to fly into JFK. Since the Membership Rewards paid for our tickets to Venice, we didn’t have any out of pocket expense for those tickets.

I did earn 1,185 Skymiles for my flight to Venice (as did Kristin). I sure love earning miles based on ticket prices vs miles flown…

Boarding:

Having the Delta Platinum American Express credit card gives us Zone 1 boarding. Delta has always ran a pretty smooth operation for us when it comes to boarding.

We left the Wingtip lounge about 20 minutes before we were scheduled to board our flight. Once we reached our gate, we sat for about 5 minutes until we were asked to stand in line from the Delta agents.

Boarding was quite quick as they had Zone 2 and 3 on one side and everyone else on the other.

Seats:

We were seated in seats 34A and 34B on a Boeing 767-400.

I have flown coach plenty of times and for the most part they are all pretty similar. There was something about my seat that was just really bad. I couldn’t get comfortable for most of the flight. It had to be one of the more uncomfortable seats I have sat in to date.

The recline on the seat was fine, but the seat itself was very uncomfortable.

Back when I reviewed my flights to Barcelona, one of my largest complaints was the lack of a foot rest while flying coach. I decided to purchase a foot rest device from Amazon to see if that made the flight any better.

After using the foot hammock. I can definitely say it was worth the $8 on Amazon. It solves one of the complaints I have flying coach.

In-Flight Entertainment:

The in-flight entertainment screen was quite small and outdated. Not to mention there were no power outlets anywhere to be found.

I only utilized the in-flight entertainment to watch the plane stats. I did play around with the screen and it was functional, but definitely not anythings special. The screen was definitely smaller than our Ipad Mini.

Service:

Delta service on international flights is quite good. It seems to be more spotty on domestic flights. The staff taking care of us to Venice greeted everyone with smile. My interactions with Delta staff on international flights have been pleasant.

A few minutes after take off, we were given a warm towelette. Which were promptly picked up just a few minutes later. Almost immediately after, we were given our choice of drinks. These were the typical drink options as you see with other flights, nothing special.

After we took off from JFK (after a 30 minute delay) the staff was pretty quick to roll out the meal for all passengers.

Once the meal trays were collected, the lights were turned off so people could sleep. About an hour and half or so before landing, the lights were turned on and the pre-landing meal (breakfast) was handed out.

As we were deplaning, the staff again met us with smiles.

The service on this flight was as good as I expected it to be. Everything went smoothly and the crew was very good.

Meals:

There were 3 different options for the meal:

• Stuffed shells with spinach
• Chicken with mushroom sauce, rice pilaf, and green beans
• Kale salad with roasted chicken

Both Kristin and I opted for the chicken with mushroom sauce. We did see the kale salad and that actually looked really appetizing!

The chicken was hot and the mushroom sauce was very good as well. The rice pilaf has full of flavor and the rice was cooked very well. The green beans were just as wonderful as the other parts of the hot meal.

The salad that came with the meals, looked very fresh and was quite crisp. I’ve salads before that look to have gone past their prime, but this was not the case. The Caesar dressing was very good and who doesn’t love a good Casesar salad?

I am not a fan of raw carrots, so I gave those to Kristin, but the celery and hummus were fantastic. I could have eaten more hummus had I been given the option 🙂

The cheese was good, it is pretty hard to mess up cheese.

The breadsticks were quite bad. I took a bite and stopped eating them. Kristin took bite of hers and said, “they taste like cardboard.” Which I felt was a fair description of them.

The brownie was moist and had quite fudgey. It was a solid, after meal treat.

Pre-landing Meal:

Before landing we were given a quick boxed breakfast, which consisted of:

• Cheddar Cheese breakfast roll
• Orange juice concentrate
• Noose yogurt
• Cheese
• Apple Butter

This was quite underwhelming, but was better than nothing.

The breakfast roll was very dry and I used all the apple butter to make it more palatable.

Noosa yogurt is very good and we enjoy it at home from time to time. That was the best part of the pre-landing meal.

I am not a huge fan of juice from concentrate, but I am not also going to turn it away. It was at least cold which is always great.

Overall:

The dinner served right after take off was very good and I was quite impressed how well the meal was. The food was hot, the salad fresh and the treat was tasty. The only thing I can say that needs some work were those awful cardboard bread sticks

Flight Experience:

I thought the flight was actually very good. The delay was out of the crews hand and once we were in the air, they made up some ground. Some heavy fog rolled in, right around the time we were landing, which caused another delay.

The staff was very welcoming and pleasant to interact with. Maybe it’s just me, but I have found Delta’s international crews friendlier than their domestic crews.

My seat was probably one of the more uncomfortable seats I have experienced. The dinner meal was solid, but the breakfast definitely missed the mark.

Overall:

I would find another seat, but I would definitely use Delta again to fly to Venice. It was a non-stop flight from JFK, which is always a plus in my book. For a grand total of 88,806 points and $22.60 we were able to experience another part of the world. For that price, I would do it again 🙂

Have you flown Delta from New York to Venice? If you have, would you do it again?

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