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Air France Business - value for money? I'm looking to take various Business trips from UK to South America in 2008. AF consistently have the lowest fares, £1500 is average. Do people think the AF Business product is value for money, and what level of service can I expect?

You can expect a relatively comfortable seat, decent food, and in the balance an above average experience depending on the disposition of the crew. The major downside to using AF is that you'll be using CDG as your intermediate hub, and connecting here is nothing short of a nightmare. Please read the comments on CDG to get a flavour of what could possibly await you. If you do decide to use AF, leave yourself plenty of time to connect - I would suggest 2 hours as a safe bet.

The distances and likelihood of parking away from the terminal adds time when connecting at CDG. However, if a tight connection you can expect AF staff to be waiting especially for you to help your transfer. Overall, AF Business Class is professional with good food, reasonable selection of movies and polite but somewhat reserved staff.

Just returned from a Manchester - Paris CDG - Buenos Aires trip. I think that overall, they provide a good level of service for a reasonable price. Yes, there's issues with transfers at CDG and the business lounge at CDG 2F leaves a lot to be desired, but I would certainly fly with them on my next trip. Regarding transfers in CDG between 2F and 2E, we walked it in less than 10 mins. so I wouldn't bother with the bus service.

Recently flew CDG to Beirut in Business in 777 and it was quite nice. It happened to be a well- priced ticket bundled with a code share connection on United from New York. New seats were comparable to any other high-end lie-flat seats, food was very good and service ok. However, I look at their fares often and they never seem to be a reasonable alternative to other major European airlines. But if you see that they have good fares for your routes, take it. Like other posters, I can't overstate the horror that is CDG. One easy mistake many make is that they go through passport control just to change terminals. Depending on time of day that can cause you to miss connection.

Got back to Switzerland from Atlanta via CDG recently. This was my second time at CDG. The airport is very unusual, but makeable and not as confusing as many others have posted.

We flew business class by Air France from Birmingham to Buenos Aires , and returned from Rio de Janeire to Birmingham. Flights were very comfortable with good food. The only downsides were a limited choice in IFE and CDG, although our difficulties there were mitigated by the number of people who could speak English and helped direct us. The FAs were great and again all spoke English. Recommended.