I spent 9 hours on a Boeing 787, in business class - CNET

Most denizens of business class are boomers or business types, so I'm surprised to find my seatmate far closer to my age than theirs. She looks like an actress or model, and happens to be both. Tus out we'd been on the same flight from LA. We chat about her hometown (Santiago) and how both her husband and I were from nearly the same suburb of Boston. Best of all, we seem to share a similar attitude about talking on flights, and soon engross ourselves in different episodes of "Mr. Robot."

Glenn, the service manager, introduces himself, a nice touch. In fact, all the staff are friendly and professional.

We're given probably my favorite business class perk:

Yep, a tiny cup of warm nuts. I don't know why it's so delightful. Drink orders are taken (Cranapple for me, I don't drink booze on planes), and menus distributed. They have magnificently worded descriptions of vittles later available.

As the plane lifts off, I doze to the sounds of someone a few rows behind hacking up a lung. It's almost certainly TB. Great.

I awake as dinner is served. There's a small table cloth for the fold-out tray, actual plates and real, metal cutlery. The food's plated well, not spectacular tasting but perfectly pleasant. I've had worse at weddings. Dessert is a glass goblet of decent vanilla ice cream with a choice of toppings.

The TV, somewhere around 15 inches, is fine, though mounted in such a way I can't easily sit directly on-axis, so the blacks have a blue tint to them. Gotta love LCDs.

The controller is far beyond anything I've seen on a plane before. It reminds me of a PlayStation Vita portable game console: a small touchscreen with buttons on either side. It can do some clever tricks, too, like showing a different source than the TV on its own screen.

I recline the seat flat, or flat-ish anyway. The seat isn't nearly as "lay flat" as the older version found in other United planes. I realize complaining about a lie-flat seat on an airplane is like complaining your ice cream isn't creamy enough. But while I'm drawing millions of eyerolls, I'll add that the pillow is plump and soft, the blanket just the right amount of warm. The cubby where you stick your feet is too small for my size 10s, however, so everything is awful. "How dare they. I demand..." and I'm asleep.

Sort of.

In a shockingly poor design decision, the rear part of the seat's cocoon has LED backlight controls that are like triple quasars, searing your face.

These controls are hard to reach, redundant and annoying. Great job, design team.

I miss sunrise because I'm bad at my job, or sleep is more important, or maybe both. Breakfast is a light omelet, fruit and yogurt. Once again, I forget to take a picture of the food before I start in on it.

Before long we're descending into Santiago. In one of the best perks of business class, I'm one of the first off the plane, and at the head of the line for immigration. Hola, Chile!

Bottom line

So is business class worth it? As someone who logs tens of thousands of miles a year, I tend to use my airline miles to upgrade to business class quite often, but only on long-haul inteational flights. Domestic flights? No way are they worth the upgrade cost. The business class seats are only marginally larger, and in my opinion, the flights aren't long enough for coach to become oppressive.

For me, eight hours is the cutoff. Anything less, and coach is fine. Anything longer, and I consider it. If it's a 787 that's a bit more flexible, since they're more pleasant to fly on in general.