As a loyal United airmiles member I get upgraded frequently - domestic flights.
Recently, my boss and I had to fly day with one day notice from JFK to Detriot so we paid full fare. On the return trip we wear squished in the back on a full flight. It seemed like half the flight was filled with crew members deadheading to NYC for the next day. We’ll the gate agent come on the plane and upgrades her favorite flight attentdents while many of us business travelers holding $1500 tickets were stacked like cord wood. (this was a delta flight of which boss is a life time executive member of…) Needless to say we were pissed.
Once when returning from vacation during check in I was offered $50 upgrades from Bermuda to NYC. For the pleasure of seeing the expression on the kids faces … it was worth $200 for the four of use. Even better - this was the Xmas time that a terroist tried to something so they were doing extra checking of bags etc. As first class we got through first and seated with drinks while the queue was processed.
On our honeymoon, my wife had to explain at the airport why the maiden name on her license wasn’t the married name we’d booked ourselves under – prompting the girl at the counter to squeal in delight and insist on bumping us to first class, with champagne and everything. For bonus points, the same explanation got us same result when we changed planes for the connecting flight.
And so, I concluded, if she never actually gets around to changing her name, we could keep working this for years…
Well, we didn’t wrangle ourselves a business class upgrade or anything flash like that, but we forked out a few pounds for an upgrade to economy comfort, which felt worth it, we had heaps of legroom which was really nice. Think we’ll do the same on the flight back, as that’s a night flight and the extra room makes sleeping easier.
if you have any wiggle room in your itenary, this worked for me. Was flying out of Kansas City, to Denver, and I wanted a little longer than 20 minutes to change planes there. At the counter I asked if there was any way to get an earlier flight, and was able to basically swap my coach seat for 1st class seat on an earlier flight. Doesn’t always work, but as was said, up-thread, doesn’t hurt to ask.
On our flight out to Vegas to get married, they announced that we were going to Vegas to get married over the intercom, and the flight crew gave us a bottle of champagne. As I recall, we had three leftover bottles that came home with us on the return flight, as carry-on items. Oh, the days when you could have more than 3 ounces of liquid…
I did get bumped up to first class once on an American Airlines flight. Unfortunately, it was about a 35-minute flight, so I can’t say much more about it than “the seats were comfy and the armrests were wide.”
For two people flying together, here’s a relatively inexpensive alternative to first class: book three seats together.
The airline people aren’t used to people paying for empty seats, so sometimes it takes a little talking, but ultimately we’ve always been able to do it.
Yes, it raises your travel costs by 50%, but first-class seats usually cost 3-4 times the coach fare, so this is a comparative bargain. On a long flight, it’s worth every penny if you’ve got the cash to spare. Spreading out over 3 seats rather than 2 means a good deal of extra room, and no armrest battles. You can turn sideways and sleep, and you’ve got extra room to put books, food, laptop, etc.
My wife and I did this on our three round trips to Russia to adopt the Firebug back in January and March of 2009, and it meant that we could get some sleep on the overnight flights on the way over. (And I was able to sleep on the homeward flights during the daytime, even if my wife wasn’t.) It made all the difference.