It goes for everyone! I paid for my seat and my space. You need to keep yourself in your space, and if you cannot, then you need to pay for 2 seats/first/business or whatever you require to stay in your own space. I call out man spreaders sitting next to me just as much as I will put down the armrest between me and the person next to me. My space includes the area between my seat and the seat in front of me. Yes, many overweight people are considerate and aware, but the fact is if you cannot fit into the seat with the armrest down, then you don't fit into the seat and should purchase 2 seats. It's not being mean. It's just reality. You don't get to inconvenience others for an extended period of time, no matter what the reason. |
Absolutely no one paying cash for business class seats subscribed to the Millionaire Next Door. It goes against everything the book stands for. Points and miles hacking would fit in though. However we are big on points and miles and still fly mostly economy just because anything under 6-7 hours I don’t find BC worth unless it’s an overnight. That leaves us more points for even more trips. The extra points I would spend on 4 BC tickets would pay for 8 nights in a high end hotel. |
NP
I am not comfortable choosing the exorbitant first class prices now but we splurge hard on accommodations, food, activities and shopping while traveling. I wonder if people who choose first cut back in those areas? |
I only upgrade myself when I can upgrade my 10 year old. You're a bad parent. |
Not at all! You are just missing out on life and helicoptering. My kids have learned they are not entitled to all the luxury splurges the parents are. I was 30 before I went to Europe. They first went at 8 and 12, and did a major international trip for a month at 5 and 9. Kids are just happy to get to travel so extensively—we could just leave them at home with grandparents (which we did do for some trips) In 2 years or so you can easily leave your kid in coach. However we did it with our TwO kids so they were not alone—had each other and are well behaved. Once oldest went to college we left the 14-15 yo+ alone in economy plus—they were fine. |
Then you're not planning if you're paying that much. We're flying 4 of us to Europe in business class for $2,500 round-trip this summer. Bought tickets last October. Even flying to Frankfurt, leaving IAD on Friday (4/26) and coming back next week is $4,822 in business class on TAP via Lisbon. Yes a non-stop on United is $10,700, but that's for a flight leaving less than 48 hours from now. |
We are close. We did not specifically subscribe to the millionaire next door, but we certainly do many of the things talked about in the book. Now we are 60 and have seemingly over saved and as a result we are loosening the purse strings. So, when we flew to Norway last year we bought one full price Polaris and one on points- the one ticket was $4k. This year we took both our kids to Iceland and bought Saga for all of us. It really made a difference for us. Our older son is 6’3” and has quite a bit a trouble in economy seats and that was a factor. Now, we will not pay the exorbitant Polaris this year; however, I bought Economy Premium for my upcoming trip to Europe. |
No, we can afford all of it. |
My threshold hhi would need to be over 2m to choose first regularly. I might feel differently if my kids weren't such good travelers or if we had mobility issues or if it was only a once a year trip. I do prefer first but not by a margin of 2k+ per ticket. We even did economy plus to Asia twice and I still don't understand why posters here act like that is unthinkable. We all end up at the same baggage claim, if there was a first class baggage claim with superior service I would not think twice about upgrading to that. |
PP here. Not exactly. We invested $2.25M in VYMI in April 2020, but unlike so many others, that same $2.25M was worth $2.25M in January 2020 as well. We didn’t lose huge sums of money from January to April like everyone invested in the S&P 500 did. So, we’re still up 50% over a 4.5 year period during which the S&P 500 is up only 52%. Plus we have all our dividends. Smarter to buy low and sell high than to blindly follow some index. It’s what empowers us to always fly first and business class while all the others are struggling to find comfort and dignity in steerage. |
I didn't lose anything from Jan-Apr 2020 because I didn't sell anything then. But yes, buying low and selling high is a good strategy. Impressed that you came up with that out of the blue, I've never heard of it before. I think having $2.25 million in cash available to invest was the key here, not what you invested it in. |
HHI $1M. International trips (one-two per year average) are almost always business class. Usually with points, occasionally pay out of pocket if it’s a good deal. Will do premium economy if business is insanely expensive, but can’t bring myself to go back to full economy for 8-hour plus overnight flights.
Domestic, though, basically don’t care. Lay-flat seats are far less essential if I’m not trying to sleep overnight. |
Except for the poster above paying 6k per ticket (which doesn’t even exist anymore) to go on business class but drives an 11 year old car - a thing that actually serves a valuable utility in your life and that will eventually break and need to be replaced, a cost that the poster has spent a high multiple of just buying airline tickets. |
Paid cash for that 11 yo car. It runs fine, no issues so why would u ditch it? Have the cash to buy anew 75k car when I need one. Cars are important but if mine is safe and reliable why would I ditch it? I can afford both business class and a new car but I won’t buy a new car until my old one starts having issues |
I just did a few searches for random sets of dates this July/August round trip direct from IAD to Paris, London and Madrid on United and found numerous options for each in the $4000. Yes there are significantly higher exceptions for peak/last minute flights but most people are greatly exaggerating the average cost. |