Grandparents insist on taking my kids’ first class seats

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going on a family vacation + cruise later this summer to Greek Isles. Originally booked for myself, DH, and our two kids (16 and 14). We invited my parents a few months ago and they decided to join us. Our family booked 4 first class seats IAD-ATH using FF miles on United (DH is Global Services on United and got a good deal) and my parents ended up booking 2 coach seats in cash many months later (no status). Well, yesterday my parents decided they wouldn’t go on the trip unless they flew first class and that our kids don’t need to fly first class and we should allow them to switch. My dad even offered to give each of my kids $50 to move from first to coach so that they could have lie flat seating transatlantic.

DH is super annoyed. My parents are being real jerks about this and how kids don’t need first class and my dad’s back aches so he totally needs first class. What do I do?

Do what you want but I can’t believe you would put your parents in coach and have your children sit in first class. I’m not sure that sounds great message to your kids.

I've thought about some more, and the obvious solution is that the OP and the OP's spouse should sit in coach.

The kids should sit in first class to have an adventure, and the OP's parents should sit in first class for health reasons.

The OP and the OP's spouse should scrounge up another chance to take a first class flight in the future but let the kids and grandparents bond in first class luxury this time.

[Anonymous]

I’d cancel the trip. I wouldn’t want to vacation with 2 teenagers flying in first and 2 entitled boomers. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Logistically, can you even do that? Switch tickets? These are international tickets with the names on them.

They will not care if you swap once you have boarded.

Wrong. They do care.

Hmmm think it depends on the crew or airline? I got upgraded to business class when traveling with a colleague on an international flight and she didn’t. She was 6 months pregnant so I gave her my upgraded seat and there were no issues.

This. They don't care as long as you let them know and they can make a note of it. It's not as if they are asking for your ID once you sitting anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going on a family vacation + cruise later this summer to Greek Isles. Originally booked for myself, DH, and our two kids (16 and 14). We invited my parents a few months ago and they decided to join us. Our family booked 4 first class seats IAD-ATH using FF miles on United (DH is Global Services on United and got a good deal) and my parents ended up booking 2 coach seats in cash many months later (no status). Well, yesterday my parents decided they wouldn’t go on the trip unless they flew first class and that our kids don’t need to fly first class and we should allow them to switch. My dad even offered to give each of my kids $50 to move from first to coach so that they could have lie flat seating transatlantic.

DH is super annoyed. My parents are being real jerks about this and how kids don’t need first class and my dad’s back aches so he totally needs first class. What do I do?

Do what you want but I can’t believe you would put your parents in coach and have your children sit in first class. I’m not sure that sounds great message to your kids.

I've thought about some more, and the obvious solution is that the OP and the OP's spouse should sit in coach.

The kids should sit in first class to have an adventure, and the OP's parents should sit in first class for health reasons.

The OP and the OP's spouse should scrounge up another chance to take a first class flight in the future but let the kids and grandparents bond in first class luxury this time.

The "health reasons" are complete nonsense that many of you are credulously parroting. Op's parents *booked coach tickets*. If there were real, legitimate health reasons that they couldn't sit in coach, they wouldn't have done that. They would have booked first class, or told OP that they couldn't go, because they couldn't afford first class and couldn't sit in coach for health reasons. (OP would have then had a choice to make, and I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the grandparents.) But they didn't do that. They fully intended to sit in coach until they realized OP's family wasn't.

[Anonymous]

Regardless of the GPs sense of entitlement in no world would I give my kids the sense that they should not prioritize their GPs. The seats belong to the DH who is allowing the kids to sit in them at his discretion - if a higher ranking family member comes along the kids would cede to the GPs. That is the way kids learn not to be a brat. I would view the priority here as not teaching the kids to be self centered over pushing back on teh GPs for bad behavior. Really eye opening how many feel otherwise in this thread.

[Anonymous]

This is such a weird discussion. It sounds like the part people have an issue with is that OP “invited” her parents to come and offered to pay for a lot of her parents’ trip (cruise, hotels) but not her parents’ airfare, which she left up to her parents to cover for themselves. Her parents either misunderstood or felt slighted by the fact that OP and spouse and kids have business class airfare and didn’t offer to pay for parents to sit in business class too.

I’m guessing parents either thought everyone would sit in coach together or else thought OP’s family would offer to give them the first class tix when they realized parents would be in coach.

OP made some mistakes. 1) inviting parents in the first place, knowing parents are not nice people, 2) not communicating clearly about what the “invitation” covered. OP should’ve explicitly said “we’d love you to join us! We will pay for cruise and hotels. you need to pay for airfare yourself. Just so you know, We have business class tix for our family which we were able to get through DH’s miles/points.” Then OP’s parents could’ve accepted that or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going on a family vacation + cruise later this summer to Greek Isles. Originally booked for myself, DH, and our two kids (16 and 14). We invited my parents a few months ago and they decided to join us. Our family booked 4 first class seats IAD-ATH using FF miles on United (DH is Global Services on United and got a good deal) and my parents ended up booking 2 coach seats in cash many months later (no status). Well, yesterday my parents decided they wouldn’t go on the trip unless they flew first class and that our kids don’t need to fly first class and we should allow them to switch. My dad even offered to give each of my kids $50 to move from first to coach so that they could have lie flat seating transatlantic.

DH is super annoyed. My parents are being real jerks about this and how kids don’t need first class and my dad’s back aches so he totally needs first class. What do I do?

Do what you want but I can’t believe you would put your parents in coach and have your children sit in first class. I’m not sure that sounds great message to your kids.

I've thought about some more, and the obvious solution is that the OP and the OP's spouse should sit in coach.

The kids should sit in first class to have an adventure, and the OP's parents should sit in first class for health reasons.

The OP and the OP's spouse should scrounge up another chance to take a first class flight in the future but let the kids and grandparents bond in first class luxury this time.

The adventure for the kids part is not correct though, because OP updated to say her daughter is refusing to switch because her daughter always flies first class on the dads FF miles and is “spoiled” to expect it. It sounds like everyone in this family is spoiled!

[Anonymous]

Kids in coach

Parents in first class

Why do kids need coach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids in coach

Parents in first class

Why do kids need coach?

Why do the grandparents?

[Anonymous]

Absolutely do not let your parents switch w your kids. Tell them you will not be blackmailed into switching their seats. Tell them you were hoping to have a fun trip with them and thought you were being generous by paying for the cruise and hotels. Tell them your DH works very hard to earn his miles/points and they are not free. If they can’t understand or appreciate all that, they are the jerks here.

But also: you should not have ever invited them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of the GPs sense of entitlement in no world would I give my kids the sense that they should not prioritize their GPs. The seats belong to the DH who is allowing the kids to sit in them at his discretion - if a higher ranking family member comes along the kids would cede to the GPs. That is the way kids learn not to be a brat. I would view the priority here as not teaching the kids to be self centered over pushing back on teh GPs for bad behavior. Really eye opening how many feel otherwise in this thread.

Apparently, the DH is inclined to let the kids stay in the First Class seats. I guess that's that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of the GPs sense of entitlement in no world would I give my kids the sense that they should not prioritize their GPs. The seats belong to the DH who is allowing the kids to sit in them at his discretion - if a higher ranking family member comes along the kids would cede to the GPs. That is the way kids learn not to be a brat. I would view the priority here as not teaching the kids to be self centered over pushing back on teh GPs for bad behavior. Really eye opening how many feel otherwise in this thread.

Thank you, well put.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of the GPs sense of entitlement in no world would I give my kids the sense that they should not prioritize their GPs. The seats belong to the DH who is allowing the kids to sit in them at his discretion - if a higher ranking family member comes along the kids would cede to the GPs. That is the way kids learn not to be a brat. I would view the priority here as not teaching the kids to be self centered over pushing back on teh GPs for bad behavior. Really eye opening how many feel otherwise in this thread.

Thank you, well put.

This makes zero sense. The kids will see the grandparents being brats, and being self-centered, and getting what they want. It will teach the exact opposite of what you are hoping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of the GPs sense of entitlement in no world would I give my kids the sense that they should not prioritize their GPs. The seats belong to the DH who is allowing the kids to sit in them at his discretion - if a higher ranking family member comes along the kids would cede to the GPs. That is the way kids learn not to be a brat. I would view the priority here as not teaching the kids to be self centered over pushing back on teh GPs for bad behavior. Really eye opening how many feel otherwise in this thread.

Thank you, well put.

This makes zero sense. The kids will see the grandparents being brats, and being self-centered, and getting what they want. It will teach the exact opposite of what you are hoping.

+1. You are teaching kids not to be self-centered and bratty by giving away their seats to people who’ve had at least 70 years to learn not to be self-centered and bratty and are acting entirely entitled, self-centered and bratty? That’s the cognitive dissonance. If the grandparents were going about this in any other more respectful manner, it would not be a 33 page thread.

[Anonymous]

This vacation hasn’t even started and is already a huge disaster. I’d cancel.

The entitlement of the boomers will come out on the trip. If you’re living a fancier lifestyle than they did, they will resent you and make you pay for it emotionally. My mom is extra nasty towards me when I do anything luxurious. Or judgmental for doing something like flying first.

My parents are the type who would want to switch with the kids, act extremely put out by the entire thing and say they can’t afford to fly first even though they have millions in the bank and multiple paid off properties.

Do NOT include your parents in your vacation. The flight battle is just the start. They also aren’t going to help on the trip. You’ll essentially be taking 4 kids on vacation instead of 2!