Who can afford First Class prices?

[Anonymous]

My company will pay $12K for me to travel business international if that's the best price ticket.

First class I think tends to be people who are really just wealthy enough. There are a lot more HNW people than you realize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just for fun, I will look up the cost of first class/business lay-down flat seats on flights. I am astounded at the prices.

Just looked at a direct round trip from one major US east coast city to a European major city. $12,000! And it isn't an anomaly - most of them are in this price range.

Seriously. Do people actually pay these prices?? Are companies justifying this for their business travelers? For others, do they burn up all their travel points and if so, it must be in the hundreds of thousands LOL.

My husband buys these for business. All the time. He's now Global Services on United. When he flies somewhere and pays full fare, I can get an auto business set using miles for an economy set. They will bump me up at the time of booking for no extra miles. It's the perk of global services - so basically 2 for the price of 1.

We do this a lot.

We also buy a lot of fully refundable full price economy and use plus points or miles to upgrade international seats for our kids or for leisure travel. So that 12k ticket is now $3k each. They will push those upgrades through too.

+1
DH is global services on United as he flies upwards of 40 rt from the east coast to Europe annually. He gets to give a global services membership to one person so I always get it. He generally purchases coach and is then either upgraded automatically after requesting an upgrade or can use miles. For example, he’s at iAd now getting on a non-United flight to Europe. This airline has not great business but he was able to upgrade to business. Now in person at the airport, he was able to purchase an upgrade to first for e700 for one way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just for fun, I will look up the cost of first class/business lay-down flat seats on flights. I am astounded at the prices.

Just looked at a direct round trip from one major US east coast city to a European major city. $12,000! And it isn't an anomaly - most of them are in this price range.

Seriously. Do people actually pay these prices?? Are companies justifying this for their business travelers? For others, do they burn up all their travel points and if so, it must be in the hundreds of thousands LOL.

My husband buys these for business. All the time. He's now Global Services on United. When he flies somewhere and pays full fare, I can get an auto business set using miles for an economy set. They will bump me up at the time of booking for no extra miles. It's the perk of global services - so basically 2 for the price of 1.

We do this a lot.

We also buy a lot of fully refundable full price economy and use plus points or miles to upgrade international seats for our kids or for leisure travel. So that 12k ticket is now $3k each. They will push those upgrades through too.

+1
DH is global services on United as he flies upwards of 40 rt from the east coast to Europe annually. He gets to give a global services membership to one person so I always get it. He generally purchases coach and is then either upgraded automatically after requesting an upgrade or can use miles. For example, he’s at iAd now getting on a non-United flight to Europe. This airline has not great business but he was able to upgrade to business. Now in person at the airport, he was able to purchase an upgrade to first for e700 for one way.

Exactly - upgrades are easy, you just have to have $60k/year of travel paid by someone else to get them on the ones you pay for yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Whew man, the idea of paying enough money that could get me a car for 24 hours of time is just, hard pill to swallow!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Whew man, the idea of paying enough money that could get me a car for 24 hours of time is just, hard pill to swallow!

Yeah, agreed, but if you have $5 million in the bank or a big pension and it's a once a year trip, I can see why people pay it.

Also it's about 14 hours IAD-HND. Only 24 hours if you are continuing onto somewhere in southeast Asia or Australia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Whew man, the idea of paying enough money that could get me a car for 24 hours of time is just, hard pill to swallow!

Yeah, I don’t love myself enough to drop 10k for an airline ticket. I guess if you make dumb money, it’s an option, but still….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Of all of the things to be concerned/horrified/aghast about re the current occupant of the White House, "the cost of first class air travel will increase" it at the bottom of a very, very long list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Of all of the things to be concerned/horrified/aghast about re the current occupant of the White House, "the cost of first class air travel will increase" it at the bottom of a very, very long list.

Actually if things are that bad prices will come down. A lot of airlines are owned or heavily subsidized by their home government. They will lower/subsidies tickets to keep their domestic travel industries operational.

[Anonymous]

You'd be surprise how many people are using points. I've flown to Asia, NZ and Europe in the past 10 years in business or first.

This past summer, during peak times, I used 100k points each to fly RT business to Europe. So for 3 people it was 300k points. I'm always earning points as I use them, so the balance doesn't really go down. You can learn how to play the sign-up game. For example, Chase Sapphire Preferred not too long ago was offering 100k points to sign up. When you have a spouse they sign up for their own cards, which doubles your points pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Whew man, the idea of paying enough money that could get me a car for 24 hours of time is just, hard pill to swallow!

Yeah, I don’t love myself enough to drop 10k for an airline ticket. I guess if you make dumb money, it’s an option, but still….

Having flown to Japan many times, I guess I do love myself enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Whew man, the idea of paying enough money that could get me a car for 24 hours of time is just, hard pill to swallow!

Yeah, agreed, but if you have $5 million in the bank or a big pension and it's a once a year trip, I can see why people pay it.

Also it's about 14 hours IAD-HND. Only 24 hours if you are continuing onto somewhere in southeast Asia or Australia.

Well I was thinking round trip, I assume 12k will at least get you round trip!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Whew man, the idea of paying enough money that could get me a car for 24 hours of time is just, hard pill to swallow!

Yeah, I don’t love myself enough to drop 10k for an airline ticket. I guess if you make dumb money, it’s an option, but still….

Having flown to Japan many times, I guess I do love myself enough.

I think what I and pp are saying, and what most people are alluding to here, is that that is enough money to make it really hard to justify to the vast majority of people. Like even as a fancy splurge. Our HHI is like 300,000, we're not poor or struggling and I do splurge on many things. But dropping THAT much for essentially a more comfortable seat for a few hours is like, just mentally really difficult to wrap my head around.

That isn't like a negligible amount of money its enough to eat better food the whole trip or do a really cool experience or put my kids in camp in the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most business class people use points now a days.

We went to Japan recently and paid cash about $10,000 per person. Too long a flight for us old people to do premium economy.

Any flight over 5 hours we pay or use points for flying business or first class. But luckily we can easily afford to do that. Do I think it is a waste yes. Business isn't always fabulous it's mostly about lay flat seats and getting some rest.

My sister has traveled all over the world in economy her thought is the plane still gets her there just like me.

Just a personal preference.

Trump will make these costs rise exponentially by next spring.

Whew man, the idea of paying enough money that could get me a car for 24 hours of time is just, hard pill to swallow!

Yeah, agreed, but if you have $5 million in the bank or a big pension and it's a once a year trip, I can see why people pay it.

Also it's about 14 hours IAD-HND. Only 24 hours if you are continuing onto somewhere in southeast Asia or Australia.

Well I was thinking round trip, I assume 12k will at least get you round trip!

Ahhh, excellent point!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just for fun, I will look up the cost of first class/business lay-down flat seats on flights. I am astounded at the prices.

Just looked at a direct round trip from one major US east coast city to a European major city. $12,000! And it isn't an anomaly - most of them are in this price range.

Seriously. Do people actually pay these prices?? Are companies justifying this for their business travelers? For others, do they burn up all their travel points and if so, it must be in the hundreds of thousands LOL.

My husband buys these for business. All the time. He's now Global Services on United. When he flies somewhere and pays full fare, I can get an auto business set using miles for an economy set. They will bump me up at the time of booking for no extra miles. It's the perk of global services - so basically 2 for the price of 1.

We do this a lot.

We also buy a lot of fully refundable full price economy and use plus points or miles to upgrade international seats for our kids or for leisure travel. So that 12k ticket is now $3k each. They will push those upgrades through too.

+1
DH is global services on United as he flies upwards of 40 rt from the east coast to Europe annually. He gets to give a global services membership to one person so I always get it. He generally purchases coach and is then either upgraded automatically after requesting an upgrade or can use miles. For example, he’s at iAd now getting on a non-United flight to Europe. This airline has not great business but he was able to upgrade to business. Now in person at the airport, he was able to purchase an upgrade to first for e700 for one way.

Wow. My DH is also global services and I thought he flew a lot, but that is insane. You must have so many air miles and he must be exhausted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You'd be surprise how many people are using points. I've flown to Asia, NZ and Europe in the past 10 years in business or first.

This past summer, during peak times, I used 100k points each to fly RT business to Europe. So for 3 people it was 300k points. I'm always earning points as I use them, so the balance doesn't really go down. You can learn how to play the sign-up game. For example, Chase Sapphire Preferred not too long ago was offering 100k points to sign up. When you have a spouse they sign up for their own cards, which doubles your points pool.

That's really good for peak business. What airline was it?