Reply to Business or First class international airfare

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Business or First class international airfare"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Over $20 million NW and always fly coach.  We’re a short family (so leg room doe sad Much thanks matter so much) and no particular physical needs.  [/quote]

This is very interesting. I fly about twice a month for work and my company pays for first or business class regardless of distance or destination. On top of this, I fly with my family about six times a year. We always fly first or business class; seems weird I would do it for work but not for personal. I guess I’m only MC by DCUM standards with an HHI of $550K and a NW of $5M. Most of our business class is covered by FF miles or Global Services elite upgrades on United, but we still have a $50K / year travel budget to spend on first and business class, when necessary.

What do you plan to do with $20M in NW if not to live a little. Flying coach is like living in high density, low cost, suburban housing. Do people actually enjoy this? More seats for me and my kids, though…. Thanks![/quote]

DP here but with similar net worth. We do international travel for vacations about twice a year. However, we have always flown coach. Neither of us have any business travel so we don't earn points/miles that way, and our vacation travel also too infrequent. We don't generally budget - the concept is irrational to us, but to each their own. We spend money on things that bring us value that is congruent with the cost, and business class vs coach just doesn't work out on that front. For our most recent 2-week trip to Europe, coach tickets were about $4k, and business class would have been somewhere around $18k-$22k. This was a 9 hour flight. To put that into perspective, that's about $7.40 per minute per person just to enjoy the comforts of sitting/sleeping in business class. Jetlag is going to be an issue regardless of how much rest you get on the plane. That $16k is just going to be *FAR* more enjoyable elsewhere on the trip - 5-star accommodations, show tickets, fine dining, exclusive excursions, etc. Sure, with relatively high networth, we could afford all of those things in addition to paying $16k on business class, but one of the reasons we've been able to build our NW is to not waste it on things that don't bring us enjoyment that match the cost.[/quote]

PP here. I wouldn’t spend $16K on business class tickets for a single trip either. That’s crazy. I might spend $6K on coach and then use PlusPoints to upgrade to business. I might spend $4K for my own business class ticket and then use FF miles for the rest of the family. Quite frankly, anyone paying cash out of pocket for all of their personal business or first class tickets is either ultra-rich or ultra-dumb.

You have got to [b]take advantage of FF miles, hotel points, and elite status[/b] to cover the majority of your personal upgrades into luxury suites and comfortable seats. My family of four and I are traveling to France next week for seven nights. All four of us are flying business class round-trip on United. We also have two rooms booked at the Paris Park Hyatt Vendôme. Kids are sharing a room with 2 twin beds. DH and I have a [b]Park Suite King[/b]. The total amount of cash we’re spending for 4 round-trip business class tickets and 1 room and 1 suite, each for 7 nights at a luxury hotel in Paris? [b]$556, and this is just for taxes on the airfare!![/b] The typical cash rates for these two rooms is €1,305 and €1,710, respectively. You’re spending more than 7X on just your coach airfare as I am on substantially more luxurious business airfare as well as top notch lodging. This is one of the reasons we've been able to build our NW: not wasting it on things that don't bring us enjoyment that match the cost.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics