Anonymous wrote:You have teens, they will survive in economy class. Is this a real question?

+1 Do they like screens? 99% of teens do. They'll be fine. It's so much easier travelling long haul because of the distraction of in-flight entertainment, devices etc. I've made flights to Asia several times with little kids. Now they're older. Teens are easy.

do stopovers really ease the pain? ofc if you want to see the place fine but I feel like it is better to just get where you are going and start trying to adjust. For bangkok I think from DC you have to decide if you land in bangkok in evening and try to go to bed or early morning. Counterintuitively I like the early morning arrival as it helps you get on time zone more.

You aren’t frugal. Do what you want.

OP here, no, I said we generally travel on a moderate budget, but my spouse is naturally frugal. We have a family trip coming up to nyc for a few days and he wants to drive, stay in jersey at a motel to save a few hundred dollars. I'd much rather fly, maximize my time and stay close to where we want to do things. so he would never, ever imagine paying for business class....

anyway, I think we will fly economy, but I am looking into whether we could do a longer layover on the way there in Istanbul on Turkish air. take 1,5-2 days (I've always wanted to go back having gone once many years ago), and then keep going. The way back will be a slog, but it always is. Might be other stopover possibilities as well.

I have done this many times (economy to Asia) and it is totally fine.

Flew economy to Vietnam a couple of years ago, with a layover in Japan. The kids (young adults) and I thought it was not the most fun ever, but fine; my husband thought it was horrible and wants to fly only business class if we go back to Asia.

Recovery on the way there was NBD. Our flight got in to Hanoi at night, so we had a full night’s sleep at our hotel on arrival and were pretty much fine the next day. Coming back was another story, but it always is.

You aren’t frugal. Do what you want.

We did it last year, flying through Qatar, all in economy. It wasn't that bad. I appreciated that we were all seated together so you didn't have to worry as much about staying in your personal space or watching your things.

The airport in Qatar is clean and easy so I recommend it as an option for a layover.

I paid for an extra night of hotel so when we landed super early we could go right to the hotel to check in and shower. My kids even had the free hotel breakfast while I was checking in. That was super worth it.

We went to Thailand for our honeymoon for a month. Went through Europe and stopped overnight both ways.

You have teens, they will survive in economy class. Is this a real question?

Op here, flying at Xmas so the most expensive time, of course. Wondering if we could find a layover that would allow us a real break too.

There are no direct flights from US to Thailand, so you'l need at least one stop. I go to Asia a few times a year for work, and similar situatino with connections. Travel eats up a full day if not more, and without business class, you'll eat up another day recovering upon arrival.

You're unlikely to be able to use points to upgrade everyone -- the availability won't be there. Your best option is to buy business class tickets, and seems like you can afford the splurge. But you should be able to get ticktes closer to $4500-5000 instead of $6k. What dates roughly?

How much is an extra day worth to you? You'll need it to recover from a flight in Economy which lasts that long. Tedious even in Business, but at least you have a fighting chance of arriving without having been awake for 24 hours.

The kids will probably sleep. For you, pickup some Tylenol PM or ask your doctor for something stronger.

Ok, I haven’t done this yet, so can’t comment, but we’re in the same dilemma for a trip to Australia. I’m leaning toward economy because I don’t want my kids thinking they can’t handle discomfort. Obviously we would all prefer the nicer seats, and we can totally afford it, but…

Looking into a winter trip to thailand. Looks like aorund 24 hours of travel. While I have flown to asia a handful of times, its always been business/for work purposes. I am trying to figure out whether to buy b class tickets or not, we are in our 50s with teens. Regular tix cost about 1700 and bclass around 6k each. We are generally moderate budget travelers (and spouse is fnaturally rugal, so sometimes I dont tell him, for example, that i spent 350$ each on hamilton tix!!! but that's a splurge for us, not 6k plane tickets).

I used up a ton of miles last year for a trip to europe, so would have to do cash upgrade if we tried that route.

Financially, we could do it, but as a blue moon type of thing, not regularly. If its helpful, our HHI this year will be around 370k, and we have around 4.5m in 401k/brokerage (excluding college, fully funded), 650k in equity but 650k in mortgage, and plan to retire in about 5 years, will also have a moderate pension.

If you did a 20 plus hour flight in economy (we are looking at Air Emirates), how was it?