Those who regularly fly business/first class, how so?

[cucumberella]

Are you simply just rich or are there some tricks and tips I am missing?

Staff travel? Some airlines offer free standby or low cost tickets to close relatives of airline staff. My dad was a flight engineer with BA and we often got first or business class bump ups when we travelled this way (ended when I was 25 but was an excellent perk while it lasted).

It's usually the company paying surely? So they expense it as a business cost (hence the name!)

I've never been able to justify it but it would be such a luxury...

Business over 4 hours, 1st for v long haul, eg Australia in a suite on Singapore airlines.

Booking well in advance, however post Covid I’m guessing that’s probably not so important now (haven’t been outside Uk since jan 2020).

Re affording it, we’re mid 50s empty nesters with no mortgage and semi retired so £not an issue. 20+ years ago we would be squeezed into economy like everyone else 😊

Huge number of air miles due to copious flights for business (over decades) , travelling business class. Also a gold BA card holder.

I (used to) get my flights paid for by work for work travel, collect the loyalty points AND have a credit card to collect more. Then pay for my upgrades with points. Also am (not for long as not travelled much recently!) top tier in the frequent flyer club so more likely to be bumped up for nothing which has happened three times.

Frequent flyers perks. DH has a high travel job (until COVID) and earns air miles and various other points which can be redeemed against travel and hotels. Plus there's complimentary 'upgrades' here and there.

@Mumblechum0

Business over 4 hours, 1st for v long haul, eg Australia in a suite on Singapore airlines.

Booking well in advance, however post Covid I’m guessing that’s probably not so important now (haven’t been outside Uk since jan 2020).

Re affording it, we’re mid 50s empty nesters with no mortgage and semi retired so £not an issue. 20+ years ago we would be squeezed into economy like everyone else 😊

We are retired, no kids, no mortgage but we certainly couldn’t afford that! Business class a very occasional luxury for us.

Work travel policy and a few upgrades with miles/points. And the more biz travel you do, the more points you earn for future upgrades etc. so it sort of self-perpetuates (a bit!).

There are lots of websites/forums dedicated to maximising points and status levels. It's gotten harder as airlines wised up and tightened the loopholes, but I've flown business almost exclusively for the past 7 or 8 years and I'm not rich!

I've only ever flown business or first for work. I've stretched to premium economy for personal travel but generally prefer to spend the bulk of my budget on accommodation where I will be spending much longer than the journey.

People I know who do it for personal travel are often using points for upgrades or companion vouchers.

• Lots of companies & international organisations cover business class on flights over 4 or 6 hours long. So if you travel a lot with work you get bumped up and can also collect miles along the way.

• People who work in the airline industry can fly on stand-by tickets which costs virtually nothing (less than £100). This often includes business class if the plane is empty.

• Many airlines let you upgrade to business class during online check-in by making a bid that is still high-ish (eg £500) but significantly less than booking business from the start. My parents always do this because they're older now and need business class for comfort, esp for long haul flights.

• There is a small percentage of people who genuinely do earn enough to book business without batting an eye. Depends on your definition of "regular". If it's a family vacation 1-2 times a year then that's reasonable for many high earners.

There are a few tricks to help! You can upgrade a standard ticket using avios points. DH is a bit obsessed with earning them . We go through Gate 365 when we shop online to earn extra and have the BA amex cards which we try and use for everything. We flew business class for our honeymoon and in the year before we took out the premium BA amex credit card (the one you pay the annual fee for). If you spend £10,000 in a year you get a companion voucher so only had to pay for 1 ticket. £10k sounds a lot but we aren't big earners at all and its surprising how quick it adds up, food, fuel etc!

All the companies I have worked for have been very mean on flights - two US companies both expected me to fly a few times a year to US always cattle class. I used to pay out of my own money to a seat with a bit of legroom.

Work + points + upgrades

Lots of short haul work travel = loads of BA air miles tipped up with various Credit card deals, Amex companion voucher etc allowed me and DH to fly return FIRST on BA to the US west coast three times.

Lots of work travel between London and Aus meant business class. Meant More Emirates miles meaning nice upgrades to Business when flying on my own money.

Also made use of air miles sales and have bought them off others too for pennies.

Air miles. We pay for everything on BA AmEx so have tonnes of miles and also get companion vouchers.

@MattDamon

There are lots of websites/forums dedicated to maximising points and status levels. It's gotten harder as airlines wised up and tightened the loopholes, but I've flown business almost exclusively for the past 7 or 8 years and I'm not rich!

Come on @MattDamon anyone who owns a luxury penthouse in New York City's Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood bought several years ago for $16.5 million cannot say that they are not rich!

DH and I put all our living expenses through either BA Amex or Virgin Atlantic credit cards and pay off the balance every month. That builds up a lot of Avios/Flying Club points. (Between us we currently have over half a million of each because we haven't redeemed any since late 2019 and they keep giving them away hoping someone will book something.) They also both give out companion vouchers at certain spend thresholds, which effectively means BOGOF on flights of any class level.

Virgin particularly used to have good sales, and you could sometimes upgrade to Upper from Premium Ec for not too many extra points, especially if the flight was at a weird time of day.

I also found that sometimes you could find a flight to a nearby airport for less either cash or points and then travel from that destination to the more popular place. We did this a couple of times for Vancouver -- discovered it was often much cheaper to fly into Seattle or Portland and travel up.

But I have become more choosy about when we do fly, so we probably also go less often now (outside of covid times, of course).

DH and I both earn and don't have kids to consider, that's the other factor I suppose.

Sorry, getting confused -- I used to be able to upgrade BA flights with points, Virgin usually meant upgrading with cash instead. Either way, it was sometimes not a whole lot.

I got a Virgin credit card but found most places charged to use it or didnt accept it?

Not that we’ve done it lately, but air miles. Both accumulated by dh, and via the BA Amex card.

Trouble is, especially if it’s any long haul night flight, it completely ruins you for going economy in future.

On a particular flight to the Caribbean, the business class section was enormous, relatively few economy seats, so we had to assume that a good many passengers were staff with concessions.

@Mumblechum0

Business over 4 hours, 1st for v long haul, eg Australia in a suite on Singapore airlines.

Booking well in advance, however post Covid I’m guessing that’s probably not so important now (haven’t been outside Uk since jan 2020).

Re affording it, we’re mid 50s empty nesters with no mortgage and semi retired so £not an issue. 20+ years ago we would be squeezed into economy like everyone else 😊

Can I ask a nosy question about the cost for 'a suite for Australia'. There's probably a lot of people who could afford it in that they have the money, but they'd be thinking 'i could buy a new car for that'.

Virgin sales. Being flexible with dates. Accumulating points. Avoiding the most popular business routes. And sometimes accepting a change eg Las Vegas via Seattle can be a lot cheaper than direct and faster immigration.

I don't do it often, and haven't since before the pandemic. But every 12-18 months.

@BarbaraofSeville not sure about a suite to Aus these days but when I priced up our first classBA tickets to LAX and back it was £12000. 10 years ago. Each.
We paid 120000 air miles and £500 on taxes

Air miles.

I (used to) fly 5 to 6 times a month with BA. I save my points up and use them on personal tickets.
We also get bumped up a class depending on the length of the flight. So anything from 4 to 6 gets premium, 6 to 8 gets business and 8+ gets first class (if available). I usually pay for an upgrade myself on less than 4 as i need a bit more space (which im pretty sure also means additional points)

My company used to do it that you booked and paid for your own flights and the company reimbursed you and i used to use a airmiles credit card. Now its changed so less points but