DP wants to fly Business Class!

[girlynut]

We're planning a trip to Florida next year with DSs (who will be 11 and 7). Two weeks at a hotel in Orlando (to do all the theme parks) followed by a week at a villa on the Gulf Coast to recover.

I've been making some initial searches for the best deals and can get flights, accommodation and car hire for 5,500. We'll have to consider how much the park tickets will add up to but I'm on the case...

Last night DP sprung it on me that he wants to fly Business Class, as this will be a "once in a lifetime" trip and we should blow the budget. I'm going to get some quotes but I'm guessing Business Class will add at least 4,000 to the cost. As a family with a combined income of under 50,000, we're not rolling in money and it seems like a waste of money which could be better spent on something else. I know the DSs won't appreciate it and if we're flying longhaul with a decent airline, Economy won't be so bad.

DP has some hairbrain scheme about airmiles, assuring me that we can all four fly Business Class to Florida for around 1,000! 1. We don't have any airmiles and 2. even if we saved airmiles over the coming year I'm not sure we'd have enough.

Do you think BC is worth the cost for such a trip? Anybody know much about airmiles? [hopes for lots of posts agreeing it is a silly idea so I can wave thread under DP's nose]

a lot of people I know fly business class. I don't know what their budgets are, but my view is always that I'd rather have a whole extra holiday for the money than spend a few hours in (greater) luxury. Would strike me as an utter waste of ££ (especially for young children), unless we were rolling in piles of so much money we didn't know what to spend it on.

Its a waste of money, unless you're loaded. If he thinks he can sort the airmiles thing, let him try. He won't be able to.

Well I'm going to Australia at the end of this month business class with airmiles but we had loads as DH flies a lot on business and we deliberately save Avios points with a British Airways American Express card. So it can be done. But it takes a lot of spending and a lot of flying to accumulate enough. And it's hard to book. Especially a family. There are a limited number of airmiles seats on each flight.

It is almost impossible to book air miles flights to popular destinations. There are only a very few seats that can be booked this way and normally book as soon as they become available - normally up to a year before departure. Short haul flights are generally easier to book but not always.

I have a lot of experience of air miles booking. I'm afraid your DH doesn't stand a chance of getting the flights this way.

I've travelled longhaul BC several times - but always with airmiles. I wouldn't even consider paying cash for BC; much rather have another week's holiday with the cash.

No, its not worth it for a 7 or 8 hour flight - and I say that as someone who a) travels to the US regularly and b) has flown business class many times. If you want to have a little extra comfort why not go premium economy? And if you DH absolutely will not budge on it, why not just upgrade for the return (i.e. the overnight) leg, when that flat seat will at least give you a fighting chance of a few hours' sleep. On a return transatlantic flight though, once you've got on board and got drinks and food service out of the way, plus taken into account that they wake you about 1.5 hrs before landing so you can have breakfast, you're talking a max of 4 hours sleep and that's hardly worth it IMO. If you had loadsa money I'd say sure, why not? But if its going to be a real stretch for you then no, I definitely wouldn't do it.

dh flies business class all the time and it sounds like fucking heaven!

own lounge

priority boarding

more room

less people around you, think it less than 40 seats in business compared to the 6453728 seats in economy.

better food - proper plates/cutlery, no microwaved plastic covered dish of food in business!

air staff are nicer

get off the plane first.

if i ever fly anywhere i will damn well be flying business!

if business is too much you could suggest premium economy, halfway between business and economy, bit more room, less people etc.

If your DP HAS to fly business, as a once in a lifetime thing, make it a 1 way business, 1 way economy trip. We did that once, (the upgrade 1 way transatlantic was about £250 for all 3 of us, but a lot more the other way so we knew we'd be sleeping most of that and were happy to go economy).

Yes worth it in a way, but only if you can get it at a price that suits. And we did it on the leg we'd be wide awake on (which included a sleep after dinner) to get the full benefit.

On the other hand, we have been transatlantic a few times, before DD and with her (last trip included that business leg when she was 8) - mostly economy. To the USA and other countries. Including Florida. I have absolutely no problem in economy on those trips, as they are not long enough to get truly bored, the in-seat entertainment is pretty good nowadays, you get a decent meal even in economy (and I have never yet been on a transatlantic flight where you haven't gotten wine etc in economy unlike having the pay-bar and "buy your own sandwiches" thing in the EU) - so I wouldn't bother.

The amount of milse you need to upgrade is astonishing even for 1 person, you'd have to do a heck of a lot of flying to earn enough for 4 people in a year (DH travelling to London-South Africa every fortnight for a year couldn't do it for 3 of us!).

Oh and with regard to air miles flights on Orlando flights we tried to book four air miles seats on a flight to Orlando in Oct and discovered that BA only releases two air miles seats PER FLIGHT on that route!!! Obviously, I don't know who you would fly with, but for our family of four that really wasn't an option.

I wouldn't bother for a flight that short, TBH, and I've flown to the US several times as well as Asia, both economy and BC. I'd suggest upgrading to Premium Economy. It's much cheaper than BC but you still get bigger seats and a bit more room.

Unless you're loaded or can find an exceptionally good offer, I wouldn't. Business class is nice indeed, but usually not worth the price difference. I do sometimes fly business for my own money, if I can get a deal where it's only twice the price or similar, not if it's 5 times though.
You will have to fly a hell of a lot to get enough air miles for business class flights for 4 people.
What about premium economy?

Why though? The kids will be watching films and playing the games the whole time. I intended on sleeping a long haul flight but there was too much good entertainment! I was knackered but happy! Anyways, it's a waste of money. HIBU.

Its not worth it.

Looking at Virgin to travel next March, you can fly economy for £300, premium for £600 and business for £1400. Its so not worth the extra 300 or 1100 - and I flew to Orlando last Tuesday, back Friday night (for work) in the back of the plane.

We managed to go business to Florida with air miles. My top tips:-

Try booking to Tampa instead of Orlando. We booked two business and two premium economy so we got four seats in the same flight. Same for the return journey. Then try and get an upgrade.

We managed to get four business on the way out and two buiness, two premium economy on the way back. Kids drew straws for who got business on the way back

It was fab having the fancy beds. The kids loved it

It's not worth an extra £4000 for an 8hr flight. Not unless you're loaded. If you could get all 4 upgraded for £1000 then do it but I don't think that's really going to happen. It's fun and nice to be not in cattle class but not a life hanging experience.

Would you be able to buy 1 BS ticket and one of you use it there and the other on the way back? With the other adult and kids in economy?

A friend of mine has enormous amounts of air miles from constant transatlantic BC flights, and he was recently unable to book two 'points' flights to Miami over a three month period, almost a year in advance. But also you really are talking serious point building to get to that number of air miles. Do you or DP travel that often? Someone else I know used his BA credit card for every single purchase for two years to get enough points for a single BC flight to SA.

Also, if you're tempted by Premium Economy, I think it's usually cheaper to upgrade Economy tickets rather than pay outright. We got PE upgrades for £75 each when the PE fare was twice the cost of the Economy fare.

you can occasionally get good deals with BC - where is not too much extra. Otherwise it's not worth it unless you have zillions of airmiles. They save the most flexible airmile seats for gold tier airmile members. As a regular airmile user you might struggle to find availability for four of you.

Premier economy is good.

To be honest if it was Florida I was going Id probably look at a charter airline and book their premium cabin....to a destination that's so well served by all the carriers.

DH flew BA business class to Miami for work last week. He said it really wasn't worth it, and this from a man who (seriously) likes his comfort...... He compared it to Singapore Airlines business class about 10 years ago.

We are flying to San Francisco later this year on holiday and DH had been talking about trying to upgrade from economy to business class. Now he thinks it wouldn't be worth the airmiles (assuming we could get the seats) and definitely not worth the money.

Spend your £4K on another holiday. No way will it be £1k more.

There is no doubt business is much nicer even for a trip to US but no way is it worth the money unless you are using airmiles. I agree with whoever said do it one-way if you are going to do it at all.

DH has about the highest status in BA for airmiles and he still finds it difficult to book flights/get upgrades in advance, especially on busy flights.

What PP said. Business Class is fab.u.lous and definitely something to have on your bucket list. But it's a heck of a lot of money and the DSs probably won't appreciate it.

The airmiles thing is a nonstarter for this year but why not try and save up as many airmiles as you can and then aim to book by in a few years time just for the two of you? DH and I did that and got two Seats to San Francisco free for our anniversary.

Canyou suggest to your husband that he asks when he's going to get guest list status, I think that's what they call it. You can make an air miles booking on any flight once a year. If he is gold for life he should be close to that level.

I have friends who fly business or first every year by upgrading their tickets using Avios collected at Tesco. I think you have to buy a certain premium economy ticket before you can do that (i.e. not a cheap ticket).

I've been upgraded a few times and it's lovely, but I'm too much of a tightwad to spend my own money to do it. Not really worth it, imho.

Thanks for all the replies confirming what I suspected.

We only ever fly for our annual holidays so the only way to accumulate airmiles would be by HUGE amounts of spending. I can't see that our Tesco clubcard points will stretch. So that's a non-starter.

Premium Economy looks like a good compromise. A bit more comfort without breaking the bank. I'll look into it further.