Would you pay £500 each to upgrade to business for an 8 hour flight?

[rollop]

Flying home overnight from Barbados. Working from home the day we land. An upgrade to Business would cost roughly £500 each. This is vs economy standard.

It’s a relatively short long haul flight, at 8 hours. Is it worth it? £1000 is about 15% of our take home salary for context.

Business in many ways is lovely! The op
is working the next day. We actually didn’t mind the old configuration of seats! The pods feel quite narrow. If you are working next day, watching films all night is not great prep.

Yes, I must admit that I took the figure from another post without really thinking about it.

It’s a bit alarming how many people on this thread don’t know how percentages work

Interesting - they’ve obviously stopped it since December 2023 as you’re right they’re not running from Gatwick. In that case I’d definitely check which plane and upgrade. I paid £300 for an upgrade last Christmas knowing it was an old plane from Gatwick but there were a lot of people complaining about the old plane setup who had paid full price.

Spend the extra and get a decent rest before work.

Even the old set up is worth £500 extra. It’s not that bad. As a couple we took internal seats and blocked out neighbours. The only time it’s a pain is escaping from the seat to clean your teeth! Also you are not disturbed by being near the loos!

I wouldn't, but I'm small and sleep well in economy. If I found economy uncomfortable then I would.

Providing you can afford it (as in no massive debts etc) and it’s “proper” business class, then absolutely yes, it’s a bargain.

Some people need to resit maths.

Yes I would, but it depends on the airline, BA are quite poor, others very good.

From the uk there’s not a vast choice to Barbados. For £500 extra, BA are fine. It’s not £1500 extra!

Is it really just £500 to upgrade from economy to business class ? Sounds very cheap if this is for BA

Yeah definitely

Yes

For an 8 hour flight no way! Lights don’t go off until two hours in. They’re back on about 90mins before landing. I occasionally do it for my 11+ flights to the west cost US and China but wouldn’t even consider it for an 8 hour flight. Even for the west coast return, which can be 9.5h on a good day, I usually don’t bother.

100% yes. We only ever fly economy for flights less than 6 hours, anything more has to be business.

You need a maths fix

We do this flight every Feb. In economy. I don’t find the return flight too bad as it’s pretty short, but I do go to bed as soon as I get home.

I might upgrade with my virgin points, but not otherwise.

No….we’ve just had 6 nights abroad with flights, hotel and breakfast for 850 …..so that 1000£ would be an extra holiday to us ( joint income/pension 75k)

Sounds more like a TUI flight.

I would

100% yes, I once upgraded what I thought would be a 9 hr flight, and turned into 17hrs on the plane due to technical issues, so glad I had a bed etc

If you are expected to be fully functional at work next day it was pretty irresponsible to book that flight without an upgrade in the first place. If your take-home is nearly £7,000 you must be sufficiently senior that you shouldn't be at work if you aren't on-the-ball and you couldn't possibly be so after an 8 hour flight in economy. Either pay to upgrade, pay to move your flights to the previous day or book an additional day of annual leave.

Would I boot.

Fly economy and make believe you've earned a grand sitting on your backsides. Good money for eight hours of that.

If you're flying BA I wouldn't bother since it'll still be bad and not worth it. Otherwise £500 is cheap for an upgrade.

Yes. But be warned if you have never done it before. It ruins you for economy flights forever