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tasmanet

Best way to fly 1st class?

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Hi there,I'm starting to fly more frequently to places far far away and although my employer lets me go, they are rather stingy. I do get to go, but only on Coach. Most of my trips are overseas, I'm in the U.S. and my destinations are mostly Europe and Asia. On top of that most of these trips I have to hurry out of the destination airport and hurry to give a presentation......so being rested is very important to me.I've been thinking of paying for upgrades to business or 1st class myself but was wondering what other simmers do to do this "cheaply"? I do get miles with several carriers but I'm always short to upgrade. I've been on several flights were 1st class wasn't even half full, yet I wasn't able to upgrade for a reasonable price, if at all.Any tips would be much appreciated.Cheers,Petehttp://members.aol.com/pzsoulman/myhomepage/logo.gifGIGABYTE Light 3D Galaxy II Liquid CoolingENERMAX Galaxy EGA850EWL ATX 850W Power SupplyNVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel MoboCore 2 Duo E6700 1066MHz FSB 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775CORSAIR XMS2 2GB SDRAM DDR2 800GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI ExpressSBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.12 x Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Raid01 Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/sWinXP Home SP2CH Yoke/Pedals


I9-13900K, RTX 4090, DR5-6000MHZCORSAIR ICUE H150I ELITE, ASUS PRIME Z790-P, THERMALTAKE TOUGHPOWER GF3 1350W, WIN 11

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I was on a Royal Jordanian flight last January to Amman, and one of the guys on the plane beside me flies to Amman once a month.He told me because he flies once a month to Amman (on his company's dime), Royal Jordanian automatically bumps him up to Business Class.So I'd contact the airlines directly. If you're frequently flying the same airline and route, you never know, you might get lucky. Be sure to sweat talk them a bit.But the airlines are really clamping down now. It'll probably be tough.-Bryan

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I fly a lot (125,000 miles on United alone last year, 145,000 the year before). I am a United 1K Premier Exec., and put my miles to upgrades whenever I can. The key to achieving upgrades is sticking with one carrier (if you can) and accumulating those miles for those upgrades as quickly as you can. If you are flying multiple carriers, your miles are going to be diffused and take that much longer to accumulate to reward status. When you do get milage sufficient to upgrade, stay away from non-refundable fares. They are less expensive, but the restrictions on them will prevent an upgrade. Of course, all the above assumes that your employer lets you keep your miles and not turn them in to the company.

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I don't fly as often as I used to (averaged 200+K a year thru the 90's). But when flying was my main mode of transport, my company always sought the cheapest airfare thus I was shuffled on many airlines and found it hard to get many miles on one specific airline or even with one specific alliance. However I was bumped into first class on average about once a month most often on international or cross country routes. How? Patience and humor. I had been thru my fair share of nasty lines where a delayed or cancelled flight brought forth a lot of angry people. I always tried to be stoic and when my turn came, I tried to show as much empathy as I could towards the poor agent who was working my line. Little comments like "I bet when we both get home we're going to pick out a good comedy and relax", etc...Without asking, nine times out of ten, I would get bumped into first class. One of the agents appreciated my empathy so well we've been married over thirteen years. I had met her after a particularly unruly passenger raked her over the coals for not upgrading him to first class, even though she worked for another airline. Her airline didn't have a first class section. I didn't get first class, instead, to borrow a cliche' "I got the girl." Two girls actually, she blessed me with a beautiful daughter and I couldn't imagine my life without either. Both exceed first class!Regards,JohnEdit: I forgot an important piece of the equation, I always tried to dress up for flights, at least a pair of nice dress shoes, dress slacks and a good tie if I wasn't in the tropics. I think that also made a difference.

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Thanks for the tips gents, this is really helpful and I've somewhat started trying to stick with one airline. I have a ways to go to be in the 150K club though ;-)Cheers,Petehttp://members.aol.com/pzsoulman/myhomepage/logo.gifGIGABYTE Light 3D Galaxy II Liquid CoolingENERMAX Galaxy EGA850EWL ATX 850W Power SupplyNVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel MoboCore 2 Duo E6700 1066MHz FSB 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775CORSAIR XMS2 2GB SDRAM DDR2 800GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI ExpressSBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.12 x Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Raid01 Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/sWinXP Home SP2CH Yoke/Pedals


I9-13900K, RTX 4090, DR5-6000MHZCORSAIR ICUE H150I ELITE, ASUS PRIME Z790-P, THERMALTAKE TOUGHPOWER GF3 1350W, WIN 11

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I am a Platinum Elite Onepass member on Continental. The wonderful thing about COA is that we get automatic upgrades to first class without having to use miles. I also get that same courtesy on Delta and Northwest too :-) International flights will cost me 20,000 miles per segment to upgrade depending on the class of my coach ticket.First class seats are give by elite status: Platinum, Gold and then silver. Platinum gets upgraded 72 hours before departure, Gold at 48 and Silver at 24. I get upgraded 100% of the time unless I book at the last minute and first class is already full.There is no easy way to get upgrades, and competition is fierce. Elite members covet those seats so first class is always full. The only way to get the plush seat is to either pay or put in your dues to get elite status.Regards,Mike T.

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Guest PARADISE

Tele-communicate..........it's cheaper, generally more effective and best of all.........you can do it while simming.

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PeteFirst of all look at Seat Guru descriptions of what is a FLAT BED seathttp://www.seatguru.com/charts/business_class.phpClick Seat Typein the Business Class Comparison Chart headerto get all the FLAT BED seats in orderGo from thereLook for the Herringbone Seats similar to Virgin Upper ClassAir NZVirgin AlanticV AustraliaDeltaCathay Pacific Jet AirAir CanadaBusiness travellers love themhttp://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a...icle3378515.eceReal First Class is Full of Wankers from my experience.But then I am showing my working class origins ;-) Steve

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