Poll:Air Travel

[brett]

What amazes us is the difference in cost between North American flight and those in SE Asia and Europe.

This past February we paid $190 AUD (140 USD) on Scoot, the discount arm of Singapore Airlines, to fly from Krabi, Thailand to Gold Coast, Australia. Via Singapore. About 11 hours of combined flight time. Last time it was $225. USD to fly from Malaysia direct to Australia-11 hours or so on AirAsia. Coach.

We pay more than that on a good day to fly from Calgary to Vancouver-about 80-90 minutes of flight time. We have experienced similar differences, albeit to a lesser extent because of distance, in European flight costs-on the nationals and the low cost lines. We have been looking at Transavia, discount arm of KLM/AF group, flights and Aegean. By comparison, incredibly attractive pricing on some routes compared to NA.

 

[The Rodent]

Only fly for pleasure and always fly coach on domestic flights. However, on overseas flights over 8 hours we usually upgrade to "premium economy". Not as nice or roomy as business or 1st class, but definitively more comfortable than standard economy

 

[athena53]

It would be interesting if folks would note whether their upgrades to business or first class are paid for by an employer, miles they had on their account when they retired, gifted miles, etc. vs actually opening your wallet and paying with personal funds.

I retired 5 years ago and have run through most of the miles/points I earned from business travel. I pay real money for most of the "upgraded" travel. I get some from points I get from credit cards (especially sign-on bonuses) plus my occasional paid trips and doing e-Reward surveys. Occasionally AA throws me an upgrade on a domestic flight using my 500-mile upgrade bank, which will probably never run out since I can so rarely redeem them.

 

[Clover5]

Coach within US, business or 1st overseas...I'm too old to sit in coach for that long .


ETA: Coach is always 'enhanced' coach or whatever they call it. Haven't flown in a 'regular' coach seat in decades. We usually get exit row or bulkhead seats.

If you don’t fly First Class your kids will!

 

[Housewife]

We fly coach. Most of the time it does not bother me that much especially when the trip is relatively short. Last time when we traveled to Asia though, I hesitated about whether we should splurge for an upgrade. However, hubby felt strongly that paying $ for upgrade for our two elementary school children, both quite small for their age, would not be the best use of money. As a result, we all flew coach on a 15 hr flight. Hmm...

 

[stepford]

We see being cheap as almost a sport. We just fly Coach for typical travel, but keep an eye out for ultracheap fares to inspire us for our next trip. In recent years flights to Iceland, Australia, Spain and Croatia have been so cheap we HAD to go.

 

[btdt22]

We just returned from an Eastern European cruise and chose to use business class (KLM and Delta). Will never fly coach overseas again as business class made trip for this 72 year old and 65 old youngster so much better. I have been a LBYM proponent for years and enjoying my health while i still have it

 

[Jerry1]

I am wide-bodied, DW is not. We both object to being squeezed laterally. Leg room isn't an issue for us. We can happily fly coach if we are seated together in a 2 seat grouping. If we have to fly in a coach seat grouping of 3 or more we buy the third seat (usually requires calling the airline but they match the online price).

On rare occasions we will upgrade to business class or something similar.

Can you elaborate on how you buy the third seat? DW and I are actually kind of small, so leg room is not an issue but we always seem to be squeezed in with someone who is. And, frankly, even they weren’t a bit larger, three’s a crowd. I’ve been thinking about two sitting in three as a good alternative (financially) to first class. My concern is that if I say I need the seat because of my size, they might challenge that if the flight’s full. Even first class is cheaper than a confrontation on a plane. I’ve also heard that musicians pay for a seat for their instruments. I’d rather sit next to a reproduction cello than be squeezed in. Wondering how to pull this off.

 

[Aerides]

Can you elaborate on how you buy the third seat? DW and I are actually kind of small, so leg room is not an issue but we always seem to be squeezed in with someone who is. And, frankly, even they weren’t a bit larger, three’s a crowd. I’ve been thinking about two sitting in three as a good alternative (financially) to first class. My concern is that if I say I need the seat because of my size, they might challenge that if the flight’s full. Even first class is cheaper than a confrontation on a plane. I’ve also heard that musicians pay for a seat for their instruments. I’d rather sit next to a reproduction cello than be squeezed in. Wondering how to pull this off.

there was a case on.. i think SW? where Kevin Smith (film director, somewhat wide) bought two seats but was not honored due to a full flight.

When seats are empty I've seen free for all (did myself just yesterday, moved a few rows to be next to my sister with 3 seats to her self), and I've seen free-for-all-fail - same flight, dude who had window in my initial row tried to sit in an empty exit row and was quickly set upon by 4+ employees, was forced back to original assigned seat for takeoff - I was not even noticed.

ETA, 2nd leg of that flight I had an aisle on an empty row, but the FA asked folks in the full row next to me if one of them would like to use the space....

 

[gayl]

I check luggage so don't race to my aisle seat. More than once I've had to ask someone to get out of my seat when I do board. I really don't care why they picked it (unless they have a small child in the middle seat, it's a short flight, and flight attendants can get me another aisle or upgrade). I just insist that they move.

 

[Kwirk]

Can you elaborate on how you buy the third seat?

I've never found a way to do it entirely online. But I go through most of the online flight/fare process including looking at available seats but I don't complete the purchase. Then I call the airline and let them know what fare and seats I want. They book the third seat under a name like XTRASEAT. We then get 3 boarding passes for the 2 of us.

The airline rep occasionally does not know what I'm looking to do but the supervisor always has. They may ask if I have a musical instrument or whatever but I just say that I need the extra space.

This increases our cost by 50%, as opposed to as much as 1000% to get business or first class.

 

[Kwirk]

We've been on a number of "full" flights but we've never been asked to give up the seat. Rarely, somebody might ask to use the seat but we just say that we've paid for it.

I've considered the possibility of being asked to surrender the seat. I've paid for the seat and I would insist on an immediate refund. The hassle of doing that would possibly cause them to back off. Now, if they want to handle the situation by upgrading us to first/business class instead of upgrading somebody with status or points we would be willing to listen.

 

[gayl]

I've only surrendered twice. (1) got a trip to Seattle with hotel + my original destination a few hours later (2) took the next flight but upgraded to business and nonstop SFO to Paris. Actually got there faster [emoji106]

 

[marko]

Can you elaborate on how you buy the third seat?

At least on JetBlue, when you buy your ticket online, you would book 3 seats. Then when you go to enter the passenger's names there's a little checkbox that says something like "this seat is for the same passenger" or something like that.

I know of a guy who bought not only the entire row for himself but the row behind him as well.

 

[bonvoyage]

In a couple of hours I'm getting on an 18 hour nonstop flight from Singapore to Newark. They don't even have coach on this flight. Only business and premium economy. I almost always use business class or premium economy for any flight over 5 hours. This is what I save up my money!

 

[Independent]

I tried to find some online statistics for comparison. I couldn't get the exact question. The unit here is tickets.

i.e. "For all airline tickets bought in 2017 for 'personal domestic' travel, 13% were First/Business class"

…..	P-Dom	P-Int	B-Dom	B-Int
First or Business	13	16	22	41
Premium Economy....	18	31	28	37
Standard Economy	70	53	51	22

http://airlines.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/A4A-AirTravelSurvey-20Feb2018-FINAL.pdf

Maybe more interesting, in 2017, 48% of Americans took at least one trip by air. That means 52% did not take any airline trips. A very small percent of the 48% travelled for business only.

88% of Americans have taken at least one plane trip in their lives.

 

[Chuckanut]

I don't mind air travel. Even though it's not as pleasant as I would like, it sure beats the heck out of driving thousands of miles on an interstate highway, with late night stops at oddball hotels in places like Kadoka S.D.

 

[brett]

Air travel was one of the stimuli for me to loose weight after early retirement. We planned on doing a great deal of travel.

I wanted to be more comfortable on those multiple 8 and 10 hour flights that we take to get to our fall and winter destinations.

 

[Rustic23]

I voted C, but we always play economy plus. We have flown economy plus on a couple of trips, but anything over 7 to 8 hours is out for us.

 

[traineeinvestor]

Living in HK, most places require air travel.

We do economy class for local travel and either premium economy or business class for long haul (a lot of flights don't have a first class anymore).

In part our choices are more about the fact that (i) I have two deformed vertebrae in my back which makes ten hours in an economy class seat designed for underage hobbits painful and (ii) I do not want my daughters to get accustomed to the good life any more than I can avoid, rather than an affordability issue.

 

[audreyh1]

I just priced Sept/Oct international open-jaw tickets to AMS, return from CDG for business versus economy plus which is the minimal class we will fly. The business class was 2.2x more. I consider this to be a reasonably good deal - you rarely see international business class much cheaper in comparison.

There were only 5 tickets left at that price.

 

[Kimo]

Every year we make a round trip Hawaii/Reno and I would never fly in coach for that length of time in a tube Part of that is also the fact that we traveled when working about 150 days a year...... ouch, it hurts just to write that.

 

[skipro33]

Sometimes flying is cheaper than driving. Round trip Sacramento to San Diego is $78. That's 1,100 driving miles and with California gas prices higher than even Hawaii, well, I did the math.
Then there's the crazy low rates to Europe. Flying from San Francisco to Dallas to Munich to Austria, train to Sweden and fly back to Munich/Dallas/SF in August for a hair over $400. I got those some time ago. Checked a couple weeks ago and it was under $400, about $380. That is insane!

 

[audreyh1]

It’s easy to see that flying is cheaper, not only faster, in many domestic long distance scenarios. It’s not only the long hours on the road, but the gas, the motels, the meals on the go, the wear and tear on your personal vehicle. If fares are cheap they are hard to beat, but I guess once you get to a destination, you don’t have to pay for a rental car. So maybe that tips the balance.

We have no tolerance for driving long distance anymore.

Can’t drive to Europe either, nor do we care to take a slow boat across.

Unfortunately not living near a major hub with terrific competition, we don’t see those amazing low transatlantic prices. I occasionally check major TX cities, though, and I still don’t see those super low deals. We are usually paying no more than an additional $100 or so for flying from a smaller city. Sometimes $0.

It does cost a lot more for domestic flights though. We see terrific deals from the larger TX cities to other major domestic destinations. We’re often paying 2x.

 

[Ologist]

Usually flights <6hrs fly coach. >6hrs try to fly business class with flat bed seats. Use airline credit card to get points. Buy premium plus with cash and upgrade to business with points.

Did not know that buying 3rd seat was an option. Will need to try it on next long flight when business fare is exorbitant!