Willingly paying more to avoid travel discomforts at 60+

marko said:
In my line of business they did! After hours entertaining was 60% of my job.
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As did mine. Entertainment expense. Part of the cost of doing business.
 
At my size (slightly taller than the average U.S. male at 5' 10", lighter than the average U.S. male at 175 lbs), and with frequent air travel for Megacorp starting at age 21, I find it easy to relax and sleep on planes. A woman once woke me up after takeoff, shocked that I was able to sleep through it (she was an exotic dancer and we had a great conversation after that, but that is a story for another time 😁). The only potential problem is having broad shoulders when sitting in an aisle seat (my preferred choice) where I might get bumped by people passing by or the service cart. But that is a minor issue.

Even on long flights I can get sleep, my personal "hack" is to turn on some movie that seems mildly interesting. Within 30 minutes I am dozing off, and might wake up by the time the credits are rolling. Do a few times on a 12-14 hour flight, and time flies :).

I am also comfortable reading or using my computer or tablet on long flights, which also makes the flight easier. Again my Megacorp travel may be the reason, as I was almost always working on some program/design/presentation, or reading to prepare for the situation I was flying into.

I do play for a better class of seat on most long flights, but I am finding that flights <4 hours seem to go quickly for me these days. a few weekends ago we traveled to Texas, 3 hour flight each way, and it seemed we barely took off before being told we were within landing range.

I prefer getting to the airport early. In my mindset of "the more I can move at my age, the better", it helps me to move as much as possible before sitting for the flight. I check in more relaxed, go through security more relaxed, and can deal with security delays more relaxed (I seem to be getting pulled over at least half the time these days) when I am early. Rather than sit at the gate I'll walk around as much as possible before boarding time.

One of the joys of traveling with DW is that, when in coach, we can raise the armrest between us... a little more room, and we certainly do not mind being right next to each other and touching during a flight ;).
 
We also pay more to upgrade flights and hotels. We choose to travel less, but in style! lol.
However, it is for comfort reasons--DH has a bad back/disc problem, so if he wants to enjoy the places we go, he has to arrive with minimal pain.
 
Once it became evident that we will never run out of money, we decided to fly only business class to cross the ocean, which is not only more comfortable on the plane, but also allows us to use the premium lounges at the airports. We also fly non-stop if at all possible. And we have a prearranged limo service to take us to and from the airport, so we don't need to deal with that hassle.

If we're just on the road and need a convenient stop for the night, we don't much care about the hotel, as long as it is clean and quiet. But if we are planning to stay somewhere for a couple days, we will spring for a suite in an upscale place. On our recent road trip up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minneapolis, we stayed in the Holiday Inn Express some nights and in 5 star hotels other nights. (Let me give a shout out here for the Bienville House in New Orleans, the Hotel Blackhawk in Davenport, IA, and the Charmant Hotel in La Crosse, WI, all of which were wonderful.)
 
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I guess I'm at the other end of the spectrum. We always fly coach and would prefer to upgrade or lengthen other parts of a trip. After flying back from Asia with a one year old on my lap on two separate occasions (our kids' adoptions), coach doesn't seem all that bad.
 
Gumby said:
Once it became evident that we will never run out of money, we decided to fly only business class to cross the ocean, which is not only more comfortable on the plane, but also allows us to use the premium lounges at the airports.
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I LOVE the premium lounges. In addition to decent food and open bar in most of them, saving the cost and wait in line for overpriced airport food, some have showers and sleep areas. I've taken advantage of both on occasion. On my last trip after a very bad passage through Dulles on my way home from Vienna (long lines, luggage not on carousel, passing multiple times through TSA in order to finally recover it) I was looking forward to relaxing in the lounge. Nope. My flight home left out of a terminal where I didn't have access to any despite flying Business Class.

I've occasionally bought a day pass on a long layover but the airlines have sold/given away lounge access to so many people now they typically stop selling day passes.
 
bonvoyage said:
Like several people who have commented here, we only fly business class on international flights nowadays. If you are alert, you can find fare sales on FlyerTalk. For example, we were able to $3000 round trip on business class to Greece earlier this year.
On the other hand, sometimes, you just can't find good deals so you do have to pay up. We have a trip to Southeast Asia coming up in a few months. I paid about $5500 for business class tickets - but considering its 18 hours of travel time, I'm glad that we will be able to get some sleep on the flight
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There was a time I simply said to myself "You're gonna be miserable for a day as you travel - but you're gonna save a fortune by flying 'cattle car' instead of First class."

What I found out as I aged: The misery hung on for a few days. All the cramped seating and hard seat cushions caused issues for days to come. SO, we have moved all the way up to Economy Plus. Eventually, should we live so long, we'll likely go ahead and spring for even more comfort in business or First Class. Just not yet and YMMV.
 
To me, the benefit of wealth is to provide comfort, convenience and insulation. Insulation from danger, worry and unpleasant situations.

Travel can often present opportunities for a good deal of discomfort, inconvenience and danger/unpleasant situations. For just a few dollars more, one can make a lot of that go away.

I always felt that shoestring travel was best left to college kids. If, age 65 or 70 one is still traveling uncomfortably, maybe it's time to reassess the travel budget or find closer destinations that better fit the cost/comfort profile. Sixteen hours and thirteen time zones in coach? No thanks.

Give me a seat Upfront and a 2 or 3 room hotel suite on the 20th floor. What am I saving it for!? But to each his own.
 
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We did a private driver for the first time in Cornwall a few years ago. So much less hassle than taking public transportation or Ubers. And beats the heck out of a 50 person bus tour, which I never thought was any good at all, and the reason I'll probably not do any more river cruising. With a driver, you also get a lot better experience, given the driver is a guide, so you get a story along with the sights, but without 48 other people and wasting 20 minutes per stop loading and unloading. With a driver, you can pop around to more places, and avoid the busiest times.
 
I honestly would be pretty happy never traveling again at all. I am sitting here now, in my home, with a cup of coffee, sort of browsing the web while reading a few chapters of a book series I may ditch soon as it is becoming too much of a trope. Within a 30 second walk is a game room, my woodshop, electronics tinkering station, or I could watch the sun set on the mountains on the back deck.

I mean getting felt up by TSA and then doing Cool Hand Luke in a metal box for 10 hours just to check into a room that 100 other people have done questionable things in over the past year doesn't sound quite as good as my life now.
 
I pay more for comfort on airline travel when it is a modest amount. I've found that we have more time to hunt for these values when we travel. So we found Business Class DC-to-Cairo for $2,300 and Business Class DC-to-Jakarta for $1,900 in the last two years. We just booked Business Class round trip to Guayaquil Ecuador, on the way to Galapagos, for only about $400 more than economy. The return includes a red-eye so seems worth it. These beat the heck out of the $5K+ megacorp was paying for my BC redeyes to Heathrow 10 years ago.

I'm all in on reasonable upgrades when flights are 5 hours plus, though DW is still frugal about that. But I end up making all the reservations!

And outside of resorts we've always done mid-range hotels so nothing discomfortable about that.
 
To me, the single largest PITA about travel lately has become the whole airport experience, start to finish. Nothing but a Greyhound bus terminal with security.

Yes, I did it 200 days a year for 34 years but it's really become notably worse and no, it's not my old age talking.

I've posted on another thread on how we've discovered the joys of "tank away" vacations. Spent that First Class seat money on a seriously upgraded hotel room, pack at you leisure, get treated like a human being, and handle your bag only once you enter your garage.
 
marko said:
To me, the benefit of wealth is to provide comfort, convenience and insulation. Insulation from danger, worry and unpleasant situations.

Travel can often present opportunities for a good deal of discomfort, inconvenience and danger/unpleasant situations. For just a few dollars more, one can make a lot of that go away.

I always felt that shoestring travel was best left to college kids. If, age 65 or 70 one is still traveling uncomfortably, maybe it's time to reassess the travel budget or find closer destinations that better fit the cost/comfort profile. Sixteen hours and thirteen time zones in coach? No thanks.

Give me a seat Upfront and a 2 or 3 room hotel suite on the 20th floor. What am I saving it for!? But to each his own.
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I agree with this completely - I have done my share of shoestring travel when I was in my 20s. Not any more though!
We can afford to travel and we barely spend money on anything when we aren't traveling. Also, my wife has some health issues that are beginning to accumulate and I have some concerns about just how long we will be able to travel. So, while we can still travel, we plan to travel in comfort.
A bit of irony: I have never actually flown business class for work. I used to travel fair bit for work internationally when I was in my 30s but my company only paid for economy. I have often taken red eye flights to Europe and then driven straight to work. Now, that I am retired, I only fly business class. Maybe I ought to call it "leisure class" :)
 
I actually flew private for work on occasion. It was the best. I would never want to own a plane, but a NetJet's subscription would be nice if I had twice the money.
 
Koolau said:
What I found out as I aged: The misery hung on for a few days. All the cramped seating and hard seat cushions caused issues for days to come. SO, we have moved all the way up to Economy Plus. Eventually, should we live so long, we'll likely go ahead and spring for even more comfort in business or First Class. Just not yet and YMMV.
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DH was 15 years older and that happened to him first. He was also over 6 feet tall and had a creaky back. The ONE time we were able to upgrade to Business Class with miles was coming home from Scotland in October, 2001 (yeah, you can guess why the seats were available) and I think he liked it. We still flew Coach across the Atlantic a lot but after one trip years later he said it was just too much and he'd like to fly Business Class in transatlantic from now on. We made it work- I was flying between KC and Bangalore, London and Zurich in Business Class for work so accumulating miles at a good clip.

One thing to add to the list: I'm looking at a side trip to Easter Island from a South American tour next year. Tour ends in Santiago. Flights FROM Easter Island are once a day, landing in Santiago around 9 PM. The only reasonable itinerary from Santiago to my home airport (others have 2+ connections) leaves Santiago around 11 PM. I don't want to take the chance of missing that connection (apparently you have to go through Customs and Immigration even though Easter Island is part of Chile) so I'll spend a night near the airport- but I just realized life would be far easier if I booked a second night as well so I could hang out in the room before my flight rather than checking out at 11 AM and waiting 12 hours till my flight time. It's another $178. BTD.
 
athena53 said:
Clip... The only reasonable itinerary from Santiago to my home airport (others have 2+ connections) leaves Santiago around 11 PM. I don't want to take the chance of missing that connection (apparently you have to go through Customs and Immigration even though Easter Island is part of Chile) so I'll spend a night near the airport- but I just realized life would be far easier if I booked a second night as well so I could hang out in the room before my flight rather than checking out at 11 AM and waiting 12 hours till my flight time. It's another $178. BTD.
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We do that a lot. We just returned from Bali ( a Komodo island diving live aboard trip) and the boat departure from Denpassar harbor was 2 pm. Our flight didn't leave until 9 pm (so bags could only be dropped at the airport from 6 pm onward). Rather than drag lugage around the airport we paid for a night's hotel stay so we had a comfortable place to relax between 2 pm and 6:30 pm. A minor cost addition given we were flying business class back to the USA. Bali hotel prices helped - the room plus airport shuttle cost $46!
 
athena53 said:
DH was 15 years older and that happened to him first. He was also over 6 feet tall and had a creaky back. The ONE time we were able to upgrade to Business Class with miles was coming home from Scotland in October, 2001 (yeah, you can guess why the seats were available) and I think he liked it. We still flew Coach across the Atlantic a lot but after one trip years later he said it was just too much and he'd like to fly Business Class in transatlantic from now on. We made it work- I was flying between KC and Bangalore, London and Zurich in Business Class for work so accumulating miles at a good clip.

One thing to add to the list: I'm looking at a side trip to Easter Island from a South American tour next year. Tour ends in Santiago. Flights FROM Easter Island are once a day, landing in Santiago around 9 PM. The only reasonable itinerary from Santiago to my home airport (others have 2+ connections) leaves Santiago around 11 PM. I don't want to take the chance of missing that connection (apparently you have to go through Customs and Immigration even though Easter Island is part of Chile) so I'll spend a night near the airport- but I just realized life would be far easier if I booked a second night as well so I could hang out in the room before my flight rather than checking out at 11 AM and waiting 12 hours till my flight time. It's another $178. BTD.
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For sure! Airport hotels to the rescue!

We would have had 4 legs in one day, but fortunately snagged a late US arrival with overnight layover - plenty of time for US customs plus a shower and sleep even if short. What a difference!
 
marko said:
To me, the single largest PITA about travel lately has become the whole airport experience, start to finish. Nothing but a Greyhound bus terminal with security.

Yes, I did it 200 days a year for 34 years but it's really become notably worse and no, it's not my old age talking.

I've posted on another thread on how we've discovered the joys of "tank away" vacations. Spent that First Class seat money on a seriously upgraded hotel room, pack at you leisure, get treated like a human being, and handle your bag only once you enter your garage.
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I agree. I've had some awful airport experiences since 2001. Admittedly, I had post employment monitoring for a decade of that period, which meant that every trip through TSA was with "SSSS" on my boarding pass and a call to the FBI. However, "SSSS" aside, the lines (and the people in those lines) became just intolerable.

Thankfully, in the past few years our small local airport has added two daily flights rather than just seasonal service. I can walk or pedal to the airport and I'm usually the only person at security. Plus, I know most of the folks there, so the experience was mellow even before the "SSSS" went away. In addition, I've added TSA Pre, which makes the whole process much easier at all airports: Keep your shoes on, keep your stuff in your bags, and just walk through the scanner. More like TSA from the 90s.
 
We go economy air travel because almost all of our flights are 4-5 hour domestic flights that I sleep through.

As far as hotels - I can handle a Hampton Inn or similar for 1 night stays on road trips, but I splurge on nice hotels/resorts for longer stays.
 
Have not yet splurged for business class yet. We have a trip to Tennessee this Thursday for 10 days. We sit in Economy Plus type seats. Relatively short flight from Florida though. However we are at upgraded hotels for 400-500 per night.
We also splurge on more expensive restaurants during vacations too.
 
marko said:
That is SOP for us. Nothing like getting to the hotel around 9am, getting a nice hot shower and a nap.

Tip: Schipoll has a hotel inside of security. They rent by half day rates, nice shower, comfy bed, wake up call, and.....the invoice lists it as a "bar" expense in case corporate accounting gets curious and won't pay for a hotel.
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Of course accounting looks and thinks, you drink a lot of booze in the morning :ROFLMAO: :hide:
 
I've been upgrading to Business Class on long haul overseas flights and occasionally on US domestic flights. I mostly fly United and buy the cheaper seats and then log into my account and buy the upgrade to Business. It's cheaper than buying fully refundable Business ticket but my understanding is if I change the ticket to a different flight I forfeit the upgrade.
 
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