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Comment by p1esk | Hacker News Reader

When I travel with my own money, I'm going to fly basic economy and stay in a Holiday Inn Express

I don't know about you, but if my salary was $500k+ [1] I'd probably fly business class and stayed at the best hotels when I go on vacation.

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...

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You'd be surprised. Right off the top you're paying 45% of that in taxes, and if you're saving less than 25% you're failing the marshmallow test in a world-historically spectacular way. FIRE is very popular with this crowd and most save a lot more. You would own a home; that would cost you 10-15% at least. A Netflix engineer who is pretty bad with money but not a totally self-destructing addict might do as much as $75-100k/year in discretionary spending.

That's an insane amount of money! And against that figure business-class tickets ($10k) and fine hotels ($5k/night) are accessible. But significant. You are probably traveling several times a year, and not solo. Blink and you'll piss it all away.

I just googled a week-long vacation in Paris in the first half of June: a non-stop business class round trip from LAX is $2,100 per person, and the most expensive hotel I found in the center of Paris is $1,500/night. So for me and my partner this vacation would cost ~$5k for plane tickets + ~$11k hotel + say a grand per day on shopping and dining. The total is $23k. That would be less than one month salary after taxes. Definitely not something I'd fret over.

That is really cheap, definitely pandemic pricing. You usually can’t get biz class seats for just $2k round trip.

I agree. But the point is - even if it was 30k or 35k, I would still do it without thinking twice about it. I’m perfectly content with spending one month salary on a vacation.

That’s more than my yearly salary was in 2017 (23k), just to put that in perspective.

If biz class is $10k and economy is $1k, I'm taking economy even though I make enough money to afford $10k. I just can't justify it. Same with a hotel at $500/night vs. $1500/night...The former I can justify (barely), but the latter just seems insane. If I was a multi-millionaire than things would be different, but normal people luxury is good enough for normal people like me.

I've taken biz class before when it made sense (e.g. $1500 from Beijing to LA one way when economy cost $1000 for the same trip). I've also stayed in a $400/night pool villa in Bali (with a $900 round trip biz class ticket from Beijing via Hong Kong...but that was a steal, RIP Hong Kong Express Airlines), both worth it, both seemed really luxurious to me, I can't imagine doing more than that (though I guess with today's high inflation, it is inevitable that the $400 pool villa will cost $1000 soon).

I mean I have spent a month's take-home from a not-too-dissimilar tech industry position on a year's travel, but that was 7 trips and compensating for the 2020 lockdown. On one vacation it's a lot!

Are you talking about a hypothetical scenario or do you actually do this? I am asking because as people start earning more money, lifestyle creep introduces new types of expenses. So they also have expenses to think about other than business class tickets. Most well-to-do folks that I know tend to spend more hotels than on the travel. Very well-to-do folks do spend on business class tickets though, but a $500k job doesn't fall into that category in my opinion.

I make 250k, and I'm actually tempted now to book that business class flight to Paris - I expected it to cost a lot more. I would not spend 1.5k/night on a hotel because I'm sure I can find a good one for 1/3 of that. So it's not entirely hypothetical for me. If my salary doubles, this becomes a much easier decision. But I don't go on long distance vacations often, so when I do it's easier to justify the costs.

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