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Comment by therealbilliam | Hacker News Reader

recently, i bought a full economy fare on an international flight. When i went to check in, they offered a really cheap upgrade to first. it was a no brainer and i was excited since the flight was gonna be ~6 hours.

i had a rude awakening when i got to the airport. This "first class" ticket was actually more like a premium economy ticket. I didn't get access to the first class check in line, no access to the lounge, no priority boarding, and the seats themselves had no extra bonus other than being in the front of the plane and slightly wider.

it was at that moment i realized there was no beating airlines and good deals aren't really that good unless you got the money to spend.

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I never understood the need to pay extra for getting on the plane first. I travel light and I couldn't care less about the overhead bins. Which would be the only valid reason to board early. And I'll gladly be on the plane last so I can minimize the amount of time I have to share farts with my fellow passengers. Airplanes are not very pleasant places to be. And the cattle herding that is boarding these days is very unpleasant.

I flew a few weeks ago (Lufthanse, Lisbon to Berlin). I found some seating near the gate (always in short supply) and I observed people starting to queue to board. Lufthansa uses groups to structure the boarding. Mine was group five, last in (perfect!). So I remained seated while people nervously started to queue long before the gate was open. In the end, it took another 40 minutes before I stood up and boarded. Some of the people queuing were in the same group as me so they just got told off by the ground staff and were kind of just waiting for their turn right until the end.

The most stupid thing is when the boarding turns out to be a bus ride to the plane. You get crammed into the bus with all the other passengers and then the last one in is the first one out into the plane. I've seen that happen on smaller flights. So, you get people paying extra to be first into the bus being out competed by people like me that just wait until the last moment. The bus won't leave until the bus is crammed full. And it generally has no or very little seating. Much better to be on the last bus.

Overhead bin space is a big one. Even as am someone who travels with a duffle at almost always fits. I’ve had to check it before being in the last group, waiting til the end.

One other one I ran into with the “dead last” strategy was I ended up waiting in line anyhow… on the jet bridge, which was worse than waiting in a queue in a nice airport terminal. So my purely practical brain says to go at the beginning of my group, get it over with, and then I can be settled with no worries rather than having to pay attention to the boarding sequence at all.

I was like you--tried to be the last guy on the plane--until I started to fly very frequently (every other week). I started getting upgraded to first, which means really boarding before everyone and not having to wait in line/in the tunnel to get to my (now comfortable) seat.

Boarding at the very beginning makes a huge difference.

It's a 30 minute chunk of time in which you get to relax. Once you're in your seat there really is nothing else to do. You can work, you can watch a movie, you can think, read a book.

No latent anxiety wondering when I should get up, no "I can't really focus on this book because I might have to get up any minute," etc.

For a relatively short flight (2 hours) it's a pretty meaningful % of time that becomes a lot more relaxing.

Yup. I was flying SFO -> SEA last year to visit family after a work trip, and Alaska Air had a screaming deal on first class, so I bought it. So nice to just walk on, sit (in a decently comfortable seat!) down, and do whatever you want while waiting for boarding to finish. Get a drink, do some work, read, whatever.

> until I started to fly very frequently

This is a key point. When I used to fly once or twice per year to go on vacation it didn't really matter too much. Now I'm flying sometimes more than twice/month often international and all these little niceties add up. Global Entry is a must, some type of lounge with wifi and snacks is nice. Getting on early enough so I don't have to worry about them forcing me to check which then adds a ton of time when I land (or worse, lost luggage which happens all the time). And yes, I can relax and get back to what I was doing - likely reading a book :)

i get it. i used to be like that too... and then we had kids and that changed everything lmao. Now I rather have peace of mind that i have an overhead bin with all our stuff right next to us

I have flown "first class" on flights that turned out to be small airplanes and there was not much to the first class distinction, seats only slightly bigger, no special food, etc.

I'm confused a little by what you are saying, are you saying that there was first class boarding but you were not allowed to participate? was there a first class lounge with the name of your airline and you were not allowed to use it? etc.

You can beat airlines. Mistake fares and fares sold below cost definitely exist, though they're a lot less common than they used to be as pricing models have improved. You're more likely to see them if you pay attention to off-season and new routes that aren't popular. Severe weather predictions and similar events can also create large price drops. I once got a $20 flight to Hawaii by simply buying just before a typhoon that didn't hit.

> Mistake fares

A friend of mine recently got a too-good-to-be-true fare from Europe to Asia on Qatar, and the ticket was promptly cancelled and refunded by the airline when they found the error.

It's a bit more tricky than that. Increasingly business and first class tickets have biz or first "lite" tickets that unbundle the seat from other benefits like lounge access and even seat selection or baggage fees. Also in the US, a lot of domestic airlines don't give you lounge access unless you're flying internationally. E.g. a first class ticket for United, American, and Delta a domestic first class ticket won't get you into the corresponding airline lounge. You'll need a club membership or to be flying on a first+ class (e.g. Polaris, Flagship, or D360) ticket to get into the lounge.

Airline lounges are overcrowded and often not much nicer than the terminal. I, then Qantas Platinum, spent some time in American 'first'¹ lounges back in 2015-2020. What a shambles! So I understand why they'd want to limit the attendance.

I also had the misfortune to spend 6 hours in a BA lounge in Heathrow in 2022. Good lord. At least the gin was free.

Travelling ain't what it was.

¹Here in Australia there's no such thing as domestic First. We call that Business: if you want to travel First, you must go internationally.

That's why the airlines started having separate lounges primarily for the Polaris, Delta One, and Flagship fliers. They are what the prior lounges used to be. Delta One at LHR is also nice because you check in at the counter and head to a special elevator and private security screening which dumps you out right at the lounge.

At least during irregular operations, the staff at the lounge often have the ability to reschedule you onto flights or routings that regular staff can't (due to inexperience or due to privileges). If bad weather results in multiple cancellations, being able to walk up to the agents in the lounge and have them help get you onto a rescheduled flight is often very much worth it.

What airline?

Has to be Iceland Air.

I remember Iceland Air being a reasonably nice flag carrier when I was a kid. The pivot into low cost after the financial crisis and competition from WOW air had a lot of negative ramifications.

My guess also as they are one of the few that has intl first/biz class that isn't lay flat.

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