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Right now, I’m sitting on a small stockpile of miles and points, waiting for my flight dates to open up for booking. My family is planning to visit France and Switzerland next summer (2022). We were supposed to go this summer, but we had to push back all of our trips due to the pandemic.
Last fall, I decided we could splurge on business class seats one-way. Blog readers weighed in on which direction to Europe would be best for the lie-flat seats. After much deliberation, I decided we should splurge for business class seats on the way home.
But now, I’m having second thoughts.
Looking Ahead to 2023
My son will graduate and go to college in 2023. So, that summer could be our last chance to return to Russia as a family. It’s complicated.
So now we’re looking at flying to Europe two summers in a row. Our flights to Russia would be longer. We’d likely fly to Moscow for a few days before flying 8.5 hours to Vladivostok. Yes, that’s a long flight that’s just inside Russia!
If we splurge on business class seats for our 2022 trip, I’m not positive we could repeat that in any way in 2023. After all, there are five people in my family. It takes a while to accumulate that many miles for business class tickets.
Since I’ve never flown international business class, I don’t know how easy it would be to become spoiled by it. Could we easily return to economy for our next long haul flights? Or, is it hard to go back once you’ve experienced lie-flat seats?
Instead of business class home from Europe next year, I’m considering a smaller splurge on Premium Economy seats. They aren’t lie-flat seats, but they do have foot rests and more amenities than regular economy seats. That way, when we fly to Russia the following year, we won’t be super bummed about flying in economy after having experienced business class seats.
Readers, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Should we go ahead and splurge on business class in 2022 with no regrets? Or, should we compromise with Premium Economy on both trips to Europe?
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
If your trip will take a lot of long haul segments (more than 8-9 hours) on an airline with a good business class product, that’s the trip I would choose. As someone pointed out, if you’re flying DFW-JFK-CDG or even DFW-IAD-CDG, the transatlantic segment is only 6.5-7 hours. IMHO, using points for biz on short transatlantic is a bit of a waste, because realistically your time to enjoy the experience/sleep is shortened due to takeoff, meal service, and landing. I’d do careful research on the airline between Moscow and Vladivostok, the business class product might be no better than domestic US (or worse – it could be European business class that is a 3-seat economy seat row and they just block off the middle seat).
For the Russia trip, maybe an around-the-world ticket makes more sense? ANA is a good value for that type of business class ticket.
As far as family being spoiled…my kids have flown transpacific lie-flat business class 3 times and we’ve been upgraded to domestic first once or twice. We’ve flown economy numerous times domestically and transatlantic economy class 4 or 5 times. They understand that when we fly business that it is a special experience to be appreciated (and aspired to… they can work hard in college and enter some wealthy profession to make such trips normal LOL).
I think it has to do a lot with age. That is to say, the older you get, the less tolerant you become of economy. I remember in my 20s, and even into my early 30s, I only needed a few hours of sleep and I’d still have the energy to go out and conquer the day. Now that I’m in my 40s, it’s becoming a lot more difficult to do that on only a few hours of sleep. With a lie-flat seat, I sleep better and longer, which then allows me more “awake” time once I’m on the ground.
@Aaron Yes! Age is definitely a factor. In my 40s I’m way more picky about the comfort level of hotel beds. A few years ago we stayed at a Best Western that had great amenities and was close to our destination, but the bed was horrible. Now I try to stick to Hiltons and Hyatts where I know the beds are comfy.
Thank you all for your insightful comments. “You could strap me to the wing for all I care as long as I was going somewhere international and sunny”–yes! LOL You’ve given a lot of good points for me to consider.
This is a tough one. I’d generally use lay flat seats when I was planning to fly the longest leg AND needed to sleep. Those may not be the same flights however since flying east to west takes longer because of the jet stream, but from EU is generally a day flight when I wouldn’t sleep anyway. This may change if flying US to Moscow however. So. Not simple, especially when one trip is more than a year out and your miles may (probably will) lose value between now and then. Are you trying to ensure one flight out of all the flights is business class between all the trips? Is there anyway to split up people instead on a round trip, e.g. eldest/parents/you and partner in business and rest in economy or economy plus? Younger bodies can sleep in economy seats but as I’ve crept past age 40 I’ve found myself less and less able to do that.
In general though when I was first starting to dabble in business v economy, I was fine going between the two. I mean the jet lag is still there no matter what, even if I sleep five hours on the flight. So the first night and day in the new location is always a loss anyway. So I don’t think you will be spoiled if you get to fly it as a treat once. 🙂 Best of luck and enjoy your travels!
It’s a tough one! We’ve had to as often the seat is a ‘waste’ for kids unless a night flight. Especially with several airlines allowing seat sleeping devices or even the Air NZ sky couch in economy making economy so much more comfortable!
I feel your pain. When I was working in China, business class tickets for the family was part of the contract per year. We got spoiled. Now we are in the UAE, and it’s out of our pocket or points. My son is now 6’6” so economy is a big challenge for 14-16 hours. I also have a pile of LifeMiles, ThankYou points, and Etihad miles. I have spent about 15 hours total searching and trying to find business class options, only to settle on paying for economy plus Lufthansa from Dubai to Orlando via frankfert, and used lifemiles for business class Turkish airlines from Dulles to Abu Dhabi via Istanbul. There just wasn’t anything else available. We havnt been back to USA in 2+ years, and what we usually do is nest 2 suitcases each, and always come back with more stuff than before so business class back was the priority for more weight allowance. I also was able to use Etihad miles for an AA one way flight first class flight form Orlando-Reagan National for our domestic flight. 55 min on phone to book, but Etihad miles are almost useless from UAE, so I am elated that I could use them this way. I also had a major fail with transferring ThankYou points to Qatar Airlines. I called Qatar airlines before transfer to confirm I could book 4 business class seats for 300k points. They said plenty of availability, so I imitated the transfer. Only to find out that once they did transfer over, while they did have availability, it cost 600k!!! I think they never had the availability for the normal cost, as I can’t find 4 tickets anytime on that route for 300k.
Go business class in 2022. The difference between 2019 and 2020 taught us anything can happen. Nothing is guaranteed. If you have the opportunity to go on business class in 2022, go. Enjoy the hopefully wonderful experience compared to economy. I flew economy for all my life in economy until a few years go when I joined this community. My family frequently stayed at 5 star hotels (nearly always) but never thought business class was worth the premium. That was before we experienced it. So far all my business class flights have been with miles. However, it is definitely worth paying for. It makes something that one dreads into part of the experience with life long memories. Sleeping in a lie flat bed on a plane is cool. If I can’t fly business class internationally (I’m not talking about Jetblue to the Caribbean), I will wait until I can.
As I have said, get this wonderful experience out of the way. Make it a memory. Anything can happen in 2023 that prevents your trip. The world could shut down again and precedent has been set for it even over something mild. People could fly to Israel yesterday. Today the U.S. airlines have suspended flights. Who knows what can happen in 2023. Who would have thought I would not leave the state for 3 years (if I travel in 2022) after visiting 4 continents in 6 months in 2018-2019.
Finances could also change. You might be able to afford paying for business class in 2023 out of pocket (Bitcoin/ethereum/a number of growth stocks). An easy points opportunity might open up. There might be a special points promotion. You could split booking with miles with an award and pay cash fare for others. You can take the risk of paying for economy or PE and doing a mileage upgrade if the airline allows it and space for it opens up before the flight. If the airline doesn’t allow mileage upgrades now, it might.
It’s better to do something that builds memories that you savor instead of abstain from something that will prevent those good memories.
I think your PE suggestion has a lot of merit. My wife had only flown coach when I wanted to treat her by flying her business class to Europe around a decade ago. After that one trip she became largely convinced that outside of short domestic flights that she only wanted to fly business or first class in the future. Save the business class travel for you and the husband after the kids are gone.
I’d recommend Iberia Business class on the way out and Economy for the return if you have to because of the timing and don’t mind the layover in Madrid, but they generally only release 4 seats in Biz….
I’ve always said the only way to truly appreciate flying in Business/First is by flying economy. Do a mix.
When given a choice, I always try to fly business or first on the flight home as I’ve noticed I’m totally ok flying in economy at the start of the trip as I’m excited on the destination!
I’m not sure if business class will be the way it was pre-pandemic by summer 2022 so perhaps just fly prem econ summer 2022 and then fly business when coming back home from Russia? It’s a First World problem for sure.
“I’ve flown first class, I can’t go back to coach. I can’t. I won’t.”
It’s a bit hard. But I’ll suck it up and fly economy when needed. Always more tolerable if it’s a screaming deal.
Lie flat TATL. Unless you’re doing BOST/JFK/IAD to western Europe. Those flights are obviously relatively short so burning a ton of miles makes very little sense(unless you have a ton of miles).
Coach or PE back works too since almost all flights are daytime. Sure, the big seat is great but sleeping is not easy.
This has always been a conundrum I tend to face. For flights like JFK to London or Amsterdam I tend not to care as much since its barely a 6 hour flight and by the time they do meal services you tend to only get about 3ish hours of sleep and for me that isnt always worth the extra points that could be for a whole other trip. I will however say once you go international business its hard to go back and for me its not always been a bad thing I have been able (pre-pandemic) to hunt some great business class fares and really try to shift my trips around them but with that said at this moment in time I just want to travel….you could strap me to the wing for all I care as long as I was going somewhere international and sunny
If you have the points business class, or first, is the only way to fly. But you definitely get spoiled. If I don’t have the points to be able to fly business class I am simply not going. Obviously if I had to go I would fly economy but if it’s purely for pleasure I save my points. But then again I don’t use points for hotels or anything else. I hoard my points for international business class or first class only. To me it’s the biggest bang for my buck