ryanjm

I'm a casual traveler, probably flying 4 times a year. 3 of those trips are within the USA, and one of them is international from Denver to Shanghai, China for business. The china flight is killer because I hate sitting for 14 hours.

Is there any cheap/simple way to get a business class flight on the China trip without having to pay full price for the fare? It's always an astronomical price where the difference is $800-1000 for an economy seat, and around $3500-4500 for a business class seat. I've considered buying 3 seats and just laying down across them but figured they might not allow that. I could pretty much lay flat and slightly curled and fit into 3 seats no problem.

Any advice appreciated!

Mwenenzi

In one word: no
Some (USA) airlines offer upgrades for their own frequent flyer's with status. Even then it may mean buying a more expensive economy fare and/or miles and/or cash co payment.
If it was cheap and/or easy to upgrade we would all be doing this.

manneca

There are less expensive ways to fly business. If you are flying United, here's what it costs: 30k miles each way plus a copay that depends on the fare class you've bought. The cheapest fares have a copay of $600. So on top of your airfare, you'd pay $1200 plus 60k miles. On United the upgrades are not guaranteed, but the miles and copay will be refunded if you aren't upgraded. The easiest upgrades are for mid-week and low season travel.
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps...ardTravel.aspx

To pay for the trip with miles (on UA) is 140k miles round trip for a saver award (not often available) or about twice that for a regular award.

I don't know how the other airlines work. You can go to their websites and see.

You can accumulate miles from credit card sign ups, but it's getting very tough to get these more than once.

ryanjm

Well it's the flyertalk forums, I was hoping you all were doing this and I just needed to learn the secret

Thanks, I'll try to see what I can do. I'm not against paying a reasonable upgrade fee, it's just when they want the equivalent of buying 5 economy seats that I don't see the value.

CDKing

Best way is to buy business class. I have heard of airlines allowing you to buy an extra seat but not sure how they would respond to 2 extra seats. I have not had a problem sleeping on a set of 3 on lightly loaded flights. Only problem for me is i'm too tall to really get comfortable on a set of 3. For one long flight a year Id say just deal with coach like the rest of teh world

sdsearch

Unfortunately, not on business trips. The simple secret on personal trips: Don't try to upgrade, just redeem miles for outright business (or first) class awards.

But that can be tricky on business trips, if the business is already buying your tickets, since they generally won't let you pocket the money that the economy ticket would have cost and let you substitute your own miles. (And the business can't provide its miles, it has to be your own miles.)

So while a lot of FlyerTalkers may fly to Asia in business class without spending much money, I don't know if a lot of FlyerTalkers do that on actual business trips where the company pays for the trip but only in economy class.

Btw, be aware that you can only upgrade straight from economy class to business class on airlines where there is nothing in between. But every year more Asian airlines add Premium Economy as a separate cabin between economy class and business class, and you can only upgrade one cabin up. It's only US-based airlines that implement extra-legroom seating within the economy cabin, and thus look like they'll allow (at least on certain fares) upgrades straight from economy class to business class for many years to come.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

If you can catch one of the periodic mileage sales at aa.com when miles go for around 2.2 cents/mile after taxes and fees, you could buy 110,000 AA miles for about $2,400 -- enough for a Business Class roundtrip between North America and China. AA's partners include CX and JL.

AA will let you put an award reservation on a free, five-day hold, so you don't have to buy the miles unless and until you have found award seats. But AA restricts mileage purchases to those who have had an AAdvantage account open for at least a certain period of time (I think it's 21 days).

If you have a qualifying Citi/AA credit card, you get a 10% rebate on award redemptions -- subject to a maximum rebate of 10,000 miles per year.

DeepUnderground

The best way is to get your employer to pay for it.

DavidDTW

Not all of us are so fortunate to have employer paid J, and OP did say he is a casual flyer and not business.

JerryFF

I always ask at checkin. About half the time, there is some option of miles + $$ that is a lot less than buying a business class ticket.

Duke787

As others have mentioned strategic purchase of miles (when bonuses are happening) can help.

For example, typically 2x a year you can buy AS miles with a 40% bonus which amounts to 56k miles for $1.1k. Do that twice (aka spend $2.2k) and you have yourself a J ticket to Asia on CX, KE (with blackout dates), or AA as long as your dates are flexible and award space is available.

DeepUnderground

Huh...could of sworn he said business...

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Yes, but he did not say whether he is employed by someone else, or self-employed.

The fact that the OP contemplated purchasing three Coach seats suggests to me that he is footing the bill himself for this "business" trip.

DavidDTW

I missed those two little words "for business".....my bad

DeepUnderground

Well, then in that case, of course getting the boss to pay would not be the best/way!