Originally Posted by AC888

I know this community is primarily about status, upgrades, award bookings, mistake fares, etc. I also know that many people here travel for work. But let's forget about all of that for a moment. I'm also not talking about special occasions like a honey moon, treating a special someone, etc.

For my entire life, when booking a non-award flight for personal travel, I've looked for Y class fares by default. I realized today that I could afford to pay for J class now if I really wanted to, but the thought never even crossed my mind before. So that got me thinking...what income level would one have to reach before he/she felt natural paying for international J (or even F) class regularly for leisure travel?

Obviously this will depend on how much value one places on ~8-16 hours of comfort, how much leisure travel one does in a year, and what other financial responsibilities one has. And clearly this "survey" will be far from scientific. But I'm just curious what everyone thinks. Feel free to speak from personal experience or base it on what you believe applies to the average person. In your opinion, how much money would you (or the hypothetical average Joe) have to make before you (he) change(s) the default travel class on your (his) favourite search engine to "Business" (or even "First")?