Originally Posted by
auburntiger
That's kinda my line of thinking. Interestingly enough, I was recently on the China Southern flight from LA to Guangzhou- 15 hour flight on an A380. After boarding and prior to pushback, an announcement was made offering any coach passenger the opportunity to move to business class for $1,000. There were 30 of us in business class (70 seats total), not one person took CZ up on the offer.
I like this real life example to make the point. If you have money to burn (or if it's other people's money), you already sitting up front. Otherwise, it's really a "comparative" decision to be made... $1000 to sit up front for the 15 hours or that same amount of money to buy yourself a "nice" dinner or upgrade your hotel, or whatever else you can put the money to work.
Another example I'll bring up from my earlier work years in the mid 90s where my company would offer $x if you chose to fly economy internationally versus business. I don't recall how much was offered but it was around $500 and the ticket price differential had to be more than that. It provided an opportunity for cost savings giving the choice to the flyer. I never took the option so I guess I was willing to pay $150 (the money would be taxed and was for a RT ticket). Many of the employees that would take the money tended to be junior to mid-level who did not fly frequently. In essence, they would prefer the $150x2 = $300 bucks to spend on something else versus on the FC experience.