Originally Posted by pinniped

In those cases - international journeys - my hunch is a lot of airlines reserve the *true* royal treatment for F passengers. If you're flying J, you're just in the heap with the rest of us elite-card holders. If you're flying narrowbody J (e.g., you cannot buy F) on some sort of short-ish international flight that still requires a visa check for your passport, then I don't have any good answers.

When I've had the rare opportunity to fly F on a good airline (LH being one), the service had been fantastic and light-years away from the check-in counters and standard lounges enjoyed by J pax and Star Gold members.

I guess that's a roundabout way of saying that whether we're buying J, upgrading to J, or just have the right card in our pocket, we're a distant second class to three-cabin F pax.