On a longer international flight, its not about the better meal and free/better booze but about the ability to arrive well rested.

I'm travelling next month to India (from NYC) for work. My flight lands at 8am and i'll be headed straight to the office where i'll be working the full day then expected to go to a nice dinner that evening.

It'll still be a rough day, but the difference between Y & J is the difference between getting no 'real' sleep and me getting 6 hours of decent sleep. Also the difference between me being able to conduct productive meetings and being an incoherent space cadet for the first day.

The $3500 extra for J is a lot of money, but when its the difference between a productive trip and a non productive trip its a no brainer.

Domestic flights, i'll take the free upgrade when given but (with the exception of the premium JFK-LAX services) i'm not paying more than the bare minimum (recently paid $22 to upgrade r/t JFK-CHS) for an extra few inches of legroom.