Originally Posted by Roadster Man

More and more large and successful companies are going to Y class only. It's a fact of life and an easy cost to control. My reflection on reading some of the comments is that these folks must be REALLY valuable to be able to pick and choose which employer to work for based on their travel policies. In the real world, it is expected to fly from the US to EU on Y, arriving morning next day with meetings scheduled at 12:30 on the arrival day. That is SOP. Tired? Jet Lagged? Tough! You have a job to do! Working on Thursday in San Francisco with meeting in Boston on Friday? Take the red-eye in Y, get up and get to work in Boston. That is what coffee is for. As a father of four, weekends are of course paramount. But if meeting in EU start on Monday, I need to kill most of a Sunday to get there. If I won't go, there are plenty of people applying to HR every day for my job who will.

Unfortunately flight status will not get you into lounges on US domestic flights (UA Premier 1K means nothing). So I do use my own miles to upgrade above Y occasionally by dealing directly with United after booking.

Bottom line, if you are valuable enough to dictate/decide company policy, great. For the rest of us working stiffs, this is reality. Deal with it.