Originally Posted by findark

There are literally two seats left up front. The last seats in J routinely sell for prices that high -- indeed a new ticket would be $9,250 outright. If I had a net worth of ~$100M I would have no problem paying that to go to Tahiti if that's what fit my schedule; it's still orders of magnitude cheaper than flying private at that stage length.

Many other reasons also someone would pay that much; maybe someone else is paying on a J only policy, maybe you simply have to be there. If nobody in that camp bites at the $9k price, they'll drop it eventually or upgrade an elite.