Hey,

I need a one-way flight from Sao Paulo to NYC at the End of November, and business class one-way fares are outrageously expensive at $4,000 and up.

Economy, however, is affordable with $500-900.

All airlines leave roughly at the same time of the day (around 9pm in the evening) - if one was flying during the day, I would pick them but it's unfortunately not the case. I dread red-eye flights in Economy, but I don't mind daytime flights so much.

My plan would now be to buy one Economy class tickets and bet on the option to buy an upgrade at check-in or counter at a more reasonable price. I'm ready to pay another $1,000 or so for the upgrade.

What's your take on this? Would you specifically recommend one of the 4 airlines flying for that?

I don't really mind the quality of the business class so much, I'd like to optimize on the likelihood of being able to fly Business for less than $4k.

Why do I need a one-way flight in the first place? I want to do a trip from Berlin to Brazil to New York and back home to Dusseldorf before christmas. Complete tickets are going at $5,5k with bad carriers.