<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by suranyi:
It's interesting how many people here say that they refuse to travel in coach, especially for long distances. Many say that they use their miles for upgrades or free trips in business or first.
I always use my miles for free trips in coach. To me, it's better to get two free trips in coach than one in business or first.</font>
Ed, I'm with you, buddy. If it's within the US, I'm not giving up the premium for first class. I'll use my e-upgrades if the flight is full, but other than that, I'm not worried about it. Just get me my e-plus seat and I'm a happy boy. I'm not giving up what is 60 percent of another coach ticket to fly in first class, especially since the longest flight I'll be on will be around five hours. I can live with e-plus there.
However, with my trip to New Zealand, I will cough up the extra 30K miles to fly in business class. It costs 50 percent more, so that's less than the premium for a domestic flight. On top of that, I'll be in the air for around 20 hours when I'm all done, so that means that the benefit to me is four times as great as for the longest domestic flight. On top of this, if I fly on Air New Zealand, they don't have e-plus, so it's a little different.
I get so much more bang for my buck doing this that it's worth it to me.
To each his own, though.