I'll chime in. My boss attempts to bribe his way into C or F every single time he flies. Well to be fair, sometimes he "asks" about the cost of a paid upgrade, but more often than not, he simply utters the words "first class" and throws money ($50 intra-China, $100 intra-Asia, $300 for tpac or Asia to Europe) on the counter in a discreet way. His success rate is VERY high. In fact, I just noticed EK F tags on his luggage today and I'm positive he didn't pay for F. I think part of his good fortune has to do with his personality; while he's not attractive in the slightest, he's not the kind of guy that gets told "no" very often. Oh, and even more impressive, he doesn't do the FF thing at all! I'm doing a 3-city trip with him this week and would be shocked if we ended up spending any time in Y seats (the bad news is that he likes early AM flights).