several times--one time on Eastern years ago--PHL-LGA early in the morning, flight had flown all night from LAX. So we wouldn't bother all the sacked-out people sprawled over the seats in coach, the three of us boarding in PHL were invited to sit anywhere in 1c that we wanted to. I thought that was thoughtful of the flight attendants. Another time on British Airways STR/LHR/ORD, I had flown in really early STR/LHR, and they could not give me a seat on the LHR/ORD flight, telling me to check closer to flight time. I went into downtown London, came back out closer to flight time. The line at checkin was huge, so snuck into the Club World queue, where the ticket agent massaged the keyboard, mumbled into the phone, and gave me a Club World boarding pass. He said that I couldn't use the lounge, but, as one never willing to let a challenge go unanswered, of course got in by flashing the boarding pass (not the $350 RT ticket) and went back to ORD in Club. Nice touch--problem was that coach was full and mostly traveling in groups--they were looking for single people to upgrade.