Is this common at all?
 

Or am I just a lucky idiot this time.
I was checking airfares for GVA - SAL (via EWR and ret. via IAH, EWR) and most of them were around 2100-2200 in economy class.
Out of curiosity I checked business leaving my segments like this:

GVA EWR Q
EWR SAL Z
SAL IAH Z
IAH EWR Z
EWR GVA V

Apparently it pays flying Intl. Business & First, it pays about 600 bucks.
Going in business instead of coach actually ended up costing about 1500. I bought it.

How common is this? I don't usually check business prices but should I start doing that? Sometimes I find fares in business that are well priced, or almost the same as coach, but 600 bucks cheaper?

It certainly does happen. Sometimes only high coach fare buckets are available, but cheaper biz class options can be had.

it does happen, but unless its changed, co.com should normally show the lowest fare, even though you requested coach. im surprised it didnt price out in F class at the original search.

I think its because I was searching by specific fare classes. Maybe if I just searched for price it would have worked as you say.

What I usually do is that I check on expedia first, I prefer flying on Conti but if there is a huge fare difference I usually go with someone else. If the difference is small (less than 100 bucks) I dont change. Sometimes BA offers pretty good fares in transatlantic when going to SAL.
I fly GVA SAL 4-5 times a year and the cheapest I've bought was once with BA via MIA LHR for about 800 bucks.