Help With Crazy First Class Prices?
 

My husband and I need to fly from PDX to San Antonio TX in November (we also could fly from Seattle if need be) and I want to ensure that we fly there and back in first class.

I knew first class would be more than coach but I am shocked how MUCH more it really is. The cheapest deal for 2 round trip first class seats is around $1800 which is many times more than coach seats. Most airlines are actually pricing this out at more than $3,000! Yet we could get coach seats for $200 or so.

We definitely need to fly first class but this is going to hurt. Are there any tips or ways to get a better deal than these extremely high prices? We would fly out on November 5th and return on November 11th.

Any advice is appreciated.

I can't answer your question but i'm curious. Why do you " definitely need" to fly First Class?

Airlines always charge CRAZY prices on 1st class. E.g my recent trip to Asia. RT coach was $1700 while cheapest 1st class was $13k. So it is NOT uncommon for airlines to charge 10x premium over coach.

The only other option would be miles. You pay 25k RT coach and like 75k 1st class. Which is only 3x coach fare. This is why I love miles and it is the only instrument I would be ever willing to use to purchase 1st class tickets. (would never even pay $5k for 1st class)

some people cant handle overhead space hogs, fatties that take 1 and 1/2 of seat etc. That's why they need 1st class. :D:D

You might try local ticket consolidators. I've also seen ads in my paper's travel section which claim 50-70% off F and J fares.

And paraphrasing someone on FT who was, in turn, paraphrasing Nietzsche, "There are no needs only perceptions."

When are you flying? If you're willing to fly to Austin and drive to San Antonio (90 miles), look at rates on Alaska Airlines from Seattle. SEA-AUS in early November is $2,600 RT in F, about half of what AA is charging. If you're looking at taking this flight around Thanksgiving, most flights will be more expensive since the demand is higher.

$450 each way for First Class doesn't seem that high I'm afraid. You could try a good travel agent, but at those sorts of prices, any savings would be eaten up by fees anyway.

There is a reason nearly anyone with premier status on a flight get an upgrade to domestic first in the USA. Domestic "f" is not worth paying for if you don't get a really good fare. If you can get status on an airline you will in many cases be upgraded on domestic flights if you have the highest tier.

Is it possible that you have an overestimation of what domestic F seats and service are like? It's not what it looks like in the movies. :) Depending on what airline you use, one or more of your segments might not even *have* first class at all.

If additional legroom is important, maybe try to book United and buy-up to Economy Plus (more room, but still a coach service).

If additional buttroom is important, buy 3 tickets on Southwest - they'll actually refund the cost of the 3rd ticket if your flights are not sold out.

If liquor is important, just pay by the drink...you're only getting 3-4 rounds max anyway.

If food is important, you're screwed in any cabin: better bring what you want from an airport vendor.

If some sort of soft "first class ambiance" is important, sorry, it just ain't happening on a domestic narrowbody in 2011. (This is especially LOL-worthy if you're on an RJ.)

If carry-on space is important, just check everything or buy a priority access package for a small fee.

In all seriousness: out of PDX I might shoot for a PDX-DEN-SAT/AUS ticket on United metal, assuming they're one of the airlines offering the competitive coach fare. You can always pay for E+ and United tends to offer relatively reasonable first-class upsells when there's availability at check-in time. They also sell a variety of "elite for a day" options that allow you to pick what's important to you and pay a small fee for it.

You could buy three coach tickets and make sure the seat assignments are in a row where the arm rests lift up.

Needing domestic first class
 

As an example, I take my parents on 3 domestic trips a year. First is a must for the access to a bathroom on short notice and short distance to it. When one gets older the "gotta go" alarm can give pretty short notice sometimes. The ratio of passengers to bathrooms is much better in dom first. Also the carts don't block the asiles for long periods.

I also book bulkhead seats to eliminate their grabbing the seatback in front of them when they rise! ;)

$900 ea sounds like a good deal...we pay $5-600 for coach dfw-lga/bdl....

what are the dates.....good luck...

FWIW, I don't think it is reasonable to ask the OP for an explanation as to why 1st class is necessary. I have found it "necessary" to fly FC when there have been medical issues involved.

Have you considered getting award tickets?

If you have enough miles or points for the flights you have eyes on, that will definitely hurt less than paying with real money.

Good luck!

Or, some people ARE overhead space hogs/fatties that take 1.5 seats. That's why they need first class. :D

I concur with pretty much all of what pinniped said about the actual benefits of F vs. the cost involved of "create your own F." A lot of the time, domestic F is mostly replicable in Y with a little creativity and less cash.

That's a good point: $900 for F on PDX-SAT isn't awful. It's on DL and there are some options for mainline metal the whole way (via SLC).

I'm still not a fan of buying domestic F - it just isn't worth much to me in terms of hard cash - but if it is a "need" then this isn't bad value.

I've flown to SEA when I "needed" to be on a flight (walk-up, in coach) and paid almost $900 R/T before. In that light, this isn't a bad fare. Sometimes I agree that F fares are totally artificial - nobody's buying them except corporate customers who get 20-40% discounts off of list fares. But this one isn't really in that realm....

If you do not have the miles for it, or cannot otherwise pay for it, you don't belong there...no matter how much you "need" or want to be there. That's why it's exclusive, and that is the incentive. If it were cheap, it would be like steerage, albeit with bigger seats for the COS's.

No, but understanding what particular facet of FC is needed may help us to suggest alternatives.

For example:
Extra legroom, look for E+ or an exit row.
Extra width, buying 3 Y seats for the 2 pax.
Making an occasion special, consider a lounge pass for pre-flight.

And so on...

LOL'ing at the idea of F on a U.S. carriers' short-haul domestic service being considered "exclusive". :D

Thanks to everyone for the replies! We want first class just because we hate flying coach and would rather get a tooth pulled than fly coach. If need be, we will pay through the nose to fly first class but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking any options to get in there for a bit less.

Do people sell miles on Ebay for example? Is that something that is even allowable?

People actually pay for domestic F!?!? I thought they were just given away to status pax as part of the business model.

I've never paid for domestic F and, since having shiny cards, have never sat in the back.

Yes, it is done. However, it is against the program rules for every frequent flyer program and puts you at risk for having all miles confiscated and your account closed. Don't do it!

Another option, if you have the miles, is buy the coach ticket and upgrade using miles. Read some of the stickies on how to earn miles cheaply and quickly.

Airlines bristle at the concept of selling miles on eBay. While it's not technically illegal in many jurisdictions, it's against the airlines' terms and conditions. Since miles aren't assets or property of the account holder, if the airline catches people buying/selling miles they can and will cancel the tickets, delete the miles of the account holder, or take other action detrimental to your trip. When that happens, the person who bought the award ticket is pretty much SOL.

I still think you might be overestimating what you will get if you fly first class on a regional jet or a U.S. carrier's narrowbody.

Yes - I've seen more and more cases in the past 10 years or so where airlines are trying to get real cash for F seats. They've figured out that corporate travel booking engines won't let you book a fare bucket starting with "F" (or presumably A, P, J, C, etc.), but they'll have no problems booking you into something like a "HUP" or "QUP." Effectively, a first class seat for someone willing to pay more than the discount coach rate but less than full F fares. A way to get, say, $900 R/T on PDX-SAT from someone used to seeing walk-up coach fares that are probably in that same ballpark.

I used to buy QUP often on United for MCI-SEA. Not coincidentally, it was always about $100 R/T above the walk-up WN fare and on par with what YX was charging at the time (when YX was offering a quasi-F experience).

As a revenue passenger I always thought that was a smart move. I imagine it made life harder for some upgraders though.

Oh, yes.

Of course Not!

This thread should help:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ing-miles.html

Or you can dig up other threads on this topic in MilesBuzz! Forum and read further. (Key word search of "selling miles" in title will give you 25 results)

have you used travelocity/expedia to see the fares on multiple airlines...

perhaps look at other dates if they will work...

If you want to fly F that badly and a bit cheaper, I hope you have a US account since the bonus promo on buying miles ends in two days. You can buy 100K miles for ~$1450 reach can be redeemed for 2 R/T tickets from PDX-SAT on those dates you mentioned. It requires a stop at PHX each way but will be on mainline flights.

"Exclusive" is not a synonym for "good". "Exclusive" means to "exclude"..as in excluding non-frequent fliers, or those without sufficient funds. Those principles apply to domestic F, even when domestic F sucks by comparison to intl F..that said, it beats the hell out of coach or Low Class Carriers.

I have NEVER seen anyone selling miles on Ebay. Even now, I just looked up miles for most major carriers and nothing on Ebay remotely relevant comes up. The only thing people usually sell is club passes and drink vouchers and such.

In that sense, then every product is "exclusive." The Diet Coke I'm drinking is exclusive only to the club of drinkers who find it worth 50 cents and have the funds to pay for it.

Space-available F cabin buy-ups for on short narrowbody flights are about $75-100 per segment these days. UA served up an offer of about $100 for a two-hour segment - and I was on an award ticket! (I declined.) The airlines are trying to find ways to get value out of the seats and they're finding that on many routes and aircraft types F isn't perceived as being very exclusive at all.

They're still mostly successful at preserving int'l C/F as an exclusive product worth a significant premium.

^^^

OP - You've answered your own question. Carriers can charge off the charts fares for F because some, albeit very few, are willing to pay it. Why would they sell someone like you a seat for $1,500 when you are willing to pay $2,000?

Unfortunately, your comparison of fares is applies and oranges. The likely coach fare you quoted at $200 is almost certainly deeply discounted non-refundable and non-changeable. The same fare in Y (full fare coach which can be changed and cancelled for a full cash refund) is most likely $1,000, approx 10x the deepest discount. In that light, full F (which is fully refundable & changeable) isn't that much more. The more flexible your fare is, the more it will cost.

Other things to consider, if you can live with non-changeable / non-refundable are Y-UP fares where you pay the full Y and space available are assigned a seat in F at the time of booking. The carrier can tell you at the time you book whether this is doable. You will have to do the research and your best bet since you seem unfamiliar with the system is to actually call and pay the phone reservation fee.

Those on FT who talk about the lack of value in F fares may not have a basis for comparison. Whether a seat is worth $2,800 more in F than in Y is a matter only you as an individual can determine. Can you afford the higher fare? What will you give up to be able to pay the higher fare? If it's feeding your kids, don't fly F. If you have the money, sure -- do it.

Yes, every product is exclusive. Your diet coke would be exclusive in a famine stricken village in Ethiopia, as they would not have the 50 cents. Exclusivity increases with price, not quality.

Just because you've never seen it, it doesn't mean it didn't (or never) happen.

Not to mention by the time you look eBay up, something probably already happens to those listings :

For instance, if you had read this thread, you would have known there were more than club passes and drink vouchers being discussed in thread.