Most people are either spending miles or company money. And if they're spending miles, it's still usually miles from company money.

Or from credit card churning, manufactured spending, or, in the most extreme case, pudding.

I'd like to hear more about pudding.

Reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Phillips_(entrepreneur)

I presume that was a reference to this fellow: http://gizmodo.com/how-an-engineer-earned-1-25-million-air-m...

International upgrades still tend to require fairly substantial co-pays. Nothing like paying the whole thing in cash but still in the multi-hundreds of dollars.

That depends, I recently booked a "round the world" trip in first class with miles (total distance traveled 19500 miles and 5 different cities visited so not really round the world) and in total I only paid 400 usd in taxes and fees and 205,000 miles.

If you can get the miles from churning, I wouldn't say that the co-pay is particularly onerous, it's much less than it would have cost to buy all the tickets in economy.

That's pretty good. United is around $500 one-way for trans-oceanic upgrades to business plus around 25K miles. A pretty decent bargain over just buying a business class ticket but not a trivial cost either. I do it now and then but I'm selective.

That's impressive. I want to now more, is there any way to reach out to you?

Try http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/

Spending company money means you're rich

I've flown company-paid business class flights that cost something like 5% of my pretax income. Who spends 5% of their income on a weeklong trip multiple times a year?

I typically decline the pre-departure beverage when flying up front, and honestly on a lot of US airlines these days it's inconsistent as to whether it's even offered. So both I and flight crews are trying to avoid inconveniencing you :)

Also, on international flights this won't interfere with the boarding process, because usually they either board using multiple doors (one for business/first, one for economy) or they board from a door behind the front cabin, so that people in first/business turn left to get to their seats while people in economy turn right. There are some studies suggesting that if people don't have to walk through and see the fancy cabin on their way into the plane, they get less angry in the economy cabin.

That said, yes, it's a very different world. I've done international flights in economy, and suffered. I've also done them in business class, and was fine. Getting a good night's sleep over the ocean, stepping off the plane into fast track through immigration, then into a lounge for a shower and a hot breakfast, makes the process not only bearable but pleasant.

And that's without getting into the ultra high end of airline travel (which is still well behind what you get once you're into private-jet money). Look up some videos of, say, Lufthansa's first-class terminal in Frankfurt. It's literally a separate terminal for the first-class passengers, with private security screening, private passport control, private dining and relaxation areas, and then they put you in a chauffeured luxury sedan and drive you across the airport to your gate, where you take an elevator up and board the plane, never having to mix with the economy-class passengers at all.

The middle eastern carriers are like this, too, and many go so far as to send a personal driver to your home or hotel to pick you up and make sure you reach the airport in time, and have staff who whisk you through check-in and security and into a private lounge to wait for your flight.

Currently Etihad has the fanciest in-the-air setup, with two different first-class "seats" on their A380s, both more or less private airborne apartments (one of them is literally called "The Apartment", the other is a multi-room setup called "The Residence"), with your own private butler, access to a shower in flight, etc.

And there is a good chance that he might of not realized he was indirectly holding people up. I would feel horrible if I realized that.

Alternatively, he/she might have known that ordering orange juice at that moment would hold people up and derived pleasure from knowing that was occurring.

Flew Aegean Business Class earlier this summer. As you get off the plane, there is a bus waiting outside only for BC passengers. Economy is let off the plane once the bus has departed. Felt a bit strange yes, especially if you are alone in that bus. I don't mind being treated well, but preferrably not on expense of others :)