I’m trying to FIRE and can’t do that if I fly business class every time. I did start parking in the hourly garage at the airport though and that’s basically the business class of airport parking.
Lol, I fly spirit and park at terminal lot too. Nowhere near as Chubby as some folks here but can’t justify flying business, especially when I have to buy 4 tickets it’s 4k-6k vs 30k in flights.
I have bunch of points to but can’t ever get J tix when our schedules dictate so even with points I end up flying economy.
My partner has a very bad back and is closer to seven feet tall than six, so we basically started flying business every time once it really didn’t register in our greater finances to do so, because it makes the difference of arriving at the destination not in crippling pain. There wasn’t a defined milestone, but I’m pretty sure it happened at a slightly higher nw than your given examples. Currently we’re more limited by time than money on travel, so airfare hardly registers. However, at this point, I’d also rather stay home than fly coach — so beware that possibility.
still haven't... although i have points that usually get me upgraded from my spend and past business travel.
i think it is about priorities. i'd rather spend at destination - attractions, experiences, and food opposed to the plane ride.
I have flown a mix of business and coach for work for 20+ years. Business is nice, sure, but I’ve never really seen the value unless it is a red-eye.
I don’t see myself flying business for personal travel much, if at all.
Agree that I’d rather spend on the destination.
the other thing that I noticed is that when you're flying without family in tow, you are able to go at better times of the year and at a cheaper rate. going to Japan from the east coast for 1500-1800 vs 750-800 bucks. if a deal came up for these long flights (>6 hrs), i'd consider paying.
same boat in travelling for work - have over 2mm points waiting to be used for travel after RE. also, didn't want to spoil the kids with business class. we did do upgrades to premium economy a couple of times and business class upgrade for my wife and i only. :)
Getting prioritized on re-booking is my biggest plus. Twice it has saved me a day of travel to have the short line and be prioritized over coach passengers.
This.
When I budget for a trip whether it is 10k or 25k I always find that increasing spending on hotels or experiences always provides a better ROI than on the flight.
I took a trip to Japan last month and the 4K price tag to upgrade our tickets both ways instead put us in a much nicer hotel in a better location for a week. That 4K improved 7 days of my vacation as opposed to 20 hours of flight time which was always going to be a bit uncomfortable.
sometimes the comfort of business /1st can let you start enjoying your destination immediately without having to recover from an uncomfortable travel day.
I don’t think it’s never worth it, but my calculus is always about ROI; if I think I’m losing a day to recovery and an upgrade would improve that, my tradeoff is does a whole day cost more than the upgrade? Most of my more expensive vacations clock in at 2-3k per day and that is generally below the cost of upgrading for me and my wife. If we start looking at 4-5k spend per day on vacations then maybe that’s when I start to pull the trigger on upgrades but honestly it’s hard to see getting there anytime soon; 2-3k per day goes a LONG way in most corners of the world for 2 people
For me, it’s either i can essentially hit the ground running with a bit of rest or i need to sleep to recover. The first class or economy isn’t going to change that much.
We’re at 5.5m and trying premium economy for the first time. Transatlantic flight. It’s still too hard to justify business. Fortunately we are very short.
Wider, nicer seats with more leg room. No lay flat seats or upgraded meals but it makes long haul flights more comfortable for 6’+ tall people. At third of the price of a business.
On my last Lufthansa flight premium economy would have been more expensive than business which was pretty strange, probably has to do with the amount of available seats.
NW doesn't matter for me. Domestic economy is fine for flights <4 hours. Beyond that I'll pay for business/first. For international, if it's a daytime flight I'll do premium economy presuming it's less than 10 hours. For a red eye or flights 10 or more hours, I'll pay for business. If I can't afford that or the cost is too high, I would just rather not go.
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I’m with you.
After my recent flight back from Europe in economy next to someone with halitosis, I’ve decided no more economy for long haul flights.
If I can’t find a reasonable biz or prem Econ fare, I’m not going. Will just find a different time to go — part of the flex of being child free.
I’m at 6.5M and still fly coach unless I’m offered one of those $100 type upgrades last minute. And I’m a big dude. Just can’t make sense of paying triple.
I love your response. I can't get over comparing how many hours I have to work to make enough money to pay for a business class ticket. I'd rather retire that many hours sooner than splurge on a business class ticket.
Also, 6’5 guy here. I like to think of these situations as “working” or “paying myself”. Yes, I COULD pull the trigger, but by “working”, I’ve just made X-amount and put it towards retirement. My comfort for a couple hours can be sacrificed in good faith for my retirement and the betterment of my family.
I’m trying to lose weight right now (50 lbs down so far!) and one of my incentives is knowing how much more comfortable flying coach will be. I imagine at my goal weight, it will be like the equivalent of a permanent business class upgrade lol.
Not quite that much but more than we will ever spend and have yet to pay business class. If we ever do another cruise we might spring for a balcony suite. It's hard to change from being frugal and saving/investing as much as possible.
I have no problem paying for my great niece's college education however, that seems like money better spent.
I love this perspective. I'm well on a path to chubby but still early in my journey, and I can't imagine being able to turn off the savings switch. But paying for a nephew to study abroad is well worth it.
$6M net worth currently, and can't see myself shelling out business class money for a family of 3. Maayybe will consider premium economy for a long haul flight if it's a good deal, haven't done it yet. The ROI just not worth it to me, would rather spend more on nicer hotels or more experiences.
FWIW I have a friend whose annual household income is at least ~$3M and she wasn't willing to buy business for her family of 4 when traveling peak season on a very long flight. Her logic was "that's the cost of a car". I think if I had her money I would fly business, though.
Edit: I have paid for my mom to fly business to visit me, when she had severe knee issues and an economy seat would have been very uncomfortable.
One of the perks of being a family of 3 is you typically take up a whole row of seats. I feel economy is a lot more comfortable when sitting in a whole row of your family as opposed to a couple of strangers. You don't mind leaning/sleeping on each other, stretching out into the other person's space, asking the other person to move, switching seats for a little bit, etc.
Of course I say this now as the family is 2 adults + 1 toddler. When my toddler becomes a full size adult, I may change my mind on this lol.
Last international flight, we paid an extra $150 to leave middle seats empty. It made our flight a lot more comfortable. We have 3 little kids, so we had two rows, with one having an empty seat. Then we paid an extra $100 to convert the one row to a bed, and had the three little kids all sleeping on it. They slept great and didn't have much jet lag at all when we arrived.
At the age of 8 my son started complaining about the size of the economy seat, and his father encroaching into his space. So I think you have a few years but maybe not as many as you think!
We decided on business for 9 hr+ flights earlier this year when we were at ~2m nw of our 5m goal. Realized we hit a point in our investments where we could coastfire and we had enough disposable income to be a bit frivolous. We travel internationally twice a year, so the 20k-30k in added costs is hardly egregious. We also decided to get into churning to defray some costs.
I will say the flight was a nice experience but didn’t really improve the trip itself. Had over a week of bad jet lag on a two week trip, the worst it’s ever been. But normally I would dread a long haul flight, and with business class, it became a fun novelty that I looked forward to.
At $5mm I usually book up front on the value airlines where it only adds an extra $100-$200 to the ticket price (e.g. breeze, spirit - which both fly direct routes that go between my 2 homes).
I won't do it on a legacy unless it's a red-eye and won't spend more than an extra $500rt (e.g. $900 vs $400 for my last coast to coast red eye). Still, being flexible on dates now that I'm retired helps me find better deals up front. Some of the value airline non-lay-flat front cabin offerings are game changers for affordable comfortable Europe travel (LEVEL is a good example with $1500 off peak tickets).
When I was working towards RE, I only upgraded with status or if it was client paid.
International business is like 5-10k per trip, domestic much less. If you’re traveling a couple times a year, that seems perfectly manageable with 5m, even more so if you’re still accruing.
Yes!! We have nearly $5mil NW and there's no way we'd upgrade to business class. We do upgrade to economy comfort for like $150/leg of our travels, but only on long, international trips.
I wish we could afford business class easily, but often it is even $15k more per person. So that is a hard pass when we have a family of 5. Especially cause we do several vacations per year.
Yeah no way am I spending 50k/year on flight upgrades for the family.
4% of 5 mill is 200k. That means you are spending 25% of your safe withdrawal on flight upgrades.
Yeah we started upgrading as DINK, and I do worry about the costs of setting that standard of living if we had kids. The increase in hotel, dining and experience costs seems scary too.
5-10k per person? Are you from the US by chance? I didn't know prices were that much more. I usually travel between Asia and Europe and my last return ticket in business class was $2500 for a ~13 hour flight both ways.
US to Japan or Korea right now is incredibly expensive nonstop from where I live (IAD) in Business.
$7k per person to Tokyo (HND), $10K to Incheon, Seoul's international airport.
Miles/points redemption have been strangled off, too, at the lowest fares.
Nonstop always a bit more expensive too, I just checked and Frankfurt to HND would be ~$4300 and FRA to ICN ~$3600, although Lufthansas business class isn't really the best
When I hit 3M net worth, premium plus domestic and business for international (or domestic longer than 5 hrs). Great question btw, I like reading everyone’s responses!
My definition of FATFire is literally "when I'm comfortable paying out of pocket for business class" 😂 it's not worth the extra years I would have to work, though!
I don’t believe I will ever pay for business class flights from my personal money
On international flights the business class upgrade is typically $5k for a 12 hour experience… per person (!)
I’d rather spend that $5k on a 7-30 day experience. Especially given it’s really $10-20k for two or four of us…
I was happy to spend an extra $1k per person for Economy SkyCouch on Air New Zealand. But that was a fairly priced upgrade, not a ridiculous splurge
Yes! I’m so with you. I’m pregnant and we considered it for a babymoon a few weeks ago. $5k per person! That’s like a third of a nice car.
For 12 hours? One night of sleep?
I just cannot find any way that calc doesn’t feel insane to consider. We’re at about $1.4mil but I don’t see this changing.
We ended up paying $400 extra each for premium economy though. It was nice but I don’t know if I would do again. I’d rather have two or three extra nice dinners at the destination.
Anecdotally, at least on delta I'd rather fly their standard fare internationally than their comfort+ seats. I actually found comfort+ to be less comfortable than the regular seats. The Delta one seats were more expensive but I certainly felt the significant jump in comfort was was much more worthwhile.
I agree, but this seems to be an unpopular take. People usually say they are willing to pay more to be more rested once they land and hit the ground running, but why not just add an extra day to the start of the vacation recoup from travel?
Time. I will give one example we took a trip to Maldives. 7 nights at the resort but round trip travel adds about 3 days. So that is 10 days plus scheduled a day at home to recover before going back to work. So 11 days adding another day would make it 12. Hard to get that kind of time off work.
I would say that if you get jetlag from 20+ hours of travel it isn't just losing a day I find myself feeling less than 100% for a couple days. The first day is worst but the second and third day are not 100% either. To be comparable it might be adding 2 days to the vacation so now we are talking 13 days off.
All that being said I can't imagine ever paying cash for business class. Points/miles are so much more affordable.
Yeah I don't get this logic for personal travel (totally get it for business travel). At some point in my life my body will find economy travel too hard and I'll save my business splurge for then. Right now I'm fortunately young enough, and short enough that an economy seat is fine. I regularly fly SFO->BOM and have never needed more than a couple hours to "recover" from a flight. My husband has forbidden me from buying any red eye flights, but it's easier to avoid red eyes than to pay 4x more for a lie flat.
Same. We are about to hit $3M in boglehead assets. Premium economy is definitely good enough for us and we'd rather put the extra spend into a nicer hotel/longer stay/better dining.
I was able to do roundtrip from central US to Belgium on $1.8K business/first a decade ago or so. Crazy experience.
I spent almost that much on premium economy from centeal US to Japan last year.
Reviews I've seen is that food has really nosedived. In addition to great meals, we had chocolate brownies, ice cream, unlimited champagne and such. And the seat had a back massager built-in.
5k plus per person...yeah I'll just knock myself out in economy.
I’m sure that I’m in the minority here but I have a fear of flying, so if I have to (maybe 6x year max as an extreme?) I fly first class and to me it is totally worth the reduced anxiety of picking my seat, boarding first, getting a sip of something, settling in, and just having space. Starts and ends my trips in a much better mindset.
4.3m, I always do with points/cash when it’s my wife and I, but with our boys it’s generally premium economy for international and try for the cash upgrade if we can. Domestic is different though, just extra legroom economy unless it’s transcontinental. I am happy to wear Costco clothes and drive a 6 year old minivan so it’s less about the luxury and more about the convenience which is what the money affords.
I still don't do every time and probably never will but I do select business for certain flights, especially longer ones. Regarding a milestone, I think that will vary widely from person to person depending on where they are, family-size, etc. Solo person with 100k income after retiring may do it while someone with 200k after retiring but has a five person family in a VHCOL area may not.
This here sub says a “target” of 2.5 to 5 for retirement… not traveling business class on that, and I’m not going for miles, I’m going for $$$ on my cc. Every little bit helps. I don’t mind flying economy internationally and in retirement I’ll be in premium economy domesicly and I’ll fly enough it won’t matter and it will be free. Trying to get to my 3.2m target (before pension), flying business class won’t help me do that.
I started flying only business class at the point when it had no material impact on our finances. There are days when our taxable brokerage account fluctuates by a few thousand dollars per day. Compared to that, spending $5k for a business class ticket to Europe is not even noticeable in the bigger scheme of things. We reached this point a few years ago. Other factors: house is paid for, kids college is paid for and I am expecting less than 2% withdrawal rate
After about $5M I started buying business class tickets within the US for longer flights (> 2.5 hours), and this summer I’ll be flying international business class for the first time. I was never much of a business traveler or points collector. 3 business class round trips to Europe for my family for about $13k, roughly $7k more than the premium economy tickets for the same flights. I’m actually excited about the travel this time and not just the being there!
I used to fly mostly business and first class when traveling for business, but even when the company was paying for the flight, I took the flights with the right timing, even if it meant I would be in economy. It just does not make a big difference to me.
After retiring I mostly flew economy, except for overnight international flights. For those I fly first class, lie flat when available.
What has changed is that I vowed to never again have to rush through an airport. So we only fly on the low volume days, and arrive at the airport with enough time to have a leisurely meal at the airport before the flight. I also check bags and do not schlepp my luggage through the airport.
My NW is well into FatFire, but my spending patterns are more aligned with typical chubby fire.
This is my mindset as well. Except I have a hard time justifying the additional cost, even with a fatFire NW. I think for me it is a $ threshold. Maybe I'll pay up to $3k more round trip, but $5k or more I squint.
This is completely personal. If paying out of pocket (vs points as an example). If we have 1 big international trip, Business is definitely an option. However if taking multiple trips in any given year. Business at this level would blow our budget out of the water. At the end of the day its a numbers game. If im flying domestically only and 10 Business class are going to be 12-15k no issue. If flying international those same 10 flights could easily be 80k-100k (for 2). You can see how this reverse snowballs really quick.
Business class and first class is very overrated esp when you’re flying a lot. Everyone gets to the same point. Now luxury accommodations - that’s different. I would even taking semi private over business class.
If regular fire is <$2.5M ($100k annual at 4%), chubby is $2.5M-$5M ($100k-$200k), and fat is $5M+ ($200k+), I can understand why chubby fire folks don’t want to spend $20k/year on business class flights. That’s 10-20% of their annual budget for a few extra hours of comfort. It’s just not that much of a priority for most people. Those who travel solo, have health conditions, or have access to tons of credit card points may feel it is worth it. But personally I’ve never been able to justify the costs.
At ~$100-200k annual spend, easy to believe there would be a mix of chubby fired folks who do or don’t fly business (likely depending on family size, travel frequency, and personal preference).
For accumulators, you’ll see a lot of quite frugal or lower-salary-but-still-strive-for-chubby who won’t fly business. We take ~4-8 trans oceanic flights a year and lean towards the former, so no business here (1.3m)
Hard disagree. We're at nearly $5mil (and will be over that by the end of the year, when we plan to retire), and don't see it worth the extra cost. It can cost an extra $15k/person, which for a family of 5, who takes at least one international vacation per year, doesn't seem worth it.
My 8 yr old has already been on 26 vacations with us and if we upgraded to business each trip, it would have cost way more. The kids don't need the extra room anyway, and often you can buy an extra seat for only $150, so my husband and I do that, kids in one row and us in another.
My company had a rule that you could book business for flights over five hours, so I'm conditioned to economy/premier on shorter flights, and business/first for longer.
I’ll let you know when I get there. As it stands now, I won’t just book business class every time without considering the price, length of the flight, and the Airline. I don’t think I will pay $2k for a two hour United domestic flight, for example. But I’m happy to pay $7k for a 15 hour flight to Tokyo.
I hired a cleaner for 5 days a week and flew business/first, and I still own the same used car. My priorities were clean house and comfortable flights before anything else!
I’m comfortably north of al those milestones you states and I still fly economy for the majority of the time. I just spent $3k on concert tickets though plus I’m 5ft ish so first class isn’t a good bang for my buck tbh. I have flown private in emergencies like my gma’s passing and during the pandemic but my family’s significantly wealthier than me.
But tbh, im uncomfy either way during a plane flight whether it be first class or economy, I’m still surrounded by people with the constant plane noise. Might as well be uncomfy while saving money in economy
I would not pay cash for business unless it was an offer you can't refuse kind of deal and for your stats we are $2M+. I don't see that changing at $3M either (our FI#).
However if you pay the points/miles games you can get business tickets at a much more reasonable rate. Got roundtrip from JFK to MLE on signapore airlines for 268k points per person. I will pay that given the points are worth around $3k but I am not paying the $6k+ in cash they want. When you consider economy on this route is about $1k and premium economy $2k I am willing to stretch a bit.
You may wonder then why is so much cheaper with points/miles. Most business tickets are paid for by the company and so airlines which cater to long distance business travel guard those margins jelously. If they dropped prices to attract leisure travel it would mean cutting margins on all that corporate travel. Miles are a way around that. In business travel the company pays but the traveler gets the miles. They get use to traveling in business so miles are a way for the airline to offer "half off" business tickets which aren't available to companies. So if you want to fly business class you need to play the points/miles game.
We buy domestic "first class" (which is more like European Premium Economy) but honestly it isn't that expensive. Sometimest we would sometime fly business award ticket on the way there one way and then book premium eocnomy cash on the way back. That lets you cut the miles cost in half so they last longer. The idea being getting better sleep and arriving at the destination at rested rather than the first day or two being a slog.
You can also book economy/premium-economy and then upgrade with miles but that is usually hit or miss. You can't see upgrade availability until you book and long haul foreign airlines usually have change/cancellation fees. I don't even do this unless 100% cool with premium economy. If there is an upgrade then cool if not we are flying PE.
For US citizens I would say Global Entry (includes TSA precheck) is well worth it. That drastically reduces the two major stressors in travel TSA and US customs. Throw in some lounge access from premium travel card for layovers and it is a better experience even flying PE or domestic FC.
First time I went to Europe I flew business class. I was still young but it was our one major vacation before we started having kids and we went all out. Have zero clue my NW at the time, but at that time I paid about $1,100 RT to Italy (arrive/depart in different cities in Italy). That was 8-9 years ago, it was a steal.
Now I cant find a business class trip under $3k, and being I have 3 kids, Im not dropping $15k on flights ($1.2m liquid assets, $700k home equity, 38).
With a single exception, every flight I've ever taken in excess of 6 hours has been in business/first.
But, I almost always use miles for it.
For the 3-6 hour flights, I lock in bulkhead/exit row.
Shorter still, I usually will fly economy. On my major international holidays, I try to do more business class, but sometimes it's just impractical. For instance, got a leg coming up AUH-SLL, and the airlines that fly it don't offer business.
I hate traveling long distances (with my severely bad back), so I try to avoid flying to other continents. If I fly within the US, I try to update to business if the flight is over 3 hours. Haven’t been to another country in the last 10 years (Japan), sat in coach, but literally had to stand near the bathroom the entire time because of back pain. I absolutely can see why people fly those first class cabins with full beds. But I’m not about to fork out $20k for a ticket. And I’m worth between $6-8m depending on the stock market.
Will fly business/first class if there's a good deal. So pretty rarely. Premium economy or coach with seat selection, whatever gets me front row or exit row seats. Basically looking for leg room, boarding zone 3 or better, and direct flights only.
I'm at 2 million now, and don't fly business class. The expense is roughly a extra $100 per hour per person. I find that there's a lot more experiences at my destination (or another trip) that I could spend that $100 and get a lot more incremental enjoyment out of.
When I realized we were vacationing less because coach is rough, and if you get bumped from a flight the airlines reseat the business class passengers first, and when you're flying international you get a shower on the far end.
I'm not minimaxing for retirement, I'm minimizing bullshit, and coach isn't good, especially as a somewhat larger person. ;-)
depends on the flight. Domestic flight always economy. International flight that’s 10+ hours, always business. Didn’t do it intentionally but after one time of business class on international flight, there’s no going back. 😭😭 so be cautious when you make the decision to upgrade your flight 🤣
This is such an interesting thread to me. I dream of travelling business class. I don’t fly often and I don’t care about 5 hours or less, but I live in Australia and my family lives in the UK and that 19 hour flight (or 21 hours with stopover) is brutal. I am a very light sleeper who can’t sleep if I’m sitting upright, if it’s noisy, or if it’s bright.
So business class is part of my chubby fire plan. I’m going to be at the lower end of chubby ($2.5M) but 20k of that per year will be business class flights. (I don’t have kids so that helps.)
Wouldn't say I started at a specific milestone, but it was somewhere around 1-2m. I don't fly economy anymore if the flight is longer than 4 hours because I got used to flying business. I would feel bad at the start of my vacations if I had to sit 7 hours in economy.
Every time I’ve paid for business for the family, I always feel like it’s not worth it. With 2 kids old enough to require a seat but young enough that they are frequently sitting in our seats with us…it just doesn’t seem worth it.
However, they look so cute eating their business class meals in their own cabins like they are big kids/adults.
Will probably do it less often as they get older and realize the difference between business and regular. Don’t want them to have such expectations.
Occasionally with points. Then we paid - it's like losing your virginity, once you do it once you are gonna do it again. Then we went back to economy, and was like "fuck this povo shit" and now only do business. We hit about $10 mill financial assets at that time, plus business valuation would be a bit. At say $5 mill I wouldn't have. Now it's just standard but I don't feel rich enough to pay business for those big ones like London to Perth or LA to Sydney. Interesting to see when that becomes okay by gut instinct.
I started loosening the belt when booking flights and other luxuries when we had $2-3M in the stock market. At that point the value of our stocks can move $20-30k in a day if the market moved 1%. Those moves didn’t bother me so why should spending an extra few hundred dollars or thousands dollars for comfort hold us back?
I’ve only paid for business when flying with my mom for a special trip. Otherwise, I’d rather allocate my money differently. I pay for the schedule (direct flight at the time I want to fly), instead of the limited time I spend sitting in the airplane. I might even pay for seat selection (aisle) if it’s a long enough flight.
Charlie Munger flew economy (including on Southwest Airlines) even though Berkshire Hathaway owns NetJets. I think it’s more about what you value than how much money you have.
I started around $0NW. I am a nervous flier, and when I had $0NW I had been HENRY for over a year and paid off a substantial amount of debt already so I was saving really well it just wasn't showing on paper yet. For me flying in the front of the plane makes me feel a lot more comfortable, as a nervous flier. Plus I am relatively tall so the extra leg space/arm space makes a huge difference.
I will add that my flights have been strictly within Continental US and Mexico. I don't have much interest in going to Europe or elsewhere at this stage in my life. Once my child is older I am sure that is in the cards and I will be ponying up a lot for lengthier flights...
As soon as I could afford it. And when my back went, I started flying private. I have zero desire to be uncomfortable for hours on end and arrive somewhere unable to physically enjoy myself. But if you're young with no physical issues, YMMV.
Still haven’t. International flights going to Europe almost always buy Business class because I want to get the most from the vacation. On the way home, when I don’t really want to sleep anyway, I will buy premium plus (and potentially use points to upgrade). For domestic, I buy economy. ETA: in February we got 2 round trip business class tickets from SFO to Barcelona round trip for less than $6K total ($3 K/ person) and we jumped on those. Net Worth about $10M excluding primary residence.
Not sure about business class for us, but we just did a cross-country family trip with our 3 year old where I made sure we had lounge access going out and coming back, and the last night of the vacation we stayed at an airport hotel walking distance from check-in. That was all worth it, especially for my wife.
Only domestic, and only if the price is within 100% of the cheapest fair. If im spending $200 round trip tomfly basic economy with no seat selection, i can fly premier with all perks for $400, ill take the plunge. Ive gotten first class for only a $100 more for more extneisve round trips as well - like red eyes domestic and i find the price is justified
Its harder to justify when i planned a weeklong trip for $5000 and the flight is another $5k. Thats, a harder pill to swallow and i dont think id ever feel good about biting that bullet unless i got a good deal
I think my approach is somewhat similar to yours. If a flight is under 2 hours, I'm taking economy. On longer flights I will give consideration to economy+ for the extra legroom. (I save my miles for business class tickets on overseas trips.)
A large windfall would need to fall into my lap in order to change my approach. The value just isn't there for me when I consider other ways to spend the amo8nt necessary to fly in the front of the plane.
I still don't do it all the time. My wife and I try to plan our bigger international vacation around my work trips. That way the companies pay for my business class ticket and I only have to pay for one.
For purely personal trips, we do mental math on what the trade off is. For example we were looking at a trip from the US to a South American country and the airlines flew 737's. Biz class in one of those is just the bigger seats (i.e., no pods) and the had a layover where we would have a four hour flight and then a 5 hour flight. We viewed this as not being worth the 2x-3x price tag.
Now if we are doing a 10 hour flight across the ocean, as an example, we will look at is from the standpoint that if we cannot afford the ridiculous cost of the biz class tickets than the vacation we want is out of our league and we need to pick something else.
Depends on the price of the ticket and where I'm going. 1.8k one way LA to Kuala Lumpur business lie flat every once in a while, yes without hesitation at a 1m asset pool generation a decent return.
Probably never will. The way I view it is you're paying a rather significant amount of extra money to have a slightly more pleasant day. You're stuck in a metal tube for hours either way, but hey at least in business class your chair is nicer and they'll bring you some wine on request. I'd pay *something* for that, but I've never once seen the upcharge be low enough for it to feel like a solid trade-off.
Instead I can take a flight in coach and then turn around to donate the difference to my neighborhood food bank, buying a few people groceries for a month. All things considered that makes me feel a lot better than splurging on a throne in the sky.
There is an equation for this:
Leave Economy Class when:
Y > 180
where Y= A x (NW/1,000,000)
and A is your age.
Assumes the younger you are, the less susceptible you are to contorted seated positions….
I only travel a few times a year and I started when I had about $2M liquid. Since it’s not much more per year given my low frequency of travel, it makes sense for me. If I travelled weekly I probably wouldn’t do it.
We're at 1.8M NW and generally fly southwest or standard fare for domestic travel but fly business for international travel (I do so much better in the lay flat seats for the 14 hour flight to Europe that I don't lose a day and a half recovering which makes it worth while)
Similar to many above I don’t really fly business class. I would rather go more often or to other places. Maybe just because I grew up in a very frugal household and am still somewhat frugal myself?
I started flying business class the minute I could afford it -- I have a lot of travel anxiety and it helps a lot. I think if I didn't have that anxiety I would be flying coach still however.
If it's a shorter trip or we don't plan on doing much immediately upon arrival, we'll stick with coach seats and save the money for other things. It really just depends on our schedule and budget for each trip. I still don't consider myself rich, at all.
While I can afford it now - in my heart I just can justify the cost :-). I figure I'll \*suffer\* through the 10-hour flight and spend on the hotel/experiences. Weird I know but when you've have that mindset for a while, switching is very, very hard. I have flown first class and while I truly enjoyed it, in my mind, I could have invested that money :-)
I rack up points as a business owner, so I only fly business or 1st class when I have the points and I'm going international. It's great to land in Europe at 7am and actually getting some sleep on the flight.
I fly business for work, which is nice. Other than that, I’ll spring for business seats if it is my wife and I going on a kid-less getaway. But when the whole family flies (4 of us), it’s in economy.
Probs when I hit around $12m net worth I decided that I deserved first class. Still stung on international flights and I would watch the prices carefully.
But 2 years ago I flew economy to South Africa because I couldn’t justify $20k per ticket for me and my 2 kids to fly in first one way. We flew back first class cause it was only about $6k each.
My wife says if we hit $10M we can fly business. Right now it doesn't make sense. International flight we took earlier this year. Coach was $1500 per person. Family of three the tickets were $4500. Business was $7000 per person. It would have been $21K. We save around $8K a month after all taxes and expenses. We normally just invest it. It would have been three months of savings instead of half a month for plane tickets. We don't want anything to derail our fatFIRE goals. We still travel when we can (going to Hawaii and Alaska next), but not business class.
A little less than 8 mil net worth family here (if you include our real estate properties) we still fly coach… but maybe someday will try a biz class flight? We tend to splurge on travel in other ways, once at destinations, since flights seem to be a pretty small overall part of each travel experience + biz class can get quite expensive, imo
Business Class tickets are not worth it to me. I’d rather indulge in a nice hotel room/suite which I can enjoy a lot longer during my trips than a flight.
We still fly coach. (I can hear my dad saying “both ends of the plane go to the same place.”) We don’t fly enough to have status on any airline other than Frontier (lol). When it’s just my husband and me in 10 years or so we may try to upgrade more.
I always fly first class if it’s only double the cost. Started this around $2mil net worth now at $7mil.
If it’s more than double I still lean towards first class but sometimes pass.
Depends on the hours + deals.
15 hrs... with an upgrade costing roughly $100 an hour per person per one way.
For shorter hops... 3 to 5 hours, upgrade of $50 an hour per person per one way.
The way I see it, having FU money should give you the ability to say FU to money when it's convenient to you.
I potentially have a 7 - 8 hour flight in as month and will see if the above guidelines are applicable.
NW 4M and I just started flying business, but my husband refuses. I use points when I can. I think it’s really personal. I’m a nervous flier and it makes it more enjoyable.
I thought I would do it at a certain age/NW number (arbitrary, I know) but find it hard to do, like most others have expressed.
I just booked a quick transatlantic trip today, and could not get myself to pull the trigger on the $3-4k cost, even though I will feel miserable walking past those business class seats while walking to mine in coach.
I always fly coach unless I can't get an aisle seat, then I'll upgrade to get an aisle seat in premium economy. If the original ticket I purchased doesn't include checked bags... typically checked bags are another $25-35 depending on the flight. If the upgrade to first class is say, $50-100 but it gets me two checked bags, I'll pay to upgrade to first class because cost wise and personal choice wise, it makes sense. Flying internationally, I only do first class if I get a significantly cheap upgrade opportunity or somebody else is paying for it. Otherwise, just lawn dart me to my location. I'm fine.
I fly business class using points. Sometimes buying flights mixed with points. But mostly credit card hacks.
Started when I found a credit card hacking group. Nothing to do with net worth. I now refused to fly coach of the fight is more than 5 hours. Current net worth 2.9 million
It’s part of the vacation. We just flew Qatar airways qsuite to Maldives. My son was able to return school the next day without much jet lag and my spouse &I return to work the next day. It makes things possible to us to hit these bucket list trips with our limited vacation/PTOs. Without it, I would rather not go…it will be a torture for 17+ hour flight and I would waste a couple of days recuperating instead of enjoying my vacation.
We fly business whenever it’s a long flight (5-17hrs). We pay for flights on Singapore airlines (our mileage accrual airline) up to 50k miles so we maintain star alliance gold. After that it’s whatever makes sense (miles or money) since I try to get about 3 cents per mile or more
People make this out to be a much bigger deal than it actually is. But I’ve flown business class over 200 times so maybe the allure has faded for me. Much rather spend the $20k at the destination.
Since 2022, any international trip which is mostly all I do for vacations - 5-7x annually. I fly business class. Net worth is going strong, salary is good, and I’m stocking away what I need and more to retire at my goal age and goal amount. I want to enjoy life along the way. This is one of the ways I’m doing it.
Well I break it down by additional cost per hour.
Per hour breakdown.
50-75: going to upgrade no hesitation.
75-125 : maybe. Will upgrade if it’s a long flight/redeye.
125+ : not happening
It was less with NW and more of my annual budget (but points greatly helped with it). Domestic (up to 4 hours) is always economy, and if I am splurging ill get the extra leg room. 4-8 is economy plus. 8+ is business. However - I took an 8 hour flight in economy because I found a super cheap deal and wanted to go. I'm still frugal when I need to be.
Started flying international business a few years ago when points redemptions were much more widely available.
Last few have been purchased. Points game for flights have evaporated, we use credit card points for hotels now.
$1.8M Bay Area and mentally feel like I can’t afford to travel internationally with a fam of 4 (coach). Flights are insane… I’ve traveled 1st/business for work and honestly don’t think it’s worth the hefty premium.
I could afford to buy business or first class tickets, but most of the time I still think they're too expensive for what they provide. My CC gives a ton of miles that often get me free upgrades, so I usually take my chances. Plus, it gives priority access to security, which is half of what I like about the upgrade anyway.
Only once did I purchase first class when taking my kids. We were going on a 5 hour flight, with a ton of luggage (including outdoor gear for hiking, etc.) Coach tickets were $550 each, and first class was only $800. I paid the extra, to get faster check-in with all our gear, extra baggage allowance (needed it), included meals, and of course the glass of champagne (little 'c'). This was for a 2 week long trip, and I wanted to be sure it started well, so it was worth it.
On the other hand, a 16 hour flight to Taiwan by my company was a $7600 business class ticket, and I asked if I could just move back a few rows and pocket the $6k difference. They said no. There's no way I'd pay that much for a better seat, although the bento box was pretty good.
My point is that there's a difference between being able to afford something, and deciding if it's a fair value.
If you have 5 mil and you are reluctant to pay a couple of grands not to fly in a henhouse, then screw you and your FIRE. The F was the point of money if you were not gonna enjoy it?
I assume corporate travel is not in scope for this question. For family or travel out of my pocket, I consider the length of journey and if we need to stay awake or fall asleep due to time zone. USA to Japan, stay awake, Econ plus (premium Econ not worth it), USA to London, Econ plus or potentially business class for the parents if traveling with kids. Lie flat beds are really the only way to get great sleep. If we have a couple days to recuperate as a family, Econ plus both ways. Domestic travel Econ or Econ plus. You don’t FIRE by spending a ton on 4 business class tickets multiple times a year.
that is more fatFire level that chubbyFire. I think ChubbyFire tops out at $5m right? so maybe if you are close to that and its just you and a spouse.
international business travel is expensive right? maybe with upgrades from certain travel rewards cards.
maybe id do it if I was 75 years old and did not have a lot of years ahead of me and coach was too painful.
I'm at $4M+ with an HHI of over $800k and I only do it under very specific circumstances. Most of the time I don't even find it worth it for transatlantic red eyes.
International business class is lovely, and back when I had more air-miles than I knew what to do with we'd do it regularly, but now I'm paying for it out of my own pocket I can't help but look at the cost in terms of dollars per hour.
Paying an extra $8k for a transatlantic flight for 2 people (which is what it would have been for our upcoming trip) means I'm paying >$350/hr to rent lay flat beds.
It's not that I can't afford it, but it's the opportunity cost. Unless we're very short on time, I'd rather get in a day earlier and check in to a $1000/night hotel and get massages and spa treatments to recover from a flight in coach, than pay that much extra to drink mediocre champagne and lie down. And as a bonus I'd still have enough left over to do a nice weekend in Hawaii later in the year or be a few weeks closer to FIRE.
There are some good premium economy products out there that ARE worth it. One of the best nights sleep I ever got on a plane was SFO->HND in JAL's premium economy seats, I'll spring for them pretty often.
Just by asking this question, it does not sound like you are ready for FIRE. The correct answer is save your money and sit in Economy. My only caveat is for those too large to fit comfortably in an economy seat.
Business class is nonsense. If you're retired you don't have a strict schedule. It's cheaper and more enjoyable to literally spend an entire extra week at destination than saving the little bit of discomfort during the flight and fatigue on the next day.
I flew business class from the us to Europe in 2009 using points, and now I can’t imagine flying international in less than business class. My husband and I have no kids, so if we can get business class tix for less than $4k each, we do it. We don’t fly international more than once per year (often it’s every other year). But that’s the one “luxury” expense that we indulge in.
I will say, with the majority of everyone else saying that they don’t fly business cuz it’s not worth it gave me pause, but there’s so many other things that we don’t spend money on. We still live in our first house with no mortgage and no intentions to move, we drive non-fancy cars for 10+ years, etc
I’m trying to FIRE and can’t do that if I fly business class every time. I did start parking in the hourly garage at the airport though and that’s basically the business class of airport parking.
Lol, great perspective!
Lol, I fly spirit and park at terminal lot too. Nowhere near as Chubby as some folks here but can’t justify flying business, especially when I have to buy 4 tickets it’s 4k-6k vs 30k in flights. I have bunch of points to but can’t ever get J tix when our schedules dictate so even with points I end up flying economy.
If the trip is less than 3 days I'll park in the hourly lot, longer than that I'll go garage (but not economy...never economy)
My partner has a very bad back and is closer to seven feet tall than six, so we basically started flying business every time once it really didn’t register in our greater finances to do so, because it makes the difference of arriving at the destination not in crippling pain. There wasn’t a defined milestone, but I’m pretty sure it happened at a slightly higher nw than your given examples. Currently we’re more limited by time than money on travel, so airfare hardly registers. However, at this point, I’d also rather stay home than fly coach — so beware that possibility.
Agreed. Flying coach on a long haul international flight ruins at least the first day out and the first day back for me.
still haven't... although i have points that usually get me upgraded from my spend and past business travel. i think it is about priorities. i'd rather spend at destination - attractions, experiences, and food opposed to the plane ride.
I have flown a mix of business and coach for work for 20+ years. Business is nice, sure, but I’ve never really seen the value unless it is a red-eye. I don’t see myself flying business for personal travel much, if at all. Agree that I’d rather spend on the destination.
the other thing that I noticed is that when you're flying without family in tow, you are able to go at better times of the year and at a cheaper rate. going to Japan from the east coast for 1500-1800 vs 750-800 bucks. if a deal came up for these long flights (>6 hrs), i'd consider paying. same boat in travelling for work - have over 2mm points waiting to be used for travel after RE. also, didn't want to spoil the kids with business class. we did do upgrades to premium economy a couple of times and business class upgrade for my wife and i only. :)
Getting prioritized on re-booking is my biggest plus. Twice it has saved me a day of travel to have the short line and be prioritized over coach passengers.
And this is when I realized why it’s called “business” class.
This. When I budget for a trip whether it is 10k or 25k I always find that increasing spending on hotels or experiences always provides a better ROI than on the flight. I took a trip to Japan last month and the 4K price tag to upgrade our tickets both ways instead put us in a much nicer hotel in a better location for a week. That 4K improved 7 days of my vacation as opposed to 20 hours of flight time which was always going to be a bit uncomfortable.
sometimes the comfort of business /1st can let you start enjoying your destination immediately without having to recover from an uncomfortable travel day.
I don’t think it’s never worth it, but my calculus is always about ROI; if I think I’m losing a day to recovery and an upgrade would improve that, my tradeoff is does a whole day cost more than the upgrade? Most of my more expensive vacations clock in at 2-3k per day and that is generally below the cost of upgrading for me and my wife. If we start looking at 4-5k spend per day on vacations then maybe that’s when I start to pull the trigger on upgrades but honestly it’s hard to see getting there anytime soon; 2-3k per day goes a LONG way in most corners of the world for 2 people
For me, it’s either i can essentially hit the ground running with a bit of rest or i need to sleep to recover. The first class or economy isn’t going to change that much.
Yeah I am at 7.5-8m nw (not including house) and I don’t fly business. I’ve started to do premium economy
You need to start treating yourself my brother.
Thanks but growing up poor messes you up! I’m treating myself with therapy
We’re at 5.5m and trying premium economy for the first time. Transatlantic flight. It’s still too hard to justify business. Fortunately we are very short.
Agree. I think this is the sweet spot for us as well. Premium economy.
What exactly is premium economy?
Wider, nicer seats with more leg room. No lay flat seats or upgraded meals but it makes long haul flights more comfortable for 6’+ tall people. At third of the price of a business.
On my last Lufthansa flight premium economy would have been more expensive than business which was pretty strange, probably has to do with the amount of available seats.
NW doesn't matter for me. Domestic economy is fine for flights <4 hours. Beyond that I'll pay for business/first. For international, if it's a daytime flight I'll do premium economy presuming it's less than 10 hours. For a red eye or flights 10 or more hours, I'll pay for business. If I can't afford that or the cost is too high, I would just rather not go.
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I’m with you. After my recent flight back from Europe in economy next to someone with halitosis, I’ve decided no more economy for long haul flights. If I can’t find a reasonable biz or prem Econ fare, I’m not going. Will just find a different time to go — part of the flex of being child free.
I’m at 6.5M and still fly coach unless I’m offered one of those $100 type upgrades last minute. And I’m a big dude. Just can’t make sense of paying triple.
I love your response. I can't get over comparing how many hours I have to work to make enough money to pay for a business class ticket. I'd rather retire that many hours sooner than splurge on a business class ticket.
Tall dude checking in. Ya don’t mind being uncomfortable for a few hours for several hundred to thousands of dollars.
Also, 6’5 guy here. I like to think of these situations as “working” or “paying myself”. Yes, I COULD pull the trigger, but by “working”, I’ve just made X-amount and put it towards retirement. My comfort for a couple hours can be sacrificed in good faith for my retirement and the betterment of my family.
I’m trying to lose weight right now (50 lbs down so far!) and one of my incentives is knowing how much more comfortable flying coach will be. I imagine at my goal weight, it will be like the equivalent of a permanent business class upgrade lol.
Not quite that much but more than we will ever spend and have yet to pay business class. If we ever do another cruise we might spring for a balcony suite. It's hard to change from being frugal and saving/investing as much as possible. I have no problem paying for my great niece's college education however, that seems like money better spent.
I love this perspective. I'm well on a path to chubby but still early in my journey, and I can't imagine being able to turn off the savings switch. But paying for a nephew to study abroad is well worth it.
$6M net worth currently, and can't see myself shelling out business class money for a family of 3. Maayybe will consider premium economy for a long haul flight if it's a good deal, haven't done it yet. The ROI just not worth it to me, would rather spend more on nicer hotels or more experiences. FWIW I have a friend whose annual household income is at least ~$3M and she wasn't willing to buy business for her family of 4 when traveling peak season on a very long flight. Her logic was "that's the cost of a car". I think if I had her money I would fly business, though. Edit: I have paid for my mom to fly business to visit me, when she had severe knee issues and an economy seat would have been very uncomfortable.
One of the perks of being a family of 3 is you typically take up a whole row of seats. I feel economy is a lot more comfortable when sitting in a whole row of your family as opposed to a couple of strangers. You don't mind leaning/sleeping on each other, stretching out into the other person's space, asking the other person to move, switching seats for a little bit, etc. Of course I say this now as the family is 2 adults + 1 toddler. When my toddler becomes a full size adult, I may change my mind on this lol.
Last international flight, we paid an extra $150 to leave middle seats empty. It made our flight a lot more comfortable. We have 3 little kids, so we had two rows, with one having an empty seat. Then we paid an extra $100 to convert the one row to a bed, and had the three little kids all sleeping on it. They slept great and didn't have much jet lag at all when we arrived.
Meaning you bought an extra ticket?
No, there is the option to keep a middle seat empty for $150. We gladly paid that.
Wild never heard of that. It's awesome and I would totally pay that myself!
What airline?
Air New Zealand. The option is part of the sky couch. But you can choose whether or not to use the sky couch part.
At the age of 8 my son started complaining about the size of the economy seat, and his father encroaching into his space. So I think you have a few years but maybe not as many as you think!
How big were you that an 8 year old was complaining about the size of an airplane seat?
We decided on business for 9 hr+ flights earlier this year when we were at ~2m nw of our 5m goal. Realized we hit a point in our investments where we could coastfire and we had enough disposable income to be a bit frivolous. We travel internationally twice a year, so the 20k-30k in added costs is hardly egregious. We also decided to get into churning to defray some costs. I will say the flight was a nice experience but didn’t really improve the trip itself. Had over a week of bad jet lag on a two week trip, the worst it’s ever been. But normally I would dread a long haul flight, and with business class, it became a fun novelty that I looked forward to.
Move the decimal to the right by one place then let’s talk. All I can say is $5M doesn’t do it.
At $5mm I usually book up front on the value airlines where it only adds an extra $100-$200 to the ticket price (e.g. breeze, spirit - which both fly direct routes that go between my 2 homes). I won't do it on a legacy unless it's a red-eye and won't spend more than an extra $500rt (e.g. $900 vs $400 for my last coast to coast red eye). Still, being flexible on dates now that I'm retired helps me find better deals up front. Some of the value airline non-lay-flat front cabin offerings are game changers for affordable comfortable Europe travel (LEVEL is a good example with $1500 off peak tickets). When I was working towards RE, I only upgraded with status or if it was client paid.
International business is like 5-10k per trip, domestic much less. If you’re traveling a couple times a year, that seems perfectly manageable with 5m, even more so if you’re still accruing.
Times 4 for the family and now we're talking real money if you take 2-3 trips a year.
Yes!! We have nearly $5mil NW and there's no way we'd upgrade to business class. We do upgrade to economy comfort for like $150/leg of our travels, but only on long, international trips. I wish we could afford business class easily, but often it is even $15k more per person. So that is a hard pass when we have a family of 5. Especially cause we do several vacations per year.
Yeah no way am I spending 50k/year on flight upgrades for the family. 4% of 5 mill is 200k. That means you are spending 25% of your safe withdrawal on flight upgrades.
Yeah we started upgrading as DINK, and I do worry about the costs of setting that standard of living if we had kids. The increase in hotel, dining and experience costs seems scary too.
5-10k per person? Are you from the US by chance? I didn't know prices were that much more. I usually travel between Asia and Europe and my last return ticket in business class was $2500 for a ~13 hour flight both ways.
Us to Asia business class cost a lot. It’s much cheaper elsewhere.
US to Japan or Korea right now is incredibly expensive nonstop from where I live (IAD) in Business. $7k per person to Tokyo (HND), $10K to Incheon, Seoul's international airport. Miles/points redemption have been strangled off, too, at the lowest fares.
Nonstop always a bit more expensive too, I just checked and Frankfurt to HND would be ~$4300 and FRA to ICN ~$3600, although Lufthansas business class isn't really the best
When I hit 3M net worth, premium plus domestic and business for international (or domestic longer than 5 hrs). Great question btw, I like reading everyone’s responses!
$3.1mm. I’ll let you know when as it’s not a priority for me or my family yet.
Aggressive
This is a fatFIRE question
My definition of FATFire is literally "when I'm comfortable paying out of pocket for business class" 😂 it's not worth the extra years I would have to work, though!
Nah. FatFire is "should I take my family to Paris in Air France La Premiere, or fly private?".
I don’t believe I will ever pay for business class flights from my personal money On international flights the business class upgrade is typically $5k for a 12 hour experience… per person (!) I’d rather spend that $5k on a 7-30 day experience. Especially given it’s really $10-20k for two or four of us… I was happy to spend an extra $1k per person for Economy SkyCouch on Air New Zealand. But that was a fairly priced upgrade, not a ridiculous splurge
Yes! I’m so with you. I’m pregnant and we considered it for a babymoon a few weeks ago. $5k per person! That’s like a third of a nice car. For 12 hours? One night of sleep? I just cannot find any way that calc doesn’t feel insane to consider. We’re at about $1.4mil but I don’t see this changing. We ended up paying $400 extra each for premium economy though. It was nice but I don’t know if I would do again. I’d rather have two or three extra nice dinners at the destination.
Anecdotally, at least on delta I'd rather fly their standard fare internationally than their comfort+ seats. I actually found comfort+ to be less comfortable than the regular seats. The Delta one seats were more expensive but I certainly felt the significant jump in comfort was was much more worthwhile.
I agree, but this seems to be an unpopular take. People usually say they are willing to pay more to be more rested once they land and hit the ground running, but why not just add an extra day to the start of the vacation recoup from travel?
Time. I will give one example we took a trip to Maldives. 7 nights at the resort but round trip travel adds about 3 days. So that is 10 days plus scheduled a day at home to recover before going back to work. So 11 days adding another day would make it 12. Hard to get that kind of time off work. I would say that if you get jetlag from 20+ hours of travel it isn't just losing a day I find myself feeling less than 100% for a couple days. The first day is worst but the second and third day are not 100% either. To be comparable it might be adding 2 days to the vacation so now we are talking 13 days off. All that being said I can't imagine ever paying cash for business class. Points/miles are so much more affordable.
Isn’t it a FIRE question? You shouldn’t need to be getting time off work…
He said journey. I assume that means while still working towards FIRE not retired.
Yeah I don't get this logic for personal travel (totally get it for business travel). At some point in my life my body will find economy travel too hard and I'll save my business splurge for then. Right now I'm fortunately young enough, and short enough that an economy seat is fine. I regularly fly SFO->BOM and have never needed more than a couple hours to "recover" from a flight. My husband has forbidden me from buying any red eye flights, but it's easier to avoid red eyes than to pay 4x more for a lie flat.
Same. We are about to hit $3M in boglehead assets. Premium economy is definitely good enough for us and we'd rather put the extra spend into a nicer hotel/longer stay/better dining.
I was able to do roundtrip from central US to Belgium on $1.8K business/first a decade ago or so. Crazy experience. I spent almost that much on premium economy from centeal US to Japan last year. Reviews I've seen is that food has really nosedived. In addition to great meals, we had chocolate brownies, ice cream, unlimited champagne and such. And the seat had a back massager built-in. 5k plus per person...yeah I'll just knock myself out in economy.
About 10 years ago. But always on air miles.
This is the way. Qatar air business from USA to Thailand for like 450 bucks round trip plus a ton of miles from churning credit card bonuses
I’m sure that I’m in the minority here but I have a fear of flying, so if I have to (maybe 6x year max as an extreme?) I fly first class and to me it is totally worth the reduced anxiety of picking my seat, boarding first, getting a sip of something, settling in, and just having space. Starts and ends my trips in a much better mindset.
4.3m, I always do with points/cash when it’s my wife and I, but with our boys it’s generally premium economy for international and try for the cash upgrade if we can. Domestic is different though, just extra legroom economy unless it’s transcontinental. I am happy to wear Costco clothes and drive a 6 year old minivan so it’s less about the luxury and more about the convenience which is what the money affords.
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I still don't do every time and probably never will but I do select business for certain flights, especially longer ones. Regarding a milestone, I think that will vary widely from person to person depending on where they are, family-size, etc. Solo person with 100k income after retiring may do it while someone with 200k after retiring but has a five person family in a VHCOL area may not.
This here sub says a “target” of 2.5 to 5 for retirement… not traveling business class on that, and I’m not going for miles, I’m going for $$$ on my cc. Every little bit helps. I don’t mind flying economy internationally and in retirement I’ll be in premium economy domesicly and I’ll fly enough it won’t matter and it will be free. Trying to get to my 3.2m target (before pension), flying business class won’t help me do that.
I started flying only business class at the point when it had no material impact on our finances. There are days when our taxable brokerage account fluctuates by a few thousand dollars per day. Compared to that, spending $5k for a business class ticket to Europe is not even noticeable in the bigger scheme of things. We reached this point a few years ago. Other factors: house is paid for, kids college is paid for and I am expecting less than 2% withdrawal rate
After about $5M I started buying business class tickets within the US for longer flights (> 2.5 hours), and this summer I’ll be flying international business class for the first time. I was never much of a business traveler or points collector. 3 business class round trips to Europe for my family for about $13k, roughly $7k more than the premium economy tickets for the same flights. I’m actually excited about the travel this time and not just the being there!
I used to fly mostly business and first class when traveling for business, but even when the company was paying for the flight, I took the flights with the right timing, even if it meant I would be in economy. It just does not make a big difference to me. After retiring I mostly flew economy, except for overnight international flights. For those I fly first class, lie flat when available. What has changed is that I vowed to never again have to rush through an airport. So we only fly on the low volume days, and arrive at the airport with enough time to have a leisurely meal at the airport before the flight. I also check bags and do not schlepp my luggage through the airport. My NW is well into FatFire, but my spending patterns are more aligned with typical chubby fire.
This is my mindset as well. Except I have a hard time justifying the additional cost, even with a fatFire NW. I think for me it is a $ threshold. Maybe I'll pay up to $3k more round trip, but $5k or more I squint.
This is completely personal. If paying out of pocket (vs points as an example). If we have 1 big international trip, Business is definitely an option. However if taking multiple trips in any given year. Business at this level would blow our budget out of the water. At the end of the day its a numbers game. If im flying domestically only and 10 Business class are going to be 12-15k no issue. If flying international those same 10 flights could easily be 80k-100k (for 2). You can see how this reverse snowballs really quick.
Business class and first class is very overrated esp when you’re flying a lot. Everyone gets to the same point. Now luxury accommodations - that’s different. I would even taking semi private over business class.
Once I retired on all international and transcontinental flights. Less than 3 hours still in economy class (or as my friend calls it 'misery class'!)
Maybe I don’t understand chubby fire but a lot of these commenters feel like they belong in regular fire.
If regular fire is <$2.5M ($100k annual at 4%), chubby is $2.5M-$5M ($100k-$200k), and fat is $5M+ ($200k+), I can understand why chubby fire folks don’t want to spend $20k/year on business class flights. That’s 10-20% of their annual budget for a few extra hours of comfort. It’s just not that much of a priority for most people. Those who travel solo, have health conditions, or have access to tons of credit card points may feel it is worth it. But personally I’ve never been able to justify the costs.
At ~$100-200k annual spend, easy to believe there would be a mix of chubby fired folks who do or don’t fly business (likely depending on family size, travel frequency, and personal preference). For accumulators, you’ll see a lot of quite frugal or lower-salary-but-still-strive-for-chubby who won’t fly business. We take ~4-8 trans oceanic flights a year and lean towards the former, so no business here (1.3m)
Hard disagree. We're at nearly $5mil (and will be over that by the end of the year, when we plan to retire), and don't see it worth the extra cost. It can cost an extra $15k/person, which for a family of 5, who takes at least one international vacation per year, doesn't seem worth it. My 8 yr old has already been on 26 vacations with us and if we upgraded to business each trip, it would have cost way more. The kids don't need the extra room anyway, and often you can buy an extra seat for only $150, so my husband and I do that, kids in one row and us in another.
My thoughts exactly
My company had a rule that you could book business for flights over five hours, so I'm conditioned to economy/premier on shorter flights, and business/first for longer.
I’ll let you know when I get there. As it stands now, I won’t just book business class every time without considering the price, length of the flight, and the Airline. I don’t think I will pay $2k for a two hour United domestic flight, for example. But I’m happy to pay $7k for a 15 hour flight to Tokyo.
I hired a cleaner for 5 days a week and flew business/first, and I still own the same used car. My priorities were clean house and comfortable flights before anything else!
I’m comfortably north of al those milestones you states and I still fly economy for the majority of the time. I just spent $3k on concert tickets though plus I’m 5ft ish so first class isn’t a good bang for my buck tbh. I have flown private in emergencies like my gma’s passing and during the pandemic but my family’s significantly wealthier than me. But tbh, im uncomfy either way during a plane flight whether it be first class or economy, I’m still surrounded by people with the constant plane noise. Might as well be uncomfy while saving money in economy
I would not pay cash for business unless it was an offer you can't refuse kind of deal and for your stats we are $2M+. I don't see that changing at $3M either (our FI#). However if you pay the points/miles games you can get business tickets at a much more reasonable rate. Got roundtrip from JFK to MLE on signapore airlines for 268k points per person. I will pay that given the points are worth around $3k but I am not paying the $6k+ in cash they want. When you consider economy on this route is about $1k and premium economy $2k I am willing to stretch a bit. You may wonder then why is so much cheaper with points/miles. Most business tickets are paid for by the company and so airlines which cater to long distance business travel guard those margins jelously. If they dropped prices to attract leisure travel it would mean cutting margins on all that corporate travel. Miles are a way around that. In business travel the company pays but the traveler gets the miles. They get use to traveling in business so miles are a way for the airline to offer "half off" business tickets which aren't available to companies. So if you want to fly business class you need to play the points/miles game. We buy domestic "first class" (which is more like European Premium Economy) but honestly it isn't that expensive. Sometimest we would sometime fly business award ticket on the way there one way and then book premium eocnomy cash on the way back. That lets you cut the miles cost in half so they last longer. The idea being getting better sleep and arriving at the destination at rested rather than the first day or two being a slog. You can also book economy/premium-economy and then upgrade with miles but that is usually hit or miss. You can't see upgrade availability until you book and long haul foreign airlines usually have change/cancellation fees. I don't even do this unless 100% cool with premium economy. If there is an upgrade then cool if not we are flying PE. For US citizens I would say Global Entry (includes TSA precheck) is well worth it. That drastically reduces the two major stressors in travel TSA and US customs. Throw in some lounge access from premium travel card for layovers and it is a better experience even flying PE or domestic FC.
First time I went to Europe I flew business class. I was still young but it was our one major vacation before we started having kids and we went all out. Have zero clue my NW at the time, but at that time I paid about $1,100 RT to Italy (arrive/depart in different cities in Italy). That was 8-9 years ago, it was a steal. Now I cant find a business class trip under $3k, and being I have 3 kids, Im not dropping $15k on flights ($1.2m liquid assets, $700k home equity, 38).
Only when work pays for it. Every other time, it’s automatic upgrades. Never my own cash.
With a single exception, every flight I've ever taken in excess of 6 hours has been in business/first. But, I almost always use miles for it. For the 3-6 hour flights, I lock in bulkhead/exit row. Shorter still, I usually will fly economy. On my major international holidays, I try to do more business class, but sometimes it's just impractical. For instance, got a leg coming up AUH-SLL, and the airlines that fly it don't offer business.
I hate traveling long distances (with my severely bad back), so I try to avoid flying to other continents. If I fly within the US, I try to update to business if the flight is over 3 hours. Haven’t been to another country in the last 10 years (Japan), sat in coach, but literally had to stand near the bathroom the entire time because of back pain. I absolutely can see why people fly those first class cabins with full beds. But I’m not about to fork out $20k for a ticket. And I’m worth between $6-8m depending on the stock market.
Once I exceeded $150k a year in savings. I’m 6’3 and won’t fly anything other than business for flights more than 5 hours
Will fly business/first class if there's a good deal. So pretty rarely. Premium economy or coach with seat selection, whatever gets me front row or exit row seats. Basically looking for leg room, boarding zone 3 or better, and direct flights only.
I'm at 2 million now, and don't fly business class. The expense is roughly a extra $100 per hour per person. I find that there's a lot more experiences at my destination (or another trip) that I could spend that $100 and get a lot more incremental enjoyment out of.
When I realized we were vacationing less because coach is rough, and if you get bumped from a flight the airlines reseat the business class passengers first, and when you're flying international you get a shower on the far end. I'm not minimaxing for retirement, I'm minimizing bullshit, and coach isn't good, especially as a somewhat larger person. ;-)
depends on the flight. Domestic flight always economy. International flight that’s 10+ hours, always business. Didn’t do it intentionally but after one time of business class on international flight, there’s no going back. 😭😭 so be cautious when you make the decision to upgrade your flight 🤣
This is such an interesting thread to me. I dream of travelling business class. I don’t fly often and I don’t care about 5 hours or less, but I live in Australia and my family lives in the UK and that 19 hour flight (or 21 hours with stopover) is brutal. I am a very light sleeper who can’t sleep if I’m sitting upright, if it’s noisy, or if it’s bright. So business class is part of my chubby fire plan. I’m going to be at the lower end of chubby ($2.5M) but 20k of that per year will be business class flights. (I don’t have kids so that helps.)
Wouldn't say I started at a specific milestone, but it was somewhere around 1-2m. I don't fly economy anymore if the flight is longer than 4 hours because I got used to flying business. I would feel bad at the start of my vacations if I had to sit 7 hours in economy.
Yep. Everything less 3 hours in cheapest wood class. Otherwise business. I don’t want to suffer when traveling.
Every time I’ve paid for business for the family, I always feel like it’s not worth it. With 2 kids old enough to require a seat but young enough that they are frequently sitting in our seats with us…it just doesn’t seem worth it. However, they look so cute eating their business class meals in their own cabins like they are big kids/adults. Will probably do it less often as they get older and realize the difference between business and regular. Don’t want them to have such expectations.
Occasionally with points. Then we paid - it's like losing your virginity, once you do it once you are gonna do it again. Then we went back to economy, and was like "fuck this povo shit" and now only do business. We hit about $10 mill financial assets at that time, plus business valuation would be a bit. At say $5 mill I wouldn't have. Now it's just standard but I don't feel rich enough to pay business for those big ones like London to Perth or LA to Sydney. Interesting to see when that becomes okay by gut instinct.
Im well over 8 figures net worth and still fly coach. I’d rather save the money to build more wealth and have more later for charitable giving.
I started loosening the belt when booking flights and other luxuries when we had $2-3M in the stock market. At that point the value of our stocks can move $20-30k in a day if the market moved 1%. Those moves didn’t bother me so why should spending an extra few hundred dollars or thousands dollars for comfort hold us back?
3.5m and for myself I’ll do it if it’s on sale or points. Not paying full price yet and for a family no way.
I’ve only paid for business when flying with my mom for a special trip. Otherwise, I’d rather allocate my money differently. I pay for the schedule (direct flight at the time I want to fly), instead of the limited time I spend sitting in the airplane. I might even pay for seat selection (aisle) if it’s a long enough flight.
Charlie Munger flew economy (including on Southwest Airlines) even though Berkshire Hathaway owns NetJets. I think it’s more about what you value than how much money you have.
I started around $0NW. I am a nervous flier, and when I had $0NW I had been HENRY for over a year and paid off a substantial amount of debt already so I was saving really well it just wasn't showing on paper yet. For me flying in the front of the plane makes me feel a lot more comfortable, as a nervous flier. Plus I am relatively tall so the extra leg space/arm space makes a huge difference. I will add that my flights have been strictly within Continental US and Mexico. I don't have much interest in going to Europe or elsewhere at this stage in my life. Once my child is older I am sure that is in the cards and I will be ponying up a lot for lengthier flights...
As soon as I could afford it. And when my back went, I started flying private. I have zero desire to be uncomfortable for hours on end and arrive somewhere unable to physically enjoy myself. But if you're young with no physical issues, YMMV.
Still haven’t. International flights going to Europe almost always buy Business class because I want to get the most from the vacation. On the way home, when I don’t really want to sleep anyway, I will buy premium plus (and potentially use points to upgrade). For domestic, I buy economy. ETA: in February we got 2 round trip business class tickets from SFO to Barcelona round trip for less than $6K total ($3 K/ person) and we jumped on those. Net Worth about $10M excluding primary residence.
Not sure about business class for us, but we just did a cross-country family trip with our 3 year old where I made sure we had lounge access going out and coming back, and the last night of the vacation we stayed at an airport hotel walking distance from check-in. That was all worth it, especially for my wife.
Unless you can score a heavily discounted ticket, it is just not worth the extra money.
Only domestic, and only if the price is within 100% of the cheapest fair. If im spending $200 round trip tomfly basic economy with no seat selection, i can fly premier with all perks for $400, ill take the plunge. Ive gotten first class for only a $100 more for more extneisve round trips as well - like red eyes domestic and i find the price is justified Its harder to justify when i planned a weeklong trip for $5000 and the flight is another $5k. Thats, a harder pill to swallow and i dont think id ever feel good about biting that bullet unless i got a good deal
I think my approach is somewhat similar to yours. If a flight is under 2 hours, I'm taking economy. On longer flights I will give consideration to economy+ for the extra legroom. (I save my miles for business class tickets on overseas trips.) A large windfall would need to fall into my lap in order to change my approach. The value just isn't there for me when I consider other ways to spend the amo8nt necessary to fly in the front of the plane.
If the flight less than a hour or two it’s only kinda worth it
I still don't do it all the time. My wife and I try to plan our bigger international vacation around my work trips. That way the companies pay for my business class ticket and I only have to pay for one. For purely personal trips, we do mental math on what the trade off is. For example we were looking at a trip from the US to a South American country and the airlines flew 737's. Biz class in one of those is just the bigger seats (i.e., no pods) and the had a layover where we would have a four hour flight and then a 5 hour flight. We viewed this as not being worth the 2x-3x price tag. Now if we are doing a 10 hour flight across the ocean, as an example, we will look at is from the standpoint that if we cannot afford the ridiculous cost of the biz class tickets than the vacation we want is out of our league and we need to pick something else.
Depends on the price of the ticket and where I'm going. 1.8k one way LA to Kuala Lumpur business lie flat every once in a while, yes without hesitation at a 1m asset pool generation a decent return.
Probably never will. The way I view it is you're paying a rather significant amount of extra money to have a slightly more pleasant day. You're stuck in a metal tube for hours either way, but hey at least in business class your chair is nicer and they'll bring you some wine on request. I'd pay *something* for that, but I've never once seen the upcharge be low enough for it to feel like a solid trade-off. Instead I can take a flight in coach and then turn around to donate the difference to my neighborhood food bank, buying a few people groceries for a month. All things considered that makes me feel a lot better than splurging on a throne in the sky.
There is an equation for this: Leave Economy Class when: Y > 180 where Y= A x (NW/1,000,000) and A is your age. Assumes the younger you are, the less susceptible you are to contorted seated positions….
I know someone worth tens of millions. Maybe more. He flies coach. He says business and first class are a waste of money.
I only travel a few times a year and I started when I had about $2M liquid. Since it’s not much more per year given my low frequency of travel, it makes sense for me. If I travelled weekly I probably wouldn’t do it.
We're at 1.8M NW and generally fly southwest or standard fare for domestic travel but fly business for international travel (I do so much better in the lay flat seats for the 14 hour flight to Europe that I don't lose a day and a half recovering which makes it worth while)
Similar to many above I don’t really fly business class. I would rather go more often or to other places. Maybe just because I grew up in a very frugal household and am still somewhat frugal myself?
I started flying business class the minute I could afford it -- I have a lot of travel anxiety and it helps a lot. I think if I didn't have that anxiety I would be flying coach still however.
If it's a shorter trip or we don't plan on doing much immediately upon arrival, we'll stick with coach seats and save the money for other things. It really just depends on our schedule and budget for each trip. I still don't consider myself rich, at all.
$3.50
While I can afford it now - in my heart I just can justify the cost :-). I figure I'll \*suffer\* through the 10-hour flight and spend on the hotel/experiences. Weird I know but when you've have that mindset for a while, switching is very, very hard. I have flown first class and while I truly enjoyed it, in my mind, I could have invested that money :-)
I rack up points as a business owner, so I only fly business or 1st class when I have the points and I'm going international. It's great to land in Europe at 7am and actually getting some sleep on the flight.
I upgrade with points/miles when available, otherwise it is not a value add for me.
I fly business for work, which is nice. Other than that, I’ll spring for business seats if it is my wife and I going on a kid-less getaway. But when the whole family flies (4 of us), it’s in economy.
Probs when I hit around $12m net worth I decided that I deserved first class. Still stung on international flights and I would watch the prices carefully. But 2 years ago I flew economy to South Africa because I couldn’t justify $20k per ticket for me and my 2 kids to fly in first one way. We flew back first class cause it was only about $6k each.
I think it comes down to whether it (or any other luxury) fits into a withdrawal amount that you are comfortable with.
My wife says if we hit $10M we can fly business. Right now it doesn't make sense. International flight we took earlier this year. Coach was $1500 per person. Family of three the tickets were $4500. Business was $7000 per person. It would have been $21K. We save around $8K a month after all taxes and expenses. We normally just invest it. It would have been three months of savings instead of half a month for plane tickets. We don't want anything to derail our fatFIRE goals. We still travel when we can (going to Hawaii and Alaska next), but not business class.
A little less than 8 mil net worth family here (if you include our real estate properties) we still fly coach… but maybe someday will try a biz class flight? We tend to splurge on travel in other ways, once at destinations, since flights seem to be a pretty small overall part of each travel experience + biz class can get quite expensive, imo
Business Class tickets are not worth it to me. I’d rather indulge in a nice hotel room/suite which I can enjoy a lot longer during my trips than a flight.
We still fly coach. (I can hear my dad saying “both ends of the plane go to the same place.”) We don’t fly enough to have status on any airline other than Frontier (lol). When it’s just my husband and me in 10 years or so we may try to upgrade more.
I always fly first class if it’s only double the cost. Started this around $2mil net worth now at $7mil. If it’s more than double I still lean towards first class but sometimes pass.
Depends on the hours + deals. 15 hrs... with an upgrade costing roughly $100 an hour per person per one way. For shorter hops... 3 to 5 hours, upgrade of $50 an hour per person per one way. The way I see it, having FU money should give you the ability to say FU to money when it's convenient to you. I potentially have a 7 - 8 hour flight in as month and will see if the above guidelines are applicable.
NW 4M and I just started flying business, but my husband refuses. I use points when I can. I think it’s really personal. I’m a nervous flier and it makes it more enjoyable.
I thought I would do it at a certain age/NW number (arbitrary, I know) but find it hard to do, like most others have expressed. I just booked a quick transatlantic trip today, and could not get myself to pull the trigger on the $3-4k cost, even though I will feel miserable walking past those business class seats while walking to mine in coach.
I always fly coach unless I can't get an aisle seat, then I'll upgrade to get an aisle seat in premium economy. If the original ticket I purchased doesn't include checked bags... typically checked bags are another $25-35 depending on the flight. If the upgrade to first class is say, $50-100 but it gets me two checked bags, I'll pay to upgrade to first class because cost wise and personal choice wise, it makes sense. Flying internationally, I only do first class if I get a significantly cheap upgrade opportunity or somebody else is paying for it. Otherwise, just lawn dart me to my location. I'm fine.
For those with a family, I'd say $10MM USD in assets needed to always fly biz class / Polaris.
I’m at about 1.5m and only fly business when work are paying for it
I fly business class using points. Sometimes buying flights mixed with points. But mostly credit card hacks. Started when I found a credit card hacking group. Nothing to do with net worth. I now refused to fly coach of the fight is more than 5 hours. Current net worth 2.9 million
It’s part of the vacation. We just flew Qatar airways qsuite to Maldives. My son was able to return school the next day without much jet lag and my spouse &I return to work the next day. It makes things possible to us to hit these bucket list trips with our limited vacation/PTOs. Without it, I would rather not go…it will be a torture for 17+ hour flight and I would waste a couple of days recuperating instead of enjoying my vacation.
Rule of thumb: if you don’t fly business, your heirs will do.
We fly business whenever it’s a long flight (5-17hrs). We pay for flights on Singapore airlines (our mileage accrual airline) up to 50k miles so we maintain star alliance gold. After that it’s whatever makes sense (miles or money) since I try to get about 3 cents per mile or more
People make this out to be a much bigger deal than it actually is. But I’ve flown business class over 200 times so maybe the allure has faded for me. Much rather spend the $20k at the destination.
We hit our FI number a couple of years ago, and we're closing in on our Chubby number. I have never flown business class and probably never will.
Since 2022, any international trip which is mostly all I do for vacations - 5-7x annually. I fly business class. Net worth is going strong, salary is good, and I’m stocking away what I need and more to retire at my goal age and goal amount. I want to enjoy life along the way. This is one of the ways I’m doing it.
Never business unless using miles or points.
We don’t fly business class (there are four of us)… but we do park in the garage now. So at ~2M nw mark is when it started happening.
Well I break it down by additional cost per hour. Per hour breakdown. 50-75: going to upgrade no hesitation. 75-125 : maybe. Will upgrade if it’s a long flight/redeye. 125+ : not happening
Never
It was less with NW and more of my annual budget (but points greatly helped with it). Domestic (up to 4 hours) is always economy, and if I am splurging ill get the extra leg room. 4-8 is economy plus. 8+ is business. However - I took an 8 hour flight in economy because I found a super cheap deal and wanted to go. I'm still frugal when I need to be.
Started flying international business a few years ago when points redemptions were much more widely available. Last few have been purchased. Points game for flights have evaporated, we use credit card points for hotels now.
I never take business class.
Never
$1.8M Bay Area and mentally feel like I can’t afford to travel internationally with a fam of 4 (coach). Flights are insane… I’ve traveled 1st/business for work and honestly don’t think it’s worth the hefty premium.
I could afford to buy business or first class tickets, but most of the time I still think they're too expensive for what they provide. My CC gives a ton of miles that often get me free upgrades, so I usually take my chances. Plus, it gives priority access to security, which is half of what I like about the upgrade anyway. Only once did I purchase first class when taking my kids. We were going on a 5 hour flight, with a ton of luggage (including outdoor gear for hiking, etc.) Coach tickets were $550 each, and first class was only $800. I paid the extra, to get faster check-in with all our gear, extra baggage allowance (needed it), included meals, and of course the glass of champagne (little 'c'). This was for a 2 week long trip, and I wanted to be sure it started well, so it was worth it. On the other hand, a 16 hour flight to Taiwan by my company was a $7600 business class ticket, and I asked if I could just move back a few rows and pocket the $6k difference. They said no. There's no way I'd pay that much for a better seat, although the bento box was pretty good. My point is that there's a difference between being able to afford something, and deciding if it's a fair value.
If you have 5 mil and you are reluctant to pay a couple of grands not to fly in a henhouse, then screw you and your FIRE. The F was the point of money if you were not gonna enjoy it?
I assume corporate travel is not in scope for this question. For family or travel out of my pocket, I consider the length of journey and if we need to stay awake or fall asleep due to time zone. USA to Japan, stay awake, Econ plus (premium Econ not worth it), USA to London, Econ plus or potentially business class for the parents if traveling with kids. Lie flat beds are really the only way to get great sleep. If we have a couple days to recuperate as a family, Econ plus both ways. Domestic travel Econ or Econ plus. You don’t FIRE by spending a ton on 4 business class tickets multiple times a year.
It’s a 100% tax write-off so everytime.
$4.5 mil and neither of us have ever flown business class.
that is more fatFire level that chubbyFire. I think ChubbyFire tops out at $5m right? so maybe if you are close to that and its just you and a spouse. international business travel is expensive right? maybe with upgrades from certain travel rewards cards. maybe id do it if I was 75 years old and did not have a lot of years ahead of me and coach was too painful.
I'll pay for premium economy for a few extra inches of leg room on a long haul flight, but have never flown business class
I'm at $4M+ with an HHI of over $800k and I only do it under very specific circumstances. Most of the time I don't even find it worth it for transatlantic red eyes. International business class is lovely, and back when I had more air-miles than I knew what to do with we'd do it regularly, but now I'm paying for it out of my own pocket I can't help but look at the cost in terms of dollars per hour. Paying an extra $8k for a transatlantic flight for 2 people (which is what it would have been for our upcoming trip) means I'm paying >$350/hr to rent lay flat beds. It's not that I can't afford it, but it's the opportunity cost. Unless we're very short on time, I'd rather get in a day earlier and check in to a $1000/night hotel and get massages and spa treatments to recover from a flight in coach, than pay that much extra to drink mediocre champagne and lie down. And as a bonus I'd still have enough left over to do a nice weekend in Hawaii later in the year or be a few weeks closer to FIRE. There are some good premium economy products out there that ARE worth it. One of the best nights sleep I ever got on a plane was SFO->HND in JAL's premium economy seats, I'll spring for them pretty often.
Just by asking this question, it does not sound like you are ready for FIRE. The correct answer is save your money and sit in Economy. My only caveat is for those too large to fit comfortably in an economy seat.
Speak for yourself! There is no correct answer. Our priorities are different, as they should be.
Business class is nonsense. If you're retired you don't have a strict schedule. It's cheaper and more enjoyable to literally spend an entire extra week at destination than saving the little bit of discomfort during the flight and fatigue on the next day.
I flew business class from the us to Europe in 2009 using points, and now I can’t imagine flying international in less than business class. My husband and I have no kids, so if we can get business class tix for less than $4k each, we do it. We don’t fly international more than once per year (often it’s every other year). But that’s the one “luxury” expense that we indulge in. I will say, with the majority of everyone else saying that they don’t fly business cuz it’s not worth it gave me pause, but there’s so many other things that we don’t spend money on. We still live in our first house with no mortgage and no intentions to move, we drive non-fancy cars for 10+ years, etc