I used to fly a *lot* in my job and had a BA Gold Card etc

which meant I got a lot of upgrades for free, so I've flown business and first class quite a bit.

Short haul it simply is not worth it. Get a legroom seat (emergency exit row). That's all you need to do. On BA you can see what kind of plane it is - after a while you get to know them all (I literally have a favourite seat in every class of every kind of plane BA flies, except the Dreamliner which I haven't been on yet as I stopped flying a lot before it came out). But you can google up all the plane bodies and "best seat" and there are even dedicated sites like seatguru to guide. you.

Medium haul (East Coast of US, Toronto etc) I would go Premium Economy if flying under my own steam. The firm would fly me business but usually because I'd be on a red-eye flight - I would work a full day, get on a plane, get off in a different timezone, shower if I'm lucky, work another full day, so I needed to grab as much sleep as possible on the plane). For a daytime flight Premium Economy is fine (because that then becomes excellent catchup time: no-one can reach you so you can get loads of actual work done in the flight).

Long haul (Beijing, Cape Town, Bangalore) again I'd go Premium Economy but look to use Avios (I have stupid numbers of Avios) to upgrade to Business Class. If you don't have Avios check to see if they give you an offer like upgrade to the next class for £70 or something - that's always worth it.

In some airports you can almost always get an upgrade by asking nicely. I've never flown out of Delhi in anything less than Business Class, usually because I've just asked nicely. The most important word is not "please". It's "because". "Because I deserve it" is a bad reason; "because I've got to drive a long way/didn't sleep last night/I'm not too ill to fly but I'm feeling a bit off and just need to sleep on the plane" are all worth trying (not all at once though).

TLDR: Premium Economy Is Your Friend (I'm 6'3 and not slim and there's room enough for me)

Posted By: Old Man, Jan 11, 10:01:27