I have seen many people traveling business class quite frequently when they don't make much. Tried asking some of my friends but never received a straight answer.
Thought of asking here if OzB community can share some insights and knowledge.
Is There a Way to Book Business Class or First Class Tickets for Cheap?
pc007 on 07/03/2025 - 10:28
Comments
They don't sound like good friends if they're not being straight with you. Perhaps they're just living beyond their means?
Yeah f those guys, OP I hate those friends of yours
Why? It's not a crime for them to use their money how they see fit. They might have different priorities with how they spend their money, and they might be embarassed to tell the OP that they paid a lot, or they're getting help with points.
You aren't great picking up sarcasm?
Right. That's quite possible.
Or they have rich parents. I had a housemate who always flew business class despite not having a job. When he was drunk he said his parents set up a trust for him or something that had millions in it. I did some research and all his siblings had trusts filed with an obscure partial combination of their first and family names. It may be just a small percentage of Australians but there are plenty out there who are born into wealth and take it for granted, even if they know they shouldn't flaunt specifics.
I used to work in trusts.
The number is way higher than I ever imagined. Generational wealth is crazy.
It was only after I did that job did I realise how people work mundane jobs, but live in Kew and drove around in a C63.
The amount of money that's going to flow from baby boomers to their children over the next few decades in the Western World is insane - generational wealth on steroids
How do you know that they don't make much?
Their workplace has fix salaries for every position and it's all over the internet. Haha
I used to think fixed salaries was just that, But I know in universities, the manager roles and above , each person is actually able to ask for more / show they earned more previously and then get a lot more paid to them than the advertised fixed salary level the job is openly advertised for as well as what it is written down as….
I saw someone just phone up and argue and get bumped up to the equivalent of two higher government pay grades. The system is a bit more flexible than I thought. Just having confidence and the ability to argue apparently can get you more money, when most people would just stay quiet and accept it.
Sometimes business class can be free. I traveled from Japan to Australia with a friend, checked in later than everyone else, and was told no paired seats were available in economy class. Would I mind an upgrade to business class, the counter staff asked. Would I ever!
But that's extremely rare of course. Chances are your friends are using credit card points. Maybe they know someone who works at the airline and are doing something a little dodgy. But most common answer is: debt. Your friends could be racking up debt with a YOLO attitude.
Also my friends don't know how much I earn. I have a side hustle too. I never told, and they never asked. It would be kind of weird to find out how much a friend is earning as that can set up an instant rivalry and even resentment.
If you're looking at random people and wondering how they can afford business class, how do you know how much they earn? Maybe their company is paying for the flight. Also truly wealthy people tend to hide the fact they're wealthy. There's no need to advertise 'Here I am! Come and get me!' to every thief and grifter. But poor people like to advertise they're richer than they really are.
Would I mind an upgrade to business class, the counter staff asked.
*sigh* Well I guess I could tolerate it on this occasion.
I have seen many people traveling business class quite frequently when they don't make much
How do you know how much a random stranger makes?
Do you think that wealth is defined by wearing LV and Gucci? The richest people will wear no name brand clothes and look like a regular person. think about that for a second the next time you see someone in a flashy car, they may be up to their eyeballs in debt.
friends but never received a straight answer.
It's a pretty basic answer dude. Your friends are not being straight with you probably because they're paying for it to look like they make more money than they do.
It's simple. you get credit cards with points (QFF/Velocity) and look at paying for the upgrade with points and a combination of cash.
Makes sense. Thank you.
LV and Gucci's demographic are people that can just afford it for the status symbol
I've noted an inverse relationship between real wealth and ostentatious display
starting with real estate salesmen in nice suits driving shiny new luxury cars - rich ?
no - cars on lease, and I read net worth averaging Minus $5K
the IKEA billionaire was famous for driving an old Volvo
Warren Buffet has lived in the same house for the last 67 years or somesuch
AI:- 'Despite possessing a staggering net worth of $137.8 billion (according to Forbes), Buffett is renowned for his remarkably modest lifestyle. In stark contrast to his immense wealth, he resides in the same Omaha house he purchased in 1958 for a mere $31,500—equivalent to approximately $336,163.86 in today's currency'
Cope. Conspicuous consumption never disappeared. When I was in uni, one of the students' parents bought an apartment in the, wore an AP and all hypebeast gear. His family was rich and let you know it. After Occupy and #EatTheRich, people are more cognizant of the optics, but for every one frugal billionaire you name, there are 10 others with private jets, megayachts, mansions in Kensington, etc. YouTube and TikTok flex culture has very much brought it back in.
Somethings need to conform like the luxury car of an auctioneer to fit in
Something's not needed
Marry an airline employee…
Still wont get you business class, just travel credits.
My wife have a friend and her son works for Airline. He gets cheap tickets. She flew once with friends and there was spare business class seats, she automatically got upgrade but her friends didn't because of ticket classification.
I believe you can have 3 or something family members under like the family ticket and get dirt cheap tickets.
Unless pilot or high ranked employee, got a friend whose immediate family get to fly business and he flies First
Evidently not working for any Australian airlines 😂
The couple i know that do only get 1k per year family allowance and they themselves sometimes get some perks or free flights/holidays.
Still wont get you business class, just travel credits.
Used to be only pay 10% of the full fare, regardless of class…
Yeah still is… The employees each get a code and they can share it with about 3 people they nominate in advance, and then those 3 pay about 10% of the regular fee.
This should be the case with both virgin and Qantas at present, as well as those smaller airlines like air north.
I even got to fly in the cockpit once… (pre 9/11)
plot twist, there was a 5th plane, that jv was in the cockpit in on 9/11 …
I've flown business many times on staff travel and I don't work for the airline.
I wish there was laughing smiley button on OzB.
So far, we're saying the 'friends' are the ones at fault and/or are shady. We also don't know what the OP is like either or how they are to their friends.
Suffice to say that there probably various levels of friendship with different levels of trust.
That being said, I've never been lucky enough to be upgraded to business and for the most part don't have the excess cash to pay for it :(
Yea I would probably not give clear answers to any friend who was probing me about how I spent my money, and id probably stop inviting them over for Breville dual boiler coffees on Saturday mornings.
Is There a Way to Book Business Class or First Class Tickets for Cheap?
yes, it is called economy class
Haha
u mean cattle class!
Never flown first class but have done a few business upgrades using points
I have, but I didn't have to pay… :)
:)
Which Sheihk flew you out to Dubai, JV?
An employer….
JV's wit and charm got him the upgrade
Was that the last time you got to wear your velvet smoking jacket, ruffled shirt and cravat in public?
Look for weird routes. I just booked BNE->Phillippines->Oman->Italy with Oman air for $5k pp in BC.
This is three 8 hour flights versus a 9 and 13 hour flight through Singapore, so certainly has its drawbacks, but worth it go BC I think.
Thank you
2 extra hours in the air and one extra stopover ain't so bad
You'll be surprised what people make on the side without actually tell you how much they make.
I know a few who made so much money on their investments but still live a very modest life and could retire but chose not to
To be fair, if they're flying business class they're hardly living modestly.
Can use points for Business Class, was referring more on OP's comment about them not making much but can afford to pay for certain luxurious things
Missing the point entirely.
Only a small percentage of those flying business class are paying full retail.
Probably points. I'm sitting in Karuizawa right now, flew here JAL F for $400 plus points, going back via Singapore, Emirates F on points - a little more in fees around $750 because Emirates suck for points redemptions. I'm trying to spend points before the August qantas devaluation.
Average Joe’s just churning cards for points.
It's just about priorities. Some people like to fly business class and choose to spend their money on it. To me it is a waste of money and I would rather spend the money on the destination
Same with cars, I know people with not much money who choose to spend it all on a BMW. To me that is a complete waste
I regularly travel business class for work - mainly to China and North America.
To most businesses, a $4k return BC flight to China is nothing.So that's one way people fly business class..
When it comes to holidays, as people have said - most people just churn through credit cards to get the point bonuses.
Doesn't take much to get long haul business flights via this method.Are they small business owners? Many small business owners put business expenses on points earning credit cards and accumulate a lot of points which can be used for business class flights. Another way people get points is by credit card churning.
No they don't have any business as far as I know.
Have you asked if they have OF?
Do you have an OF RiseAndRuin?
You can get cheap business class if you have friends/family working for an airline and get them to put you on staff travel. Source: I have family working for both Virgin and Qantas.
likely reward seats bought with points. easily attainable if you are willing to put in the time and book well ahead and be flexible.
Years ago when the Aussie dollar wasn’t to bad I used to buy AA miles, also I used to buy Starwood points (now Marriott) they had a generous transfers to airlines partners.
Back then 80K AA miles would get you one way Australia to Europe.
For 80K miles I did a crazy trip in J and F:
SYD-PER business (23hr stop) PER-MEL business, MEL-DXB-LHR (QF First) LHR-MOW (BA First)This was back in 2016. I think I paid around $1900 for the miles.
60% of the time it's points, 10% work and 30% of the time they paid for it. Use google to alert you when a business fare for the route you want drops in price. Some airlines just off the top of my head like Qatar, Malaysia and Etihad allow bidding for upgrades which can be good value.
How peeps collects points for upgrading their class then?
Date a flight attendant?
No one pays full fair for business lmao*
That's insane. If you can afford it, you should be flying private.
*individually, companies obviously will.
They are flying business either through points or staff travel.
"When you can finally afford to fly first class, you look around and realise your peers have private jets …"
aka the Hedonic Treadmill …
No one pays full fair for business lmao*
When/if my wife travels without me I book business for her because it's just convenient. I can afford it but I been flying economy at least half the time and just buy seats with more leg room.
That's insane. If you can afford it, you should be flying private.
No, and private is orders of magnitude more expensive.
The method use to be flipping credit card sign up bonuses and putting everyday expenses through them, this is enough for at least 1 return international business class flight a year. Taxes and fees are around $1000 depending on destination.
Last year i spent $5500 on Qantas wine which got me 350,000 points and 180 or so bottles of wine.
I fly business bangkok to sydney, Singapore to sydney etc for 68400 points + 200 in fees.This gets me 5 one way or 2.5 return flights in business for $5500 of wine and $1000 in fees.
i.e i am paying $1300 to fly business each way or 2600 return (plus all the wine as a bonus)I also get some perks for being points club member once you hit 350k points.
The wine buying is variable you need to monitor and get it during the year at the right time the deals are on.
You can also accumulate points via credit card sign ups which usually is about $200-300 in card fees for 90k points significantly cheaper than wine.
how do you get on average 60+ points per $$?
use something like Flightformula.com to monitor wine bonus points. On the good deals it can be 60+ points per dollar.
Thats right. Actually every may and october they have an offer which is an extra 10k points per $1k spend, adding on top once you are points club plus you get 10% off wine so its easy to get into the 70s even if it says 49 on flight formula.
Points or/and bring friends and family of airline employees.
If you know someone that works for Qantas and they nominate you (I think only the employee + one other person) then you can usually get a business ticket for ~$200. But it's a standby ticket so you can only get told if you're getting on the plane at the gate, and no lounge access.
You've gotta be flexible. There's only a single flight to some destinations, so you're farked if you can't get on that day.
If you're desperate to get out, you take any available seat…so you're back to square one in Y, if you're lucky. Might as well fork out for a Y confirmed tix and don't have this unnecessary headache.
We used to travel Business if we were traveling to several countries on holiday. Round The World Travel in South Australia has RTW tickets covering many destinations at bargain prices.
There was a time where I was travelling quite frequently for work - every second week I'd be interstate for a few days at a time.
I always booked the same airline (in this case Virgin), and racked up points on my membership.
Once I hit Silver class, points racked up much, much faster, and I was regularly able to upgrade to business class (which includes lounge access).
Almost made it to Gold class, but stopped travelling as much, so didn't hit the required points. If I had, the points would again rack up much faster again.
If you're travelling frequently, it's not hard to start getting perks like that regularly, and paying for lounge access starts making sense.
Some airlines allow people to bid for upgrades to business which the minimum bid usually isn't too bad.
This…
Plus, no one has mentioned, that you can ask at the counter when checking in how much to upgrade to Business. If there are empty seats, price is not too bad.
A friend did this several times on Thai Airways, one way from BKK to SYD cost about $800 AUD.
a few thoughts as to business class fryers :-
firstly - small business people who have millions of points on their credit cards due to $1-2M+ annual cashflow
secondly - retired folk who after a lifetime of frugality have more than they are likely to spend, so why not
thirdly - for whatever reason, 10% of the population have a truckload more money than the other 90%
Last I looked there might be like 35 business class seats and 350 economy class seats
Google AI just told me average ratio of bus to econ seats was 1:5 or 1:10 - and 'In 2025, Australia's wealth distribution shows a widening gap, with the top 10% holding nearly half of the country's wealth'
so there we are …
Hi pc007 - I just recently booked a return ticket Melbourne-Paris for October for $8,398.00 with Etihad Airlines - there were cheaper deals but Etihad is a quality airline. The lowest was Finnair but had multiple stopovers - I only wanted 1 stop. I was also flexiable in my travel dates - it took a few back and forth emails. I used Flatbed Travel, Level 7, 99 Gawler Place, Adelaide, South Australia 5000 - godd luck and stay flexiable
i wouldnt give straight answer to my friend too. not because im gate keeping. because i know once i tell them how there will be millions of questions following the initial explanation. worse is when they ask you to help them look for reward seats. no thanks
I know a pilot who flies B787s for British Airways. He was telling me that very few people are paying full whack for business as they are usually using points or their company is paying. First class on the other hand is a different matter as no business pays for that and apart from a few people using points, it's usually rich people paying full price.
who are probably looked down upon by the real rich for flying commercial and not private. goes to show, no amount of money is ever enough if you focus on materialism
Watched something the other day about being wealthy. Being wealthy is great to a certain level but getting too wealthy can be bad too as when you have your jet, mega yacht and massive mansion, you isolate yourself. That's fine for some people but for many it's not. Get too wealthy and you can't walk down the street on your own without protection, can't go to the pub or shopping etc.
And those who rent private jet looked down by those who actually own multiple private jets.
I look down on all people not flying supersonic. You call 900km/h fast? Pfft!
fly out of an asian hub and land in a lower taxed hub (easy to google - milan / Dublin / Amsterdam etc )and use points -
we (2 adults 1 child) recently flew
Perth to Singapore in BC on points with QFF
Singapore to Milan with Etihad mixture of first class which is insane and BC
then a small flight from milan to London
we just made a stop over in each place and enjoyed itall up for 3 cost up $8k and about 70k of qantas points
flying economy for the 3 of us from perth direct to London would have been about 3k per person
Points
Majority of our flying is on J and it's all via points accumulation, pre-covid also did some F flights, but impossible to find availability for 2 with low status now.
My employer is quite wealthy, but he's only ever taken one business flight to Europe with his family. How? He saved up enough points by funneling all business expenses through an Amex card. He said the flight was very nice, but he'd never pay 5x of his own money to buy it.
Credit card bonus frequent flyer points are the CHEAPEST way to get points then booking business class
Velocity is very good to book business class tickets on Qatar or ANAChurning credit cards for bonus is the most effective way to get points
The best way would be to work for a airline that offers cheap /free airtravel.
Business class prices for qantas employees and their family is very less!
They probably upgraded to business class using credit card points. If there really was a 'cheap' way, everyone would be doing it.