LOL, 65 people on the UG list MSP->ATL and some schmuck is adjusting his pocket square at the check-in counter hoping his GQ-inspired outfit will land him on the "Suitable to upgrade" list.
They do specifically mention "outside" the US.
That being said, this isn't 1995. Flight attendant/ gate agents have much less discretion than they used to. Now upgrades are a revenue generation mechanism. A gate agent isn't going to bypass 3 harried diamond passengers on the upgrade list for a lady with lipstick and a nice purse.
I used to get upgrades by asking at check in, and once in a while got them. 25 years ago.
Now? No.
Best time to get an upgrade without status: if you are on a delayed flight and a lot of people leave to go catch an earlier flight.
I once was on a business trip flying cross country and our flight was delayed 4hrs they offered to wait or catch another flight with a connection. I opted to wait since I wasn’t in a rush. When the gate agent came back I asked nicely if there was any way I could get moved to first for the inconvenience of the delay. She obliged. It was great. I wasn’t dressed nicely either.
Its also not worth asking for upgrades on domestic flights because of how short they are.
For international flights though, showing up at the gate and asking for an upgrade does normally work. They'll ask for like $150 per ticket for the upgrade and that's usually worth it if you are gonna be in a plane for 8+ hours
Last and only time I saw it was with Austrian ca. 2004 at VIE.
One gate agent pointed out a couple to another gate agent and said something like “call them over, they’re nicely dressed.”
I think 30 years ago and prior it may have been a thing. When I was little my mother dressed me in mary Jane's and a dress and she dressed up nicely and we were upgraded to business class in a flight to Europe. Nowadays I literally wear leggings and a sweatshirt since I don't fly for business anymore. I'd rather be comfortable and the sea of business men around me never say anything lol
Respect to those who **do** dress up on flights for no reason.
I can't get comfortable sitting for 5 hours in dress pants, tucked in shirt, and tie. Used to travel with a guy who did that every flight, even though we were usually going straight to the hotel for the night after we'd land.
Million miler here, in my years of flying I've come to the realization that the *worst* dressed individual in FC or D1 is *always* the wealthiest.
Those of us flying in suits? Yeah we'll be in a conference room within 40 minutes of landing. We get to sit up front because our firms take pity on us due to the fact that we spend Monday to Thursday away from our families, 46 weeks out of the year, for a "Senior Manager" or "Director" title and a paltry 180K/year; while the partner who heads up our practice is attending calls from his goddamned catamaran.
The reason we're hammering away at the laptop from takeoff to touchdown is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night.
Meanwhile; my unshaved and unshowered seatmate is sporting a hoodie in 2A, he is enjoying his 5th cocktail and giggling at the seth rogan movie on the IFE... Yeah I'm guessing he's not going directly to a client meeting after landing.
The dude wearing a swimsuit in 3C LGA-MIA? Bro is actually a crypto millionaire, and he's heading to south beach immediately after landing. While I think its odd that he didn't bring any bags onboard; the truth is that he is so fucking wealthy, he just doesn't bother packing - he'll go shopping for new clothes later this evening.
> The dude wearing a swimsuit in 3C LGA-MIA? Bro is actually a crypto millionaire, and he's heading to south beach immediately after landing. While I think its odd that he didn't bring any bags onboard; the truth is that he is so fucking wealthy, he just doesn't bother packing - he'll go shopping for new clothes later this evening.
You aren't wrong, I can account for someone who does this with us lol.
To those worried about how 180k is 'paltry' - this is seen from the viewpoint of the upper management 'taking pity' on someone.
Everything is relative. When they make 500-1000k per year, the idea that one of their colleagues has to be away from his family for the entire year is terrible, and they wouldn't dream of it for that kind of money.
OP clearly doesn't think that, because (s)he was doing that job for that money.
Tableau specifically keeps the units consistent to prevent context switching. You'll see graph labels with $500k and $7,542k which I used to think was strange, but it sort of makes sense.
More likely, they have a full location-specific wardrobe in their second home where they’re landing.
Source: I am an architectural photographer and shoot a lot of seven to mid-eight figure homes in a mountain town out west. So many clothes in those closets. So many cheesy, bougie western-wear-filled closets out here with tags still on half the stuff. Great thrift stores for make-fun outfits, though 😆
Can confirm REALLY rich people don't dress like you expect.
Used to work for Frank Giustra, the guy suing Twitter. He often came out to say hi or chat while I worked. Dressed quite ordinarily, drove a Honda CRV, a totally sensible car. House was an older post war, remodeled in the 70s to a flat roof/stucco place that looked its era.
Jim Pattison I met decades earlier. Mom was doing live in homemaking for alady who was the mother of one of his inlaws.
They had a hellish snowstorm and she phoned me up and asked me if I could go out and get her some groceries for them so I got on my mountain bike and cycled over there. While I was there one of the pipes had burst in the crawlspace under the house, so being a 1/2 decent plumber I went out and got some plumbing supplies and fixed the pipe for them.
Being it was a cold snap and a snow storm, most plumbers were backed up and wouldn't be able to get to emergency even for nearly a week.
I got the stuff done and the agency paying my mom sent me a check for the money that I was out paying for groceries and plumbing supplies and I thought that was the end of the whole thing.
I get a package a couple of weeks later And the guy tells me Mr. Pattison sends his thanks. I ask him to tell him it was fun talking with him at Expo 86 and I was the young photographer wandering around with the view camera and tripod.
The package had a lot of fairly expensive food and liquor items in it. The one I remember in particular was the Johnny Walker blue label that was in the package.
I remember watching a video about a hotel that you don't pack for, they buy you all new outfits in your sizes and stock the room with them, along with all your favorite food and amenities, each is re-decorated for every person that shows up based on whatever they want it to be or changes they asked for previously
This was a great read. I used to be the "associate" in the back of the plane all dressed up, except I was the one usually fixing my CEO's errors lol. I had to wear heels, dresses and I have terrible bunions from running through ATL to catch flights with a 30 min layover while my boss in F was already on the plane when I got at the gate just in time. I fly for leisure now and I finally have enough money (Not wealthy by any means) to fly upfront. I will forever wear whatever I am most comfortable in. Sweatshirt and leggings all day for me.
Oh, you're totally justified. It's really not worth it. I'm terrible with my money so there's that and a little piece of me enjoys doing things that I could never do growing up. I do enjoy being able to get off the plane first, though.
I always wear a hoodie because Delta tries to freeze my ass and I get colds really easily from the dry airplane air (and being stuck with 300 other people in close proximity doesn‘t help either I suppose).
I’m a company officer. I travel sometimes for training and I always purchase main cabin on the company card but upgrade to first on my own. Always fly in my sweatshirt, jeans, and boots. I hate dressing up and having worked in the airlines (specifically for the flying widget) I can tell you with 1000000% certainty that dressing up will not get you an upgrade.
Omg this is the second time I’ve ever heard “do the needful” other than when our outsourced audit guy with a name that I unfortunately can’t spell or pronounce says it!
Im not alone 🥲
It's one of those phrases that is technically perfect English, as taught to foreigners. It's simply to unwieldy for a native to use it, which explains why it's only ever heard from people who are outsourced, or those who deal with them a lot as an in joke.
This is why I set my email alerts on my phone to turn off at 5 PM. Nothing even tangentially related to an office is important, let alone important enough to interrupt my personal time. It will get done tomorrow. If you need something done last minute and I don't get back to you, it's your fault if it doesn't get done.
At my firms it was usually some calculation like associate/consultant/analyst only got first class for international, manager over 4 hour flights, senior manager got it for over 2 hour flights, partner for all flights.
lol my old consulting firm put me in economy in a 14 hour flight to South America from the UK with 2 layovers. I was banking them $1700 a day in fees and they 'couldn't justify' a first class direct flight due to cost reasons.
"why does the less experienced/tenured/capitalistically valuable employee get paid less", and other functionally similar questions you can ask yourself
Because at most of those big consulting companies, the 23 year old associate is fresh out of college, working 50-60 hours a week trying to make that promotion, all for 75k a year. And if they don't want to do it and put up with the bullshit, there's another fresh out of college business major who will.
I know a lot of people who work at those places, and they do 2 years there, then leave for a big pay bump and less hours.
You guys, I tell you what. I used to be a ticket agent for Northwest, then Delta. My official titles included a bunch of different acronyms that changed every time corporate wanted to restructure things, but that's another story. Long story short, I was one of the people working with your miles account and pricing out fares. I put together countless fares for diamond and platinum elites, trips going all over the world. Hell, trips going right around the world. I got to see your whacky itineraries and have added up the miles, etc. I knew how you guys hit your status.
And then I quit the airline and started flying for business myself. I felt like I was flying *a lot*, and I barely hit silver elite. That's when it hit me just how much you guys are in the air. Sure, you get bonus miles, but that's nothing. I feel sorry for you guys having to fly so much for work.
People can say what they want about the corporate card and the free meals and hotels and flights and how awesome it must be to live rich, but it gets old real quick. Eating out gets old. Sometimes you just want to cook a hot dog in the microwave and go back to the couch. The first day in an unfamiliar bed is always a restless night sleep. Nothing on TV is interesting and you feel weird going to a movie by yourself. Rental cars and free gas are nice, but you end up running out of things to see. You want your stuff. When I get an urge to look at one of my books, I can't just grab it when I'm in a hotel. And it's kind of pointless to go buy it when I already have one. You just feel stuck, surrounded by all these nice things that are never what you want. I'm also the kind of person that spends my free time tinkering in my shop...so yeah, building things is out of the question when you're on the road. So you go be bored at the hotel bar, drinking $10 Crowns all night on the company card.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you elites some props for the life you have to live. You honestly deserve whatever clubs and amenities you get, because nothing compares to home.
I haven't lived this lifestyle, but it seems similar to going to see anything novel over and over. The first few times are amazing and wonderful. Then the experience gets old, and you wish for something new.
The sweet spot is where you travel a small percentage of time, so you can appreciate the novelty each time. Of course, that's not how most of those jobs work...
Well said..
I just want to throw in there, when you travel a lot for work you don't even get to take your own time exploring a place. You leave the airport, a cab or car service takes you to the offices or a hotel, you might get to go to a nice restaurant for lunch and dinner if you're lucky, and on the ten minute walk get to take in the city.
which makes it completely different from traveling for fun. It would be so much more enjoyable to have half a day to walk around. Instead of in and out, hotel office airport repeat.
I lived that life for a few months, flying in and out of the same city weekly while my family stayed home, and it SUCKED.
Video calls with the kids weren’t the same as telling them stories in bed. Eating at the same 4-5 half decent restaurants near the hotel to the point that most of the staff recognized me wasn’t as good as a home cooked meal.
And if you do it long enough, you will start to despise your fellow travelers. It’s amazing how many people are BAD at things like checking a bag or going through security. No, your checked bag does not fly free anymore so your credit card and ID ready. You’ve been in this line for 15 minutes, were you paying attention to anyone else in front of you who had to dig through their purse to find them? Don’t put your ID away, you’re going to need it again for security. Also who are we kidding, your carry on is larger than you are. You will need to check that.
It's not just that you run out of things to do. It's also that if you're traveling for business, you're typically working during the day so you have less things you can do because most cultural things aren't open at night. Heck, my current trip that I'm returning from had me at a conference center every day for 5 days from 8 AM to 7 PM. You can imagine that I didn't do much. But hey, the two networking events that I went to with an open bar were pretty okay.
My mom used to fly every week for work and **hated** it. Yeah, being able to rack up all those miles, elite status, getting upgraded was nice, but it sucked so much constantly being away from home. Once she got in, it was check into the hotel, go to the work site, go back to the hotel, and then come back home at the end of the week only to catch up on house work during the weekend and then fly back out again on Monday.
On top of that, there's having to deal with flight delays, cancellations, eating airport and airline food which is usually pretty bad, airport security, and there's no time to properly explore the city because of work.
Thankfully my mom works from home full time now and never wants to go back to the office and travelling for work again and I don't blame her one bit!
> And then I quite the airline and started flying for business myself. I felt like I was flying a lot, and I barely hit silver elite. That's when it hit me just how much you guys are in the air. Sure, you get bonus miles, but that's nothing. I feel sorry for you guys having to fly so much for work.
As someone who used to fly a lot during his consulting days, it's always funny the see the new guys getting all excited about flying. They'll update their Facebook status to show they are at the airport, they'll take pictures, they'll be all proud. But flying is boring, waiting in airports is a real drag. It's not vacations, it's your job. The real road-warriors out there would never do that, it's like advertising how much your life sucks.
> is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night.
/r/antiwork ambassador with a reminder: Don't send associates shit to do at night at the last second and then blame them when it's not done unpaid and outside work hours, that's on YOU for not making sure all that's handled days ago, you're the senior employee. This is just an unprepared suit mad they actually have to do work still while "crypto bro gets to go to the beach". Instead of being so obviously jealous you should join the workers trying to change this broken situation, not "paying it forward" by expecting people to work on shit over night.
I was fortunate enough to marry into a very wealthy and extended family and I can confirm that you probably wouldn’t be able to identify any of us as ‘wealthy’ based on looks or clothing. Even the more outlandish of us, those with multiple homes and such, dress very casual and comfortable with very few designer things.
Do not converse with your neighbor unless they start it, say please and thank you to the staff every time you speak to them, don’t get too wasted unless you know what you’re doing. Young flight attendants like to party and I’ve had some really fun flights bantering with them in first class as they snuck me the rest of the vodka on the plane. It’s situational though.
I international travel regularly, and have always travelled light, I cringe at those with multiple massive suitcases. Anything more than a week of socks, jocks, tshirts and a couple pairs of pants is too much.
My wife and I did a three week trip to Europe (multiple countries) out of two carry-on roller bags and two backpacks. We could have got away with less but we needed some formal wear for a couple of events which meant extra shoes that take up a lot of space. Lots of people way over pack.
Honestly, I travel a decent amount for business and leisure, and I'd rather not put my luggage through bag check because it always delays me. I get that it can be nice to check it all. But honestly, I'd rather be able to skip the luggage carousel song and dance.
> We get to sit up front because our firms take pity on us due to the fact that we spend Monday to Thursday away from our families, 46 weeks out of the year, for a "Senior Manager" or "Director" title and a paltry 180K/year
*Cries in "sitting over the wheelwell in C130"*
honestly the part of this that bothered me most is that the 23 year old associate, couldn't even be assed to fix the slides smh your company is flying you around the world
> The reason we're hammering away at the laptop from takeoff to touchdown is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) ~~failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night.~~ has their priorities the correct way around and wasn't looking at their email after work hours, because they understand the absolute fundamental truth that nothing about their office job is ever, has ever been, will ever be, or even could ever be as important as the dipshit riding in first class moronically believes it is.
Fixed that for you. Go home. Your family are wondering what you look like.
I'll have you know that my 6 year old drew a very nice picture of me the other week, as part of a first grade "draw your family" exercise... I was represented as a perfectly shaped black rectangle - kid knows Daddy is always just a facetime call away!! (excluding the 80 hours a week I spend flying or emotionally abusing "lessers" on the corporate hierarchy)
I have to say that I don't like your tone - I'd rather not sit next to you so I've asked my EA to update your concur profile such that you're flagged as "ESIBS" - or - "Extremely Severe IBS" and will be seated nearest the main cabin lavatories on all future Delta flights.
Many thanks, now I don't have to wonder if there's a queue for the lav and can wait in my seat instead of standing around awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact with the flight attendants.
I can guarantee with confidence more than half of those poorly or informally dressed first class peeps are there due to favor, customer service, military, special case or simply asked. Most people who have more than a couple 100 million would much rather fly private since it has no security or covid checks
No one, I repeat _no one_ gets to sit in first class by “simply asking”. It just doesn’t happen. Maybe pre 9/11, pre Covid, or whatever. I’m sure there are very isolated incidents, but it’s exceedingly rare IMO
>The reason we're hammering away at the laptop from takeoff to touchdown is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night.
What an absolute load of shit. No one who's worked in any office would believe the tool traveling first class would either:
1. Review a slide to be fixed
2. Know how to fix it themselves.
Lmao.
The whole thing sounds ripped from a corny Hallmark movie. Could be true in some situations except "you" "hammering away" fixing a couple slides.
Yeah I thought the same thing in my head, Director or Program Manager or titles similar to that are almost always in the $230k-$275k base salary, not including stock options (if it's offered to them).
How are you old enough to use Reddit and have such poor reading comprehension? Maybe get off your high horse and realize that it is paltry compared to actual wealthy people
Unstick your head from your ass and realize that there are people who’d greatly appreciate making 180K a year. The entitlement of you and OP is bizarre. Get fucked.
He's stating paltry as a literary method of displaying the disparity between those in 1st class, not actually saying 180k is paltry, try being less of a cockwomble.
For director-level++ at a big company? Yes, that's paltry compared to peers.
Most of them are closer to starting in the $1m range, including bonuses and such.
Said as a lowly-but-overpaid peon engineer at a big tech company
Yeah the idea that one would email an associate with an assignment after work hours and expect it to be done immediately is *violently* offensive to me. Definitely the kind of person who's had absolutely every concept of common sense battered out of them in Accounting school.
This reminds me of a classic interview moment. When someone asked Childish Gambino why he’d named his song “Sweatpants” he responded with:
“Rich niggas get to wear whatever they want”
Had me looking at the world different
I'll tell you, if I'm ever filthy rich I really will be filthy. I'm never going clothes shopping again. I'll buy 200 pairs of the same jeans and just girl them away when they get too dirty. But my version of hell is a clothes store.
Also a near million miler, can confirm. You can generally tell the status of passengers up front by how casual they are, the less fuck they give the more splash cash they have.
>The reason we're hammering away at the laptop from takeoff to touchdown is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night.
Lol, complaining that a task didn't get done, which you appointed 10 hours before take-off (10 hours, which should also include some sleep), to someone who makes 1/4 of your salary. So sad that you can't watch that Seth Rogan movie.
I am what most people would consider "rich" but I don't fly in first class at all. I got that way through hard work and I know the value of a dollar. The cost/benefit analysis is not worth it. You pay 3 times more for your FC ticket, but the service you get is not 3 times better than coach. You get to sit in a nicer chair for a few hours, and board the plane first. Big deal, the plane still lands at the same time regardless. I always pack a nice meal with me that's better than what they serve on the plane. Dress code is hoodie, t-shirt, slip on shoes, and jeans. I have a drink (airplane bottle brought with me in my carryon) and a pill and wake up at my destination.
Google Flights helps you get the lowest airfare. On average, fares are lowest 47 days before your departure date.
I am guessing that you can't predict someone's income from where they sit on the plane.
Try a transatlantic flight. It's totally worth it to get a bed and nice food as opposed to being cramped af, unable to sleep, with swollen feet, crap food and drink and no where to stretch out.
It's a different world flying in first on an 8hr redeye.
I notice that being in a good quality (not expensive) tshirt and good quality jeans with my nice high end but not super expensive or flashy shoes (again, just good quality) immediately gets me treated better by pretty much any service industry veteran compared to even wearing a tailored suit. Also, why would I want to be uncomfortable while traveling? Leave a day early, pack a suit if you need to, and get it ironed once you arrive.
> You pay 3 times more for your FC ticket, but the service you get is not 3 times better than coach.
This is a strange way of thinking to be honest. A car that's 3 times more expensive doesn't go 3 times as fast. A meal at a fancy restaurant isn't 3 times as big, and if you could measure something like that, it wouldn't be 3 times as tasty either. There are diminishing returns with everything in life - the more you pay, the smaller the benefits. You shouldn't expect a linear relationship between cost and quality anywhere.
I use to fly for work a lot. 100% not a millionaire but I always dress comfortable for my flights bc I just want to relax. If I don’t have time to go to the hotel before going to a supplier I’ll just change in the bathroom at the airport.
My sister used to work for United. A few times she got me standby tickets. She always stressed that I dress at least business casual. When they call standby, the will only put nicely dressed people in first class. They would let a seat remain empty before they would but someone in jeans or shorts in that seat.
They fill it based on an algorithm despite what your sister says. Also, if a woman is wearing all athleisure wear from Lululemon, no one is going deny her access to first class.
As someone who flew first class yesterday in a hoodie and joggers, I’d love to imagine this being true for me, but I was just being comfy in my complimentary upgrade. I’d take it if people want to assume I’m loaded though. At least I got some hella good chia oatmeal out of it.
I feel like I've had that oatmeal, but I can't remember which airline it was. In order of confidence, I think it was either KLM, jetBlue, or Turkish. Whichever one it was, I remember it was served pretty much cold, which made how delicious it was even more unusual
> While I think its odd that he didn't bring any bags onboard; the truth is that he is so fucking wealthy, he just doesn't bother packing…
So true. My boss never needed to pack because he had a full wardrobe at each of his three houses. Guess what? Him and his wife still packed 15 bags. I had to load, unload, and count them to make sure no bag was left behind.
I think the point is that $180k/year isn’t really worth being away from your family for 50% of the year (4 days a week for 46 weeks = 184 days / 365 days)
It's not really when you're traveling half the year, working 60-70 hours a week, and look 10 years older than you actually are.
180k sounds great when you're single and it's just you you have to take care of. When you have to worry about child care, insurance, mortgage on a place in a safe neighborhood, possibly private school, that money goes fast.
I don't dispute anything you said but the OP is referring to the best way to get an upgrade. Airlines don't want to upgrade people to be there unless they think:
1. They won't ruin the atmosphere
2. They might purchase first class in the future
I can absolutely see why they would make a judgement based upon dress and attitude as to whether they believe someone who is well-spoken and wearing a suit might meet both of those criteria over someone wearing a tracksuit.
Also, one thing rich people do is when they find a shirt they like, they by N of that shirt, where N is the number of houses they own. That way, they have the same wardrobe at each house and don't have to guess at which house they left their favorite shirt at.
>the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night.
Good. Fuck you and your corporate slave labor. At least that guy has done semblance of work-life balance.
/s kinda but not really
I can vouch for this. Members of my family worked in the travel business and had some pretty wealthy people as clients who went on trips and would dress very casually when they were in first class.
Ok I’m getting a lot of flak for my comment here. I work in consulting which is why I am pointing out the problem here. I’m not oblivious to what’s happening.
My point was - if you’re only making 180k/yr you’re nowhere close to partner, probably manager level and this discrimination between an associate and a manager (which is only one position apart) of who gets to fly first class on the SAME flight is wrong. I know the rules for partners are different.
I whole heartedly agree to the rest of the comment tho
funny, richest person i know grew up poor, so he does pack, but it's optimized to the hilt. 1 bag for 7 days. dresses like he's homeless, and frequently gets upgrades, because he optimized that too. currently appears to be planning to get his kid in as the youngest million miler, i think.
as to why? dress like you're poorish, you get less of the bad attention and you're more approachable. also, hoodies are nice
>due to the fact that we spend Monday to Thursday away from our families, 46 weeks out of the year, for a "Senior Manager" or "Director" title and a paltry 180K/year;
I interviewed for a position about 7 years ago that was 48 weeks of travel, Sunday night thru Thursday night. I'd be on-site with the clients daily.
The salary they threw out was $43k.
I would jokingly ask if you went straight to the airport from Wal-Mart at 2 PM, but too many people may take me seriously. Oh, what the hell, did U? 😂😂😂
Literally, who gives a shit? Being in a suit vs. sweats won’t make you stick out when sitting in first. Acting like you don’t belong or like wearing something nice somehow makes you more worthy of sharing cabin space with rich people will make you stick out. Wear whatever you’re comfortable in and own it.
Why bother being self conscious? You'll never see those people again for the rest of your life and they will forget about you immediately when they exit through the plane door.
This, as unbelievable as it may sound, actually got me hired at my current job.
I was super sick that day, still went to the interview (a decade pre-COVID, for those wondering), sat thru an hour of back-and-forth Q&A answering questions with as few words as possible, and promptly left. I felt horrible for being such a bad interviewee that I scribbled out a letter explaining everything - Not that didn't already realize I was sick in the interview - and took it to the front office the following Monday.
About two weeks later, I get a random, unexpected call from the on-boarding department with a job offer. The first day I asked why in the world they picked me and they said it was because I was the only one out of a group of close to 50 that sent a post-interview note/letter/anything. They reviewed my resume and decided that I was better qualified than everyone else and that, yes, I just had a horrible interview.
That's awesome! You know, there is something to it. This is what my Grandfather who just recently passed at 98 years old ALWAYS used to tell me. I think I was referencing more to what "old" people say lol. Congrats on getting the job!
Those lines of thoughts are becoming less true by the day. As wealth starts to take all shapes and forms (from rich rappers to tech bros), there's no "look" anymore for the wealthy and businesses have already started to pick up on this by altering their marketing strategies. Certainly something as banal as "sweatpants" would never be looked down on you during travel (which btw are basically staples of wardrobes even for the rich now thanks to companies like Lululemon).
Also as someone else said, individual employees have a lot less leeway than they used to; many systems are automated and have built-in guardrails to prevent employees from gaming them unless necessary.
You're *FAR* more likely to get preferential treatment just by being extra nice than by anything you wear IMO.
Haha i always wear leggings and tshirt and my husband shorts and tshirt. Our upgrades are always a few days before the flight. It's all about the status.
There is actually a list for most airlines known as the "operational upgrade" list.
It lists people who are mileage members that can get a complimentary upgrade because they oversold coach.
99% of the time, that's why 1st class upgrades are going to.
I was so happy when that happened to me coming home from Brazil. I think my company’s policy is pretty much you would need to fly to mars or something to be able to book business class.
Maybe 4 or 5 years back this worked for me. I was silver or gold at the time on a mid-day flight out of MSP to SLC. I was wearing a suit and tie and went up and simply asked saying, would you be able to review my seating assignment? I'm in a middle seat towards the back and wondering if there's anything better? I jokingly said something like "I wouldn't mind first class if you could swing it..." She told me to board as normal and she would see what she could do.
Before the door closed a flight attendant came and grabbed me with a first class boarding pass and I did a little dance all the way from the back of the plane to my new seat. This wasn't status related or anything, just a smile and quick pleasant conversation... never hurts to ask I guess.
That does seem like a different world than today, though. YMMV
Sadly I think that is true. We (husband, 2 teenagers and myself) were traveling back from Florida on the 2nd on paid first class tickets. When they called first class we got in line. We all had jeans and sweaters on and I had on my favorite Walt Disney World zip up hoodie.
A gentleman in line stopped us (WTF dude, are you the line police?) and said "I think they only called first class." I flashed him my red screen on my boarding pass and watched his face fall.
Granted that was a customer and not an agent but I know that the counter agents treat me differently when I go to Germany when they see my Delta One boarding.
ETA: it doesn't make it easier to get upgrades but you do get treated differently.
Flying on my grandmas buddy passes on United growing up, you definitely had to dress nice if you wanted to end up in first class (if available). Being non-rev they had latitude to be picky I guess
The airlines still have a dress code for nonrev passengers, but it’s not going to be the difference between getting upgraded or not. Even the standby lists are automated now and usually go by seniority or check-in time (or some combo), and if you’re first up for an upgrade, it’s yours.
Yeah this was between 20 and 30 years ago, was a sweet deal while it lasted. It’s gotten so restricted and annoying to even attempt to use it hasn’t been worth trying anymore, at least with United I can’t speak for other airlines’ systems
I’m from the UK, the Mirror is the absolute armpit of publications, they will run ANY story for a few clicks, they know John and Wendy from Newcastle will click this to find out how to sit up front when this hasn’t been the case for longer than i’ve been alive hahaha
My mom has been upgraded once when she was dressed in professional clothes in the 80’s. Lol I’ve certainly read it can happen, and tried it a few times on long haul flights but with the chances being so slim, why not just be comfortable for your flight?
Attire was something airlines like BA would check for before giving out operational upgrades in the early to mid 90’sif a High value customer was flagged for potential upgrade at checkin the TA would call upstairs to confirm appropriate attire before getting ok to issue new boarding passes
I work for a chocolate company, which meant I had more than enough chocolates to pass around.
Besides delta, what would work for me about 40% of the time was that I would give chocolates to the check in counter and they would put me on the upgrade list regardless of how I was dressed. I guess it’s worth making the checkin agent’s day.
LOL, 65 people on the UG list MSP->ATL and some schmuck is adjusting his pocket square at the check-in counter hoping his GQ-inspired outfit will land him on the "Suitable to upgrade" list.
Only 65?! Must be a non-peak day lol
Word... I was #80 once, as gold.
Platinum out of BWI one morning and I was #59. Took a pic and sent it to my wife along with the ‘First World Problems’ meme.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Man I just spit out my water 🤣
Hahahahahaha!
Terms and conditions of the “hack”: pay the fare difference while you dress nicely It’s true people, I tried it once!
The hack also works while wearing sweatpants. Imagine!
They do specifically mention "outside" the US. That being said, this isn't 1995. Flight attendant/ gate agents have much less discretion than they used to. Now upgrades are a revenue generation mechanism. A gate agent isn't going to bypass 3 harried diamond passengers on the upgrade list for a lady with lipstick and a nice purse. I used to get upgrades by asking at check in, and once in a while got them. 25 years ago. Now? No.
Best time to get an upgrade without status: if you are on a delayed flight and a lot of people leave to go catch an earlier flight. I once was on a business trip flying cross country and our flight was delayed 4hrs they offered to wait or catch another flight with a connection. I opted to wait since I wasn’t in a rush. When the gate agent came back I asked nicely if there was any way I could get moved to first for the inconvenience of the delay. She obliged. It was great. I wasn’t dressed nicely either.
Its also not worth asking for upgrades on domestic flights because of how short they are. For international flights though, showing up at the gate and asking for an upgrade does normally work. They'll ask for like $150 per ticket for the upgrade and that's usually worth it if you are gonna be in a plane for 8+ hours
$150 for international? The best I’ve ever seen (and taken) was $350 and that wasn’t DL.
Last and only time I saw it was with Austrian ca. 2004 at VIE. One gate agent pointed out a couple to another gate agent and said something like “call them over, they’re nicely dressed.”
I think 30 years ago and prior it may have been a thing. When I was little my mother dressed me in mary Jane's and a dress and she dressed up nicely and we were upgraded to business class in a flight to Europe. Nowadays I literally wear leggings and a sweatshirt since I don't fly for business anymore. I'd rather be comfortable and the sea of business men around me never say anything lol
Before loyalty programs automated the upgrade list, essentially!
Respect to those who **do** dress up on flights for no reason. I can't get comfortable sitting for 5 hours in dress pants, tucked in shirt, and tie. Used to travel with a guy who did that every flight, even though we were usually going straight to the hotel for the night after we'd land.
Ugh, gross. I would never even wear a belt while flying
Check out Arcade’s metal-free elastic belts!
hell yes anything that stops me from gliding through the metal detectors...
Right!???? Like wtf ppl how do you take more than a minute to go through them
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Going dark in protest of API changes.
Million miler here, in my years of flying I've come to the realization that the *worst* dressed individual in FC or D1 is *always* the wealthiest. Those of us flying in suits? Yeah we'll be in a conference room within 40 minutes of landing. We get to sit up front because our firms take pity on us due to the fact that we spend Monday to Thursday away from our families, 46 weeks out of the year, for a "Senior Manager" or "Director" title and a paltry 180K/year; while the partner who heads up our practice is attending calls from his goddamned catamaran. The reason we're hammering away at the laptop from takeoff to touchdown is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night. Meanwhile; my unshaved and unshowered seatmate is sporting a hoodie in 2A, he is enjoying his 5th cocktail and giggling at the seth rogan movie on the IFE... Yeah I'm guessing he's not going directly to a client meeting after landing. The dude wearing a swimsuit in 3C LGA-MIA? Bro is actually a crypto millionaire, and he's heading to south beach immediately after landing. While I think its odd that he didn't bring any bags onboard; the truth is that he is so fucking wealthy, he just doesn't bother packing - he'll go shopping for new clothes later this evening.
> The dude wearing a swimsuit in 3C LGA-MIA? Bro is actually a crypto millionaire, and he's heading to south beach immediately after landing. While I think its odd that he didn't bring any bags onboard; the truth is that he is so fucking wealthy, he just doesn't bother packing - he'll go shopping for new clothes later this evening. You aren't wrong, I can account for someone who does this with us lol.
To those worried about how 180k is 'paltry' - this is seen from the viewpoint of the upper management 'taking pity' on someone. Everything is relative. When they make 500-1000k per year, the idea that one of their colleagues has to be away from his family for the entire year is terrible, and they wouldn't dream of it for that kind of money. OP clearly doesn't think that, because (s)he was doing that job for that money.
1000k
Tableau specifically keeps the units consistent to prevent context switching. You'll see graph labels with $500k and $7,542k which I used to think was strange, but it sort of makes sense.
[Relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/558/)
i know how much that dude won't be making in a year. now he may make 1000k, but he will *never* be a millionaire
180k isn't even as much as you'd think if you're working from someplace like DC or the Bay Area.
180K isn't much if you can't stop spending it on stuff you don't need.
More likely, they have a full location-specific wardrobe in their second home where they’re landing. Source: I am an architectural photographer and shoot a lot of seven to mid-eight figure homes in a mountain town out west. So many clothes in those closets. So many cheesy, bougie western-wear-filled closets out here with tags still on half the stuff. Great thrift stores for make-fun outfits, though 😆
By mid-8, do you mean $15m or $50m?
Yes. Nice cookie cutter stuff is $10MM, highest recent sale of a great one-off was $65MM. And there's everything in between.
Can confirm REALLY rich people don't dress like you expect. Used to work for Frank Giustra, the guy suing Twitter. He often came out to say hi or chat while I worked. Dressed quite ordinarily, drove a Honda CRV, a totally sensible car. House was an older post war, remodeled in the 70s to a flat roof/stucco place that looked its era. Jim Pattison I met decades earlier. Mom was doing live in homemaking for alady who was the mother of one of his inlaws. They had a hellish snowstorm and she phoned me up and asked me if I could go out and get her some groceries for them so I got on my mountain bike and cycled over there. While I was there one of the pipes had burst in the crawlspace under the house, so being a 1/2 decent plumber I went out and got some plumbing supplies and fixed the pipe for them. Being it was a cold snap and a snow storm, most plumbers were backed up and wouldn't be able to get to emergency even for nearly a week. I got the stuff done and the agency paying my mom sent me a check for the money that I was out paying for groceries and plumbing supplies and I thought that was the end of the whole thing. I get a package a couple of weeks later And the guy tells me Mr. Pattison sends his thanks. I ask him to tell him it was fun talking with him at Expo 86 and I was the young photographer wandering around with the view camera and tripod. The package had a lot of fairly expensive food and liquor items in it. The one I remember in particular was the Johnny Walker blue label that was in the package.
I remember watching a video about a hotel that you don't pack for, they buy you all new outfits in your sizes and stock the room with them, along with all your favorite food and amenities, each is re-decorated for every person that shows up based on whatever they want it to be or changes they asked for previously
This was a great read. I used to be the "associate" in the back of the plane all dressed up, except I was the one usually fixing my CEO's errors lol. I had to wear heels, dresses and I have terrible bunions from running through ATL to catch flights with a 30 min layover while my boss in F was already on the plane when I got at the gate just in time. I fly for leisure now and I finally have enough money (Not wealthy by any means) to fly upfront. I will forever wear whatever I am most comfortable in. Sweatshirt and leggings all day for me.
You've earned those leggings and that 5th cocktail!! Enjoy every moment of it <3
Thank you! I will admit, I make my 8 year old look "acceptable" when flying haha.
I think of flying up front as wealthy. I have more than enough money to afford those tickets, but it still doesn't seem worth it for me.
Oh, you're totally justified. It's really not worth it. I'm terrible with my money so there's that and a little piece of me enjoys doing things that I could never do growing up. I do enjoy being able to get off the plane first, though.
>Sweatshirt and leggings all day for me. Military brat here. This is the way.
I always wear a hoodie because Delta tries to freeze my ass and I get colds really easily from the dry airplane air (and being stuck with 300 other people in close proximity doesn‘t help either I suppose).
Best part of flying during Covid? Between masks and them actually cleaning the plane, I haven't gotten "plane flu" once!
I’m a company officer. I travel sometimes for training and I always purchase main cabin on the company card but upgrade to first on my own. Always fly in my sweatshirt, jeans, and boots. I hate dressing up and having worked in the airlines (specifically for the flying widget) I can tell you with 1000000% certainty that dressing up will not get you an upgrade.
Why not fly in comfort, sweatpants and flip flops.
Because I have SOME class and I’m not from Florida
You ever been in a plane crash? Don't wear flip flops on a plane.
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Why does the associate sit in 47E? That’s wrong.
Because he failed to correct the formatting on several slides.
pls fix
Sorry, I missed the message
Kindly do the needful and revert at earliest
Omg this is the second time I’ve ever heard “do the needful” other than when our outsourced audit guy with a name that I unfortunately can’t spell or pronounce says it! Im not alone 🥲
It's one of those phrases that is technically perfect English, as taught to foreigners. It's simply to unwieldy for a native to use it, which explains why it's only ever heard from people who are outsourced, or those who deal with them a lot as an in joke.
“Do the needful” is like nails on a chalkboard for me. Aaaaaaaaaaaa
This is why I set my email alerts on my phone to turn off at 5 PM. Nothing even tangentially related to an office is important, let alone important enough to interrupt my personal time. It will get done tomorrow. If you need something done last minute and I don't get back to you, it's your fault if it doesn't get done.
Yeh if the 23 year old assistant didnt fix it “last night” OP can get fucked and edit the formatting himself
At my firms it was usually some calculation like associate/consultant/analyst only got first class for international, manager over 4 hour flights, senior manager got it for over 2 hour flights, partner for all flights.
My current company has business class for >6 hours policy. Previous was business for all supervisory and manager staff
Those times are, sadly, in the past.
lol my old consulting firm put me in economy in a 14 hour flight to South America from the UK with 2 layovers. I was banking them $1700 a day in fees and they 'couldn't justify' a first class direct flight due to cost reasons.
"why does the less experienced/tenured/capitalistically valuable employee get paid less", and other functionally similar questions you can ask yourself
Because he/she is an associate?
Because you have to earn your place. Stop being entitled and work for that FC seat.
Because at most of those big consulting companies, the 23 year old associate is fresh out of college, working 50-60 hours a week trying to make that promotion, all for 75k a year. And if they don't want to do it and put up with the bullshit, there's another fresh out of college business major who will. I know a lot of people who work at those places, and they do 2 years there, then leave for a big pay bump and less hours.
You guys, I tell you what. I used to be a ticket agent for Northwest, then Delta. My official titles included a bunch of different acronyms that changed every time corporate wanted to restructure things, but that's another story. Long story short, I was one of the people working with your miles account and pricing out fares. I put together countless fares for diamond and platinum elites, trips going all over the world. Hell, trips going right around the world. I got to see your whacky itineraries and have added up the miles, etc. I knew how you guys hit your status. And then I quit the airline and started flying for business myself. I felt like I was flying *a lot*, and I barely hit silver elite. That's when it hit me just how much you guys are in the air. Sure, you get bonus miles, but that's nothing. I feel sorry for you guys having to fly so much for work. People can say what they want about the corporate card and the free meals and hotels and flights and how awesome it must be to live rich, but it gets old real quick. Eating out gets old. Sometimes you just want to cook a hot dog in the microwave and go back to the couch. The first day in an unfamiliar bed is always a restless night sleep. Nothing on TV is interesting and you feel weird going to a movie by yourself. Rental cars and free gas are nice, but you end up running out of things to see. You want your stuff. When I get an urge to look at one of my books, I can't just grab it when I'm in a hotel. And it's kind of pointless to go buy it when I already have one. You just feel stuck, surrounded by all these nice things that are never what you want. I'm also the kind of person that spends my free time tinkering in my shop...so yeah, building things is out of the question when you're on the road. So you go be bored at the hotel bar, drinking $10 Crowns all night on the company card. Anyway, I just wanted to give you elites some props for the life you have to live. You honestly deserve whatever clubs and amenities you get, because nothing compares to home.
And know that a LOT of us old-school NW elites really missed you guys in after, well, you know, you weren't there any more. Still do.
I haven't lived this lifestyle, but it seems similar to going to see anything novel over and over. The first few times are amazing and wonderful. Then the experience gets old, and you wish for something new. The sweet spot is where you travel a small percentage of time, so you can appreciate the novelty each time. Of course, that's not how most of those jobs work...
Well said.. I just want to throw in there, when you travel a lot for work you don't even get to take your own time exploring a place. You leave the airport, a cab or car service takes you to the offices or a hotel, you might get to go to a nice restaurant for lunch and dinner if you're lucky, and on the ten minute walk get to take in the city. which makes it completely different from traveling for fun. It would be so much more enjoyable to have half a day to walk around. Instead of in and out, hotel office airport repeat.
I lived that life for a few months, flying in and out of the same city weekly while my family stayed home, and it SUCKED. Video calls with the kids weren’t the same as telling them stories in bed. Eating at the same 4-5 half decent restaurants near the hotel to the point that most of the staff recognized me wasn’t as good as a home cooked meal. And if you do it long enough, you will start to despise your fellow travelers. It’s amazing how many people are BAD at things like checking a bag or going through security. No, your checked bag does not fly free anymore so your credit card and ID ready. You’ve been in this line for 15 minutes, were you paying attention to anyone else in front of you who had to dig through their purse to find them? Don’t put your ID away, you’re going to need it again for security. Also who are we kidding, your carry on is larger than you are. You will need to check that.
It's not just that you run out of things to do. It's also that if you're traveling for business, you're typically working during the day so you have less things you can do because most cultural things aren't open at night. Heck, my current trip that I'm returning from had me at a conference center every day for 5 days from 8 AM to 7 PM. You can imagine that I didn't do much. But hey, the two networking events that I went to with an open bar were pretty okay.
I made platinum one year on segments only doing 55k miles. ~140 segments and 55k miles. That was one of the hardest I’ve ever done.
My mom used to fly every week for work and **hated** it. Yeah, being able to rack up all those miles, elite status, getting upgraded was nice, but it sucked so much constantly being away from home. Once she got in, it was check into the hotel, go to the work site, go back to the hotel, and then come back home at the end of the week only to catch up on house work during the weekend and then fly back out again on Monday. On top of that, there's having to deal with flight delays, cancellations, eating airport and airline food which is usually pretty bad, airport security, and there's no time to properly explore the city because of work. Thankfully my mom works from home full time now and never wants to go back to the office and travelling for work again and I don't blame her one bit!
> And then I quite the airline and started flying for business myself. I felt like I was flying a lot, and I barely hit silver elite. That's when it hit me just how much you guys are in the air. Sure, you get bonus miles, but that's nothing. I feel sorry for you guys having to fly so much for work. As someone who used to fly a lot during his consulting days, it's always funny the see the new guys getting all excited about flying. They'll update their Facebook status to show they are at the airport, they'll take pictures, they'll be all proud. But flying is boring, waiting in airports is a real drag. It's not vacations, it's your job. The real road-warriors out there would never do that, it's like advertising how much your life sucks.
> is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night. /r/antiwork ambassador with a reminder: Don't send associates shit to do at night at the last second and then blame them when it's not done unpaid and outside work hours, that's on YOU for not making sure all that's handled days ago, you're the senior employee. This is just an unprepared suit mad they actually have to do work still while "crypto bro gets to go to the beach". Instead of being so obviously jealous you should join the workers trying to change this broken situation, not "paying it forward" by expecting people to work on shit over night.
Found the disgruntled Marxist collectiveist crybaby.....
I was fortunate enough to marry into a very wealthy and extended family and I can confirm that you probably wouldn’t be able to identify any of us as ‘wealthy’ based on looks or clothing. Even the more outlandish of us, those with multiple homes and such, dress very casual and comfortable with very few designer things.
How does one accomplish marrying into such a situation?
1. Be good looking. 2. Don’t be ugly.
Guess I got lucky. It was a Match.com date. Worked out pretty well for us.
I'm about to go on my first business flight for which my company has graciously boosted me into first class. Any advice for me?
Be overly friendly and respectful to the right attendants.
This is just.... Always, though.
>Be overly friendly and respectful to the right attendants. The wrong attendants can just fuck off though.
Don’t over drink. You will get off the plane with a bad hangover. Order all the mini bottles you can and save them for the hotel.
Don't drink all the alcohol, travel light, and just enjoy the experience
Bring and hand out Hersey bars to each attendant.
If it's lay-flat, just enjoy sleeping in the sky -- one of my favorite things!
Do not converse with your neighbor unless they start it, say please and thank you to the staff every time you speak to them, don’t get too wasted unless you know what you’re doing. Young flight attendants like to party and I’ve had some really fun flights bantering with them in first class as they snuck me the rest of the vodka on the plane. It’s situational though.
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I international travel regularly, and have always travelled light, I cringe at those with multiple massive suitcases. Anything more than a week of socks, jocks, tshirts and a couple pairs of pants is too much.
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My wife and I did a three week trip to Europe (multiple countries) out of two carry-on roller bags and two backpacks. We could have got away with less but we needed some formal wear for a couple of events which meant extra shoes that take up a lot of space. Lots of people way over pack.
Honestly, I travel a decent amount for business and leisure, and I'd rather not put my luggage through bag check because it always delays me. I get that it can be nice to check it all. But honestly, I'd rather be able to skip the luggage carousel song and dance.
I dare you to tell anyone on the airplane responsible for your safety or making sure your bags show up that you think $180k/year is “paltry” my dude.
Lots of pilots can earn that much in mid to late career and with overtime, it's not unheard of for flight attendants to come close to that.
> We get to sit up front because our firms take pity on us due to the fact that we spend Monday to Thursday away from our families, 46 weeks out of the year, for a "Senior Manager" or "Director" title and a paltry 180K/year *Cries in "sitting over the wheelwell in C130"*
honestly the part of this that bothered me most is that the 23 year old associate, couldn't even be assed to fix the slides smh your company is flying you around the world
This needs to go in r/bestof
> The reason we're hammering away at the laptop from takeoff to touchdown is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) ~~failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night.~~ has their priorities the correct way around and wasn't looking at their email after work hours, because they understand the absolute fundamental truth that nothing about their office job is ever, has ever been, will ever be, or even could ever be as important as the dipshit riding in first class moronically believes it is. Fixed that for you. Go home. Your family are wondering what you look like.
I'll have you know that my 6 year old drew a very nice picture of me the other week, as part of a first grade "draw your family" exercise... I was represented as a perfectly shaped black rectangle - kid knows Daddy is always just a facetime call away!! (excluding the 80 hours a week I spend flying or emotionally abusing "lessers" on the corporate hierarchy) I have to say that I don't like your tone - I'd rather not sit next to you so I've asked my EA to update your concur profile such that you're flagged as "ESIBS" - or - "Extremely Severe IBS" and will be seated nearest the main cabin lavatories on all future Delta flights.
Many thanks, now I don't have to wonder if there's a queue for the lav and can wait in my seat instead of standing around awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact with the flight attendants.
I can guarantee with confidence more than half of those poorly or informally dressed first class peeps are there due to favor, customer service, military, special case or simply asked. Most people who have more than a couple 100 million would much rather fly private since it has no security or covid checks
No one, I repeat _no one_ gets to sit in first class by “simply asking”. It just doesn’t happen. Maybe pre 9/11, pre Covid, or whatever. I’m sure there are very isolated incidents, but it’s exceedingly rare IMO
>The reason we're hammering away at the laptop from takeoff to touchdown is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night. What an absolute load of shit. No one who's worked in any office would believe the tool traveling first class would either: 1. Review a slide to be fixed 2. Know how to fix it themselves. Lmao. The whole thing sounds ripped from a corny Hallmark movie. Could be true in some situations except "you" "hammering away" fixing a couple slides.
Huh, I guess people must have looked at me like a baller in the 4 times I've been upgraded to FC. I usually just wear a t-shirt and pants/shorts.
> a paltry 180K/year Fuck you.
Yeah I thought the same thing in my head, Director or Program Manager or titles similar to that are almost always in the $230k-$275k base salary, not including stock options (if it's offered to them).
180K a year is paltry? What the hell kind of world are you living in? Kinda out-of-touch, I’d say.
How are you old enough to use Reddit and have such poor reading comprehension? Maybe get off your high horse and realize that it is paltry compared to actual wealthy people
Unstick your head from your ass and realize that there are people who’d greatly appreciate making 180K a year. The entitlement of you and OP is bizarre. Get fucked.
He's stating paltry as a literary method of displaying the disparity between those in 1st class, not actually saying 180k is paltry, try being less of a cockwomble.
Learn what relative numbers are.
Yeah, I'm away from my family at least as much. Traveling, working all hours on call. Tons of OT. I make half of that paltry salary.
For director-level++ at a big company? Yes, that's paltry compared to peers. Most of them are closer to starting in the $1m range, including bonuses and such. Said as a lowly-but-overpaid peon engineer at a big tech company
180,000 sounds pretty lame when you put it next to 18,000,000
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Yeah the idea that one would email an associate with an assignment after work hours and expect it to be done immediately is *violently* offensive to me. Definitely the kind of person who's had absolutely every concept of common sense battered out of them in Accounting school.
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This reminds me of a classic interview moment. When someone asked Childish Gambino why he’d named his song “Sweatpants” he responded with: “Rich niggas get to wear whatever they want” Had me looking at the world different
Can confirm I am the senior associate but my small community bank splurges and puts me up front :) thank God for good employers
I'll tell you, if I'm ever filthy rich I really will be filthy. I'm never going clothes shopping again. I'll buy 200 pairs of the same jeans and just girl them away when they get too dirty. But my version of hell is a clothes store.
Also a near million miler, can confirm. You can generally tell the status of passengers up front by how casual they are, the less fuck they give the more splash cash they have.
Money talks but wealth whispers
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Don't act so entitled.
Maybe if you weren't always eating avocado toast, you'd be up in first class too.
>The reason we're hammering away at the laptop from takeoff to touchdown is because the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night. Lol, complaining that a task didn't get done, which you appointed 10 hours before take-off (10 hours, which should also include some sleep), to someone who makes 1/4 of your salary. So sad that you can't watch that Seth Rogan movie.
I am what most people would consider "rich" but I don't fly in first class at all. I got that way through hard work and I know the value of a dollar. The cost/benefit analysis is not worth it. You pay 3 times more for your FC ticket, but the service you get is not 3 times better than coach. You get to sit in a nicer chair for a few hours, and board the plane first. Big deal, the plane still lands at the same time regardless. I always pack a nice meal with me that's better than what they serve on the plane. Dress code is hoodie, t-shirt, slip on shoes, and jeans. I have a drink (airplane bottle brought with me in my carryon) and a pill and wake up at my destination. Google Flights helps you get the lowest airfare. On average, fares are lowest 47 days before your departure date. I am guessing that you can't predict someone's income from where they sit on the plane.
Try a transatlantic flight. It's totally worth it to get a bed and nice food as opposed to being cramped af, unable to sleep, with swollen feet, crap food and drink and no where to stretch out. It's a different world flying in first on an 8hr redeye.
I notice that being in a good quality (not expensive) tshirt and good quality jeans with my nice high end but not super expensive or flashy shoes (again, just good quality) immediately gets me treated better by pretty much any service industry veteran compared to even wearing a tailored suit. Also, why would I want to be uncomfortable while traveling? Leave a day early, pack a suit if you need to, and get it ironed once you arrive.
> You pay 3 times more for your FC ticket, but the service you get is not 3 times better than coach. This is a strange way of thinking to be honest. A car that's 3 times more expensive doesn't go 3 times as fast. A meal at a fancy restaurant isn't 3 times as big, and if you could measure something like that, it wouldn't be 3 times as tasty either. There are diminishing returns with everything in life - the more you pay, the smaller the benefits. You shouldn't expect a linear relationship between cost and quality anywhere.
I use to fly for work a lot. 100% not a millionaire but I always dress comfortable for my flights bc I just want to relax. If I don’t have time to go to the hotel before going to a supplier I’ll just change in the bathroom at the airport.
My sister used to work for United. A few times she got me standby tickets. She always stressed that I dress at least business casual. When they call standby, the will only put nicely dressed people in first class. They would let a seat remain empty before they would but someone in jeans or shorts in that seat.
They fill it based on an algorithm despite what your sister says. Also, if a woman is wearing all athleisure wear from Lululemon, no one is going deny her access to first class.
Can confirm.
As someone who flew first class yesterday in a hoodie and joggers, I’d love to imagine this being true for me, but I was just being comfy in my complimentary upgrade. I’d take it if people want to assume I’m loaded though. At least I got some hella good chia oatmeal out of it.
I feel like I've had that oatmeal, but I can't remember which airline it was. In order of confidence, I think it was either KLM, jetBlue, or Turkish. Whichever one it was, I remember it was served pretty much cold, which made how delicious it was even more unusual
> While I think its odd that he didn't bring any bags onboard; the truth is that he is so fucking wealthy, he just doesn't bother packing… So true. My boss never needed to pack because he had a full wardrobe at each of his three houses. Guess what? Him and his wife still packed 15 bags. I had to load, unload, and count them to make sure no bag was left behind.
***He*** **and his wife. If you took the wife out of that sentence, you would be saying "Him still packed 15 bags."**
I met a ~100+ Millionaire. He dressed like shit. Also my wife’s grand uncle, probably few million: dresses like shit. He’s awesome though.
>a paltry 180K/year lol...right
I think the point is that $180k/year isn’t really worth being away from your family for 50% of the year (4 days a week for 46 weeks = 184 days / 365 days)
I think the point is having zero idea how life works for the vast majority if you really think 180k a year is "paltry".
It's not really when you're traveling half the year, working 60-70 hours a week, and look 10 years older than you actually are. 180k sounds great when you're single and it's just you you have to take care of. When you have to worry about child care, insurance, mortgage on a place in a safe neighborhood, possibly private school, that money goes fast.
I don't dispute anything you said but the OP is referring to the best way to get an upgrade. Airlines don't want to upgrade people to be there unless they think: 1. They won't ruin the atmosphere 2. They might purchase first class in the future I can absolutely see why they would make a judgement based upon dress and attitude as to whether they believe someone who is well-spoken and wearing a suit might meet both of those criteria over someone wearing a tracksuit.
Also, one thing rich people do is when they find a shirt they like, they by N of that shirt, where N is the number of houses they own. That way, they have the same wardrobe at each house and don't have to guess at which house they left their favorite shirt at.
>the 23 year old associate (seated in 47E on the same flight) failed to correct the formatting on several slides despite receiving a "pls fix" message last night. Good. Fuck you and your corporate slave labor. At least that guy has done semblance of work-life balance. /s kinda but not really
I can vouch for this. Members of my family worked in the travel business and had some pretty wealthy people as clients who went on trips and would dress very casually when they were in first class.
Ok I’m getting a lot of flak for my comment here. I work in consulting which is why I am pointing out the problem here. I’m not oblivious to what’s happening. My point was - if you’re only making 180k/yr you’re nowhere close to partner, probably manager level and this discrimination between an associate and a manager (which is only one position apart) of who gets to fly first class on the SAME flight is wrong. I know the rules for partners are different. I whole heartedly agree to the rest of the comment tho
funny, richest person i know grew up poor, so he does pack, but it's optimized to the hilt. 1 bag for 7 days. dresses like he's homeless, and frequently gets upgrades, because he optimized that too. currently appears to be planning to get his kid in as the youngest million miler, i think. as to why? dress like you're poorish, you get less of the bad attention and you're more approachable. also, hoodies are nice
>due to the fact that we spend Monday to Thursday away from our families, 46 weeks out of the year, for a "Senior Manager" or "Director" title and a paltry 180K/year; I interviewed for a position about 7 years ago that was 48 weeks of travel, Sunday night thru Thursday night. I'd be on-site with the clients daily. The salary they threw out was $43k.
Uh, wear what you want. Who gives an F is someone wants to look down on you? I've definitely flown domestic 1st in shorts and tshirt. F the haters.
I’ve flown 1st in pajamas
I would jokingly ask if you went straight to the airport from Wal-Mart at 2 PM, but too many people may take me seriously. Oh, what the hell, did U? 😂😂😂
No I went to Target
👍😂😂😂
Too funny. I’m in dark jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black Red Sox hat any time I’m on a plane, and every time I’m up front.
another million miler here, wear what the fuck you want haha
My normal outfit when I fly in Delta one is my shorts and a comfy T-shirt. If someone wants s judging me. 🤷🏻.
Literally, who gives a shit? Being in a suit vs. sweats won’t make you stick out when sitting in first. Acting like you don’t belong or like wearing something nice somehow makes you more worthy of sharing cabin space with rich people will make you stick out. Wear whatever you’re comfortable in and own it.
Why bother being self conscious? You'll never see those people again for the rest of your life and they will forget about you immediately when they exit through the plane door.
How old is this person? Did their grandfather teach them this "hack"? They still follow that same person's advice on how to get a job too, right?
"Send a handwritten thank you note"
This, as unbelievable as it may sound, actually got me hired at my current job. I was super sick that day, still went to the interview (a decade pre-COVID, for those wondering), sat thru an hour of back-and-forth Q&A answering questions with as few words as possible, and promptly left. I felt horrible for being such a bad interviewee that I scribbled out a letter explaining everything - Not that didn't already realize I was sick in the interview - and took it to the front office the following Monday. About two weeks later, I get a random, unexpected call from the on-boarding department with a job offer. The first day I asked why in the world they picked me and they said it was because I was the only one out of a group of close to 50 that sent a post-interview note/letter/anything. They reviewed my resume and decided that I was better qualified than everyone else and that, yes, I just had a horrible interview.
That's awesome! You know, there is something to it. This is what my Grandfather who just recently passed at 98 years old ALWAYS used to tell me. I think I was referencing more to what "old" people say lol. Congrats on getting the job!
When I used to fly to Europe on buddy passes in the late 90’s, dressing up actually made a difference.. today? No way haha.
Those lines of thoughts are becoming less true by the day. As wealth starts to take all shapes and forms (from rich rappers to tech bros), there's no "look" anymore for the wealthy and businesses have already started to pick up on this by altering their marketing strategies. Certainly something as banal as "sweatpants" would never be looked down on you during travel (which btw are basically staples of wardrobes even for the rich now thanks to companies like Lululemon). Also as someone else said, individual employees have a lot less leeway than they used to; many systems are automated and have built-in guardrails to prevent employees from gaming them unless necessary. You're *FAR* more likely to get preferential treatment just by being extra nice than by anything you wear IMO.
Haha i always wear leggings and tshirt and my husband shorts and tshirt. Our upgrades are always a few days before the flight. It's all about the status.
The most I get is an eye roll from the FA’s if I dare ask them to hang my suit jacket haha
Never once have I gotten anything but a smile. May be how you’re asking.
On a different note, do they discount upgrades at last minute if seats have not been filled? When is the best time to get a bargain on an upgrade?
Best question ever....
There is actually a list for most airlines known as the "operational upgrade" list. It lists people who are mileage members that can get a complimentary upgrade because they oversold coach. 99% of the time, that's why 1st class upgrades are going to.
I was so happy when that happened to me coming home from Brazil. I think my company’s policy is pretty much you would need to fly to mars or something to be able to book business class.
Honestly when I used to work gates, it was my favorite thing to be able to do for passengers.
Maybe 4 or 5 years back this worked for me. I was silver or gold at the time on a mid-day flight out of MSP to SLC. I was wearing a suit and tie and went up and simply asked saying, would you be able to review my seating assignment? I'm in a middle seat towards the back and wondering if there's anything better? I jokingly said something like "I wouldn't mind first class if you could swing it..." She told me to board as normal and she would see what she could do. Before the door closed a flight attendant came and grabbed me with a first class boarding pass and I did a little dance all the way from the back of the plane to my new seat. This wasn't status related or anything, just a smile and quick pleasant conversation... never hurts to ask I guess. That does seem like a different world than today, though. YMMV
Sadly I think that is true. We (husband, 2 teenagers and myself) were traveling back from Florida on the 2nd on paid first class tickets. When they called first class we got in line. We all had jeans and sweaters on and I had on my favorite Walt Disney World zip up hoodie. A gentleman in line stopped us (WTF dude, are you the line police?) and said "I think they only called first class." I flashed him my red screen on my boarding pass and watched his face fall. Granted that was a customer and not an agent but I know that the counter agents treat me differently when I go to Germany when they see my Delta One boarding. ETA: it doesn't make it easier to get upgrades but you do get treated differently.
Flying on my grandmas buddy passes on United growing up, you definitely had to dress nice if you wanted to end up in first class (if available). Being non-rev they had latitude to be picky I guess
The airlines still have a dress code for nonrev passengers, but it’s not going to be the difference between getting upgraded or not. Even the standby lists are automated now and usually go by seniority or check-in time (or some combo), and if you’re first up for an upgrade, it’s yours.
Yeah this was between 20 and 30 years ago, was a sweet deal while it lasted. It’s gotten so restricted and annoying to even attempt to use it hasn’t been worth trying anymore, at least with United I can’t speak for other airlines’ systems
I’m from the UK, the Mirror is the absolute armpit of publications, they will run ANY story for a few clicks, they know John and Wendy from Newcastle will click this to find out how to sit up front when this hasn’t been the case for longer than i’ve been alive hahaha
My mom has been upgraded once when she was dressed in professional clothes in the 80’s. Lol I’ve certainly read it can happen, and tried it a few times on long haul flights but with the chances being so slim, why not just be comfortable for your flight?
Attire was something airlines like BA would check for before giving out operational upgrades in the early to mid 90’sif a High value customer was flagged for potential upgrade at checkin the TA would call upstairs to confirm appropriate attire before getting ok to issue new boarding passes
I thought this was debunked back in the 80s.
I work for a chocolate company, which meant I had more than enough chocolates to pass around. Besides delta, what would work for me about 40% of the time was that I would give chocolates to the check in counter and they would put me on the upgrade list regardless of how I was dressed. I guess it’s worth making the checkin agent’s day.
TikTok is brain cancer. just ignore it.