Upgraded Flights or Upgraded Accommodations?

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

I'd slum the flights and pamper myself in the hotel

 

[LuvOrlando]

Used to be economy flight and lux hotel but what they call economy flights now are so much less quality experience.

When we do travel we pay more just for basic comfort, which I suppose would be tolerable if we could use points for the upgrades but that isn't permitted so I look then don't book because I get so annoyed, every time I look I get irritated.

I want a comfortable flight, not fine wine table service just a comfortable seat and the idea it costs so much to be comfortable is just bananas to me so I/we tend to opt out. Dealing with the misery of air travel has become the single biggest deterrent for us traveling these days, all I hear is complaints about crammed flights, cancellations, delays and a lack of direct flights, why does everything connect now? Even people paying for 1st class are going to be stuck waiting so I'm in standby mode and hoping for some kind of changes, which will either happen or not, if not then fancy staycations at 5 star driving distance hotels will work.

I hear some good things about high speed trains in the works so maybe a pivot, such a bee in my bonnet over air travel.

 

[sky13]

Definitely economy flight + luxury hotel for me, and I've done this a couple of times this year.

The cost differential between economy and business (several thousand dollars for flight from Asia to the USA) pays for many nights in a luxury hotel!

(I'm currently in an amazing theme park view room in the Contemporary... took premium economy/economy flights to get here!)

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

If I had the chance to upgrade something, it would be the hotel/accommodations.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Used to be economy flight and lux hotel but what they call economy flights now are so much less quality experience.

When we do travel we pay more just for basic comfort, which I suppose would be tolerable if we could use points for the upgrades but that isn't permitted so I look then don't book because I get so annoyed, every time I look I get irritated.

I want a comfortable flight, not fine wine table service just a comfortable seat and the idea it costs so much to be comfortable is just bananas to me so I/we tend to opt out. Dealing with the misery of air travel has become the single biggest deterrent for us traveling these days, all I hear is complaints about crammed flights, cancellations, delays and a lack of direct flights, why does everything connect now? Even people paying for 1st class are going to be stuck waiting so I'm in standby mode and hoping for some kind of changes, which will either happen or not, if not then fancy staycations at 5 star driving distance hotels will work.

I hear some good things about high speed trains in the works so maybe a pivot, such a bee in my bonnet over air travel.

I'm with you how miserable the flying experience has become. One reason we do fly business is to at least take some of the stress out of the process. A big part of the problem is that everyone and his brother has some kind of "status" and boards before everyone else. When heading back from Hawaii this really the case. Between people who needed extra time to board due to disability, families with small children, military families (lots of them in Oahu) and people with status.....it was literally 1/2 of the flight. By the time they boarded business, 1/2 of the plane was full and I know that a bunch of people had their bags gate checked. It just seems to get increasingly chaotic.

I read that Delta is changing the way you earn status from number of miles to how much you spend on flights. The article said that the "road warriors" of airline business travel have not returned to 2019 levels....still down 25%, and they aren't sure it will ever come back completely. So they're focusing on giving status to those spending a lot of flights. I believe it said you need to spend 35K a year to reach their highest level. Leisure travel is taking up more of their business and they're looking to reward their big spenders. A couple taking two longer international trips would come close to reaching that level.