My Wife And I Have A Disagreement Over First Class…

I had a choice to take a more timely flight in economy class or wait two hours and fly in first class. My wife and I did not see eye-to-eye on it…

The Dilemma: Economy Class Now Or First Class Later? My Wife And I Disagree Over Which Flight To Take

I remember the first time my wife Heidi visited the USA when we were still dating. I put her in business class on Lufthansa for her flight back to Frankfurt and her response was like…why are you wasting your money on business class? I don’t need it! #keeper

After 10 years of marriage, she now enjoys premium cabins and no longer scolds me for spending extra dollars or miles for lie-flat seats. But in her mind, there is a big difference between traveling to Europe and domestically.

My opinion is that whether the flight is one hour or 17 hours, I want to be in a premium cabin. I’ve flown plenty in economy class and do just fine, but who doesn’t want to be more comfortable, even on shorter flights? And I’m willing to tailor my schedule around making that happen in the most cost-efficient way possible. I can work anywhere so it does not matter if I am sitting at home or sitting in an airport.

Recently we were in Chicago, preparing to fly home to Los Angeles. As I said, I’m leaning strongly toward stepping off the status hamster wheel and we flew American Airlines on the way out (mostly so I could take advantage of my British Airways Gold status and take her to brunch in the Qantas Lounge).

On the way back, I booked United and had two choices. The 7:35 pm flight would get us in earlier and was operated by a brand new Airbus A321neo, but had no upgrade space (in fact, first class was sold out). The 9:31 pm flight was operated by a 737-900, but had confirmed upgrade space. Flight time is four hours from Chicago to LA.

I wanted to take the later flight…not for the dreadful food, but for the extra space. Furthermore, I figured we could just sit in the United Club and get our work done so that we could rest on the flight.

Heidi said she did not care about the upgrade and just wanted to get home earlier.

I’m a strong believer in “happy wife, happy life” and so I booked the earlier flight. As a consolation prize, I thought at least I’d be in a new cabin and could relax and watch a movie on my seatback screen during the flight.

Well, turns out the Viasat internet worked so well that I worked for four hours straight and so (as usual) my wife was right and we made the right call.

Even so, it was tight. She took the window, I sat in the middle, and a big guy sat on the aisle. It was very tight indeed, and we were even sitting in EconomyPlus (extra legroom economy).

Bottom line: I was happy to get home earlier for the sake of my wife and appreciated how productive I was on the flight (I love the A321neo), but I still would have waited two hours for first class.

It’s clear I made the right call here, but how long are you willing to wait for first class on a domestic flight?