Fort Jenyth in row 50

1.23.2020

I resisted the temptation to upgrade my cheap flight.  Again.  Originally, it was 328.00.  Then I offered to bring some cleaning supplies to my friend Jean and realized I would have to check a bag.  There's another 50.00.  Then I saw the best seat on the plane was open.  In the second to last row on a Boeing 777, there are two seats.  That means you can put your humongous, overfilled backpack under the aisle seat in front of you, and have leg room under the middle seat.  I snagged it.  Airfare now 428.00.  Still a bargain.

But, this morning, I saw a Premier class seat open with a sleeping pod.  I've never been in any class other than public-school-back-of-the-plane-economy with the tired and overworked flight attendants. Would it be worth 800.00 to sleep and have the beautiful ones bring decent wines?  Nah.  Business class had two open seats for an additional 210.00.  It appeared those seats reclined as well.    The plane hadn't sold many seats.  17 people were on the free upgrade list for Premier, but only 2 on the free upgrade list for business.  So, they wanted to sell those seats instead of giving free upgrades.  I understood that.  What is this pricing strategy?  I was experiencing my daughter's world of behavioral economics:

Demand Based Pricing is a pricing method based on the customer's demandand the perceived value of the product. In this method the customer's responsiveness to purchase the product at different prices is compared and then an acceptable price is set. 

If you've ever bought an event ticket on the secondary market, you've experienced demand based pricing.  By the time I figured what was happening, the two seats were gone.

Well, I kept my 51B.  Last boarding group.  In rows 44-46 were a dozen British businessmen, clearly drunk from their last call.  Several delightful attendants greeted me in the back of the plane, and one said in a lovely British accent, "We've only 77 passengers on the plane, so once we're at 30,000 feet, you may change your seat."  I'd been thinking about that all day, yet my seat was the best.

I could smell delicious food? On a plane?  The trolleys didn't stop by me.  I leaned my head out about 90 minutes into the flight and caught the eye of the surfer dude attendant.  "Yo, I know you're there.  I don't think they gave us enough dinners," he sighed.  A young British attendant looked distressed.  I opened my bag of pretzels.  The third attendant asked me how I felt about Ravioli Florentine.  I said I loved it.  He returned with an extra Premier class (actually hot) dinner, complete with a tiny bottle of Chateau Lafitte Bourgogne.  I rarely drink on a plane, but I didn't want to disappoint the chef who had married the meal and wine.

After dinner, the thought of a fulling reclining business seat sounded so appealing.  I could make my own:  a row of three seats with the armrests up.  I made the move to row 50.  The Brits were still singing, softer now, and United provided three pillows and three blankets per row as well.  Time to make a fort.

In the old days of flying Southwest with my girls, we'd get the last two rows on the plane during early boarding.  Three seats facing front, three facing back, and a playpen on the floor. (Don't judge - I was never a germaphobe.)  Those were the pre-9/11 days of no TSA and lots of fun making forts with blankets and having pillow fights.  In honor of the girls I left behind, I put up the armrests, took three blankets and made a tent top over the seats.  Six unused pillows meant no seat belt buckles digging into my back, and I was off to Lala land.   The young British attendant looked underneath and I showed her my fastened seatbelt.  I'm in first class.