Upgrading to Business Class — is it worth it?

Now, this is something that I talk myself round and round in circles about...

On the one hand to have a really comfortable journey to Australia, and arrive actually having had some sleep, and be relatively refreshed, is obviously going to start your holiday off a lot better than how we normally arrive — rather bleary eyed, and still unfolding ourselves from 'economy hunch'!

On the other hand it is SO much more expensive. If you take your 'average' cost of an economy flight — say £750 — and then your 'average' cost of a business class flight — say £2500 — then that is over 3 times the cost. Or in real money £1750 more! EACH! When you start to realise that for the cost of just 2 flights, you have already spent £5k, then you might start to look at economy as a necessary evil! Afterall, if you are looking at spending say £100 a night on accommodation, that could mean 35 days of accommodation instead of just your flights! i.e. your entire holiday.

However, that said, 24 hours is a long time to spend getting somewhere, and a nice big comfy seat that reclines — a lot — where your knees aren't touching the seat in front, does have something to be said for it.

So what about a compromise?

With some arlines — BA, Virgin, Air New Zealand (for example) — there is now the 'class in between': Premium Economy (or whatever the particular airline calls it). You can pay somewhere between the cost of business class and economy for this added legroom and added frills service.

For example — an 'average' Premium Economy return fare to Sydney with Virgin Atlantic is £1700, which is still £800 less than your average business class (but admittedly almost £1k more than economy).

BUT you don't have to fly premium economy on every leg of your journey — BA and Air NZ for example — allow you to upgrade sections of your journey, so you could opt for economy on the 'day' flights, and perhaps premium economy on the 'night' flights. You will probably need a travel agent to work this all out for you, but it can mean you can mix and match to suit when you want a bit of extra room on your journey.

You can also do the same with business class.

It's not widely advertised but some airlines do allow sector upgrades to business class on certain economy fares (not always the cheapest economy fare admittedly, but still worth looking into).

My advice:

If you want to get some part of your journey done in comfort then upgrade a sector or two. We upgraded the very last sector to business on our trip last time — gave us something to look forward to on the flight home!

Or bite the bullet, travel economy, but put aside a 'pamper' budget for when you arrive in Australia — a couple of massages can get those economy knots sorted right out! Also use part of this 'economy' budget to book a hotel room for immediate arrival (even if it means paying for the night before — we always do this). When you get to a hotel at 8am or 9am, you really don't want to be hanging around 'til check in time at 2pm when you could be having a nap ;-) And then getting up refreshed in time for lunch.