I saw a post a few months ago on the Road Warriorette blog. In the post, the Road Warriorette describes being on a plane to Manila in business class. During pre-boarding, she witnessed a family together up in the business class cabin. When the plane was getting ready to take off, the man sitting down in business class said goodbye to his wife and child, and the two of them marched back to take the long trip in economy.
She recounted several similar experiences, including one from Dallas to Tokyo where on a 14 hour flight a man left his wife and baby back in economy class.
There were lots of good comments on the post. Most of them were negative, but there were a few cautionary comments mentioning that we can’t know what was going on with a particular family situation, which makes sense.
Of course, those of us in the travel hacking world can solve this problem by just getting enough miles and points!
My thoughts
I had a gentleman that I used to work with that said that there was a Seinfeld clip for every situation, and this one is no different
“I can’t go back to coach! I can’t! I won’t!” 😀
I would tend to agree with most of the commenters in the original post, with a more moderate approach. We don’t know what was going on in any of these scenarios, and what might seem like a horrible decision might make sense if we knew all the context.
When we flew with our family of 8 cross country, we had a few similar decisions about how to seat our family. We made our best attempts at how to break things up (realize that with 6 kids and only 2 adults, we don’t have enough adults to be able to sit with every one), and it didn’t stop a fellow passenger from telling us that “we were the type of people that shouldn’t children”
Other considerations
Another thought is whether it’s even appropriate to have a baby and/or young children in business / first class, which is an entirely different question, and probably just as heated! 😀 Some of the commenters suggested having the parents swap out with each other during the flight, but I think that would probably not work well – it seems like most airlines don’t allow a “revolving door” between cabins, and I could see how lots of movement could be frustrating for other passengers, especially on an overnight / red-eye flight
(SEE ALSO: 4 tips to survive a red eye flight in economy)
What do you guys think? Ever had to deal with these kind of scenarios?
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Like many families, we trade accommodations for past service. Sometimes it’s “I solo parented for 2 days during your spa trip with friends” therefore it’s MY turn to sit up front. Often we split reservations specifically so whoever has higher status on that airline at least has a chance at upgrade.
Having children along on a trip though, for us the LEAST part of the DUTIES of parenting is on the airplane. On the plane, they sleep, they watch movies, they are very little trouble. It’s jet lag at the destination, getting sick in a foreign country, squabbles etc. that’s where the real work comes.
It’s possible that the dad was flying in business class paid for by his company for a work trip, and his family was coming with him in coach because they had to pay for their tickets themselves.
Yeah I think that’s certainly a possible scenario. And there very well may be a reason that the dad upfront needs to be well-rested (because he has to get right off the plane and go to work, etc).
I once gave up a free 1st class upgrade to a woman with a baby. The mom looked super stressed out and couldn’t believe I would do that for her. That gate agent about fell over too saying “nobody does that.”
It felt good to help her out and was funny to see the looks on the faces of those in first class who couldn’t believe a woman with a baby might ruin their first class atmosphere. The baby didn’t make a peep and the mother told me it was the most sleep she had in days.
Moral of the story. Babies can be in first class just like anyone else.
When our family of 7 flew 27 hours to Australia (3 very long flights with 2 connections in Asia), we could only get 5 award seats in economy, so we got 2 seats in business class and took turns. Of course as the mom I got the 13-hour leg! When my teenagers were alone up there, I did occasionally go up front to check on them, and no one seemed to mind.
I think that makes sense. And of course mom gets the 13 hour leg!! 😛
I was once on a Southwest flight where a guy insisted on grabbing a seat close to the front, leaving his family to go find seats together in the back.
The wife ended up having some kind of medical issue & was taken off by paramedics when we landed. I can only imagine how he felt, since he didn’t even know what was going on for a long time.
Can we all agree that guy was a jerk? 🙂
I’m actually debating this very thing. Flying international first class is one of my bucket list items but my husband could care less about stuff like that and is perfectly fine sitting in coach with our daughter. I have enough points to fly first class one-way to Germany OR enough points for 2 regular coach tickets. I’d hate to get nasty looks from other passengers just for splitting up with my husband and daughter. Perhaps when we’re ready to make this trip in a year or two I’ll have enough points to put everybody in business class but then I also fear the stares by my fellow passengers that a preschooler shouldn’t be in business or first class.
I think if your husband is fine with it, then you should be fine with it! Don’t worry about what other people might think. Or maybe you could just board separately and pretend that you don’t know them 😉
My sister and brother in law are flying to Europe next week. There was only one business class reward seat available, so she put him up there and put herself in economy. She checks daily to see if a business seat opens up for herself. She’s not worried about being separated. He’s a big guy and will be more comfortable. They figured at least one of them should be comfortable 🙂