Man divides opinion after refusing to pay for family members’ flight – and opts for first class upgrade instead
A MAN has sparked a passionate response after revealing that he wanted to give himself a flight upgrade rather than pay for a family member’s ticket.
In a post on , the engineer explained that, since his job required him to travel by air all over the United States, he accumulated a lot of frequent flyer miles.
The poster shared: “Due to the amount of flying I’ve done the past two years, I have enough flier miles through a popular airline where I could get a free first class, round-trip ticket to Europe.
“We are planning a family vacation there next summer. Normally, the prices are $3,000, which is quite a lot of money for a flight.
“I told my mom, my mom's friend and my brother about this and they basically told me I should use the miles to get one of them the free ticket, and expressed I should pay for my ticket because I ‘make more money than all of them’.”
He explained that he had refused, prompting them to call him “extremely selfish” and insist that “if the shoe was on the other foot” then they’d “happily” use their miles for him.
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Continuing, the man said: “While I do get paid well for my job, I think this is a bit out of line. I worked very hard for those miles. I was away from home for countless weeks working.
“I really don’t think me using my hard-earned miles for myself is selfish at all. The job that I chose has its perks, and one of those is free plane tickets occasionally. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this.”
He went on to ask members of the site if he was being unreasonable, leading to strong reactions.
One person wrote: “YOU are the one who earned these frequent flier miles. YOU are the one who was away from home all this time. YOU are the one who made sacrifices for it. THEY are the ones being selfish.
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“Forget the family vacation. Go with someone who is not trying to leach off of you.”
But many insisted that he shouldn’t have opened up about the perks of his job with his family so extensively.
One noted: “I hope you learned from this mistake; don't discuss the details of your (relative) wealth with others. Also, don't let others tell you how to spend your money, or use things of high value.”
Another added: “In my family, we tell jokes like that (you got a really expensive wine from work??? Why won't you give it to me??) but we don’t actually mean it.
“You were sharing something nice with them and they tried to steal that from you, I’d feel very sad about that. From now on I'd think carefully about what to share with them, in order to not cause any family issues.”
It's not the first time people have disagreed about flight etiquette.
Another traveller sparked debate after refusing ing to move seats for a taller passenger.
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And another man refused to sit in economy with his girlfriend during a flight, splitting opinion.
A frequent flyer has revealed the best seat to book in economy for a long-haul flight.
