Business Class Light

[Margaret and Rijk Rietveld]

Years ago, when we did not have enough clients to get paid for business class tickets between New York and Amsterdam, we invented Business class Light. Taking a cue from a musician, who bought an extra seat for his cello, we bought not two, but three economy seats instead of one.

Having three seats is especially good for the flight from New York to Amsterdam, since this is an overnight flight. Push up the arm rests, and you can stretch out and try to get some sleep.

Vera needed to explain many times to the ticket office of KLM that these three seats were only for one person, and that the fees and taxes only needed to be paid for one seat, so that the two extra seats are only half price of the cheapest fare.

In the off season, even with three seats, the cost is only one-third of a normal business ticket.

Having three seats created many comic situations, on the ground (check in) as well as in the air (full flights). However, one nice side effect of holding three seats is that you are for sure the first one to be upgraded on an overbooked flight, because you clear out three seats with one upgrade.

[Hugo.Rietveld]

Hi,

F.Y.I.

KLM/Air France changed their company policy for extra seats for personal comfort, as per Teletekst page 121 of today.
A rebate of 25% and or even free seats sounds too good to be true! I wonder how this will work out?

Cheers!

Hugo

[Margaret and Rijk Rietveld]

Hugo,

I heard the same thing on the news. In my case the arm rests still go up, just barely

I wonder how they are going to organize this. Do we get a checkbox "are you obese?".

Probably, it will have to wait until the gate. But what happens when the flight is full?

[Hugo.Rietveld]

Originally Posted by Margaret and Rijk Rietveld

Hugo,

I heard the same thing on the news. In my case the arm rests still go up, just barely

I wonder how they are going to organize this. Do we get a checkbox "are you obese?".

Probably, it will have to wait until the gate. But what happens when the flight is full?

I know your armrests still go up, hehheh
I just thought it's good to know that from april on extra seats for personal comfort are 25% off

[Margaret and Rijk Rietveld]

Originally Posted by Hugo.Rietveld

I just thought it's good to know that from april on extra seats for personal comfort are 25% off

If you do this right, the extra seats are much cheaper, since there should be no taxes and fees applied to the second seat. I'm not sure if KLM will point that out to their costumers

[Vera Kuipers]

Originally Posted by Margaret and Rijk Rietveld

Vera needed to explain many times to the ticket office of KLM that these three seats were only for one person, and that the fees and taxes only needed to be paid for one seat, so that the two extra seats are only half price of the cheapest fare.

I still think the funniest part was that I called and asked why you would not get triple miles, since you bought three seats and after explaining many times, they actually did this for a little over a year until they integrated the KLM program with Air France. We mailed them all boarding passes and this resulted in a nice mileage deposit! They definitely changed their policies....it's much harder to get award seats nowadays.

[Margaret and Rijk Rietveld]

This year the Economy Class tickets are expensive, so it is not cost effective to try to put Business Class Light together. However, for my regular trips, there are still deals to be found in Business class.

Currently I fly "backwards". This means that I originate in Amsterdam and fly to NY and back. Because of my schedule, I "travel" for three weeks, instead of one week. This is not considered business travel, so there is a Business Vacation rate that is around €2K instead of the normal €3.5K, or worse yet, up to $8K for a short term trip NY-AMS-NY.