A 30-year-old woman and her husband joined his family on a two-week international cruise. Her father-in-law paid for the trip and booked the adult children and their spouses in Delta Comfort+ extra legroom coach seats, while he and his wife flew business class.
The woman had spent 11 years saving points. She used points and money to upgrade herself and her husband to Delta One for the 10-plus hour trip. She says she wanted to surprise her husband, who’s tall, has back problems, and hadn’t ever flown in a lie-flat seat. But her mother-in-law was.. not pleased.
First class isn’t for “kids.”
The “kids” in question aren’t the upgrader’s kids. It’s this woman and her husband – the woman’s son – and they’re 30-year old adults. But then the mother-in-law asked,
Who is going to help with the baby?
The Family Trip Had An Unwritten Seating Chart
The father-in-law routinely pays for family vacations. He and his wife fly first class, or charter private, while their adult children and spouses travel in coach. They’re being generous, the family doesn’t need to fly together, they’ll spend most of their vacation together. Buying everyone premium cabin seats is far more expensive. And it’s not unreasonable to feel that’s an ‘earned’ perk, whether that’s how you’d treat your own kids or not.
But is there really something wrong with the kids accepting the coach seat and topping off with miles or money to travel business?
The woman admits she should have told her father-in-law what she’d done, since he bought the original tickets and would have been surprised. (He was surprised, but apparently he was not offended.)
The Family Just Resented The Baby On The Trip
Most grandparents love having their grandbabies around? This trip though had been planned before anyone had children. And the grandparents found it inconvenient. Some of the restaurants on the ship wouldn’t accept children, and they were planning shore excursions that invovled hours of driving and walking.
The father-in-law had asked his son and daughter-in-law to reconsider bringing their 10-month-old and just leave the baby behind (presumably with someone else looking after the child!). But they brought the kid anyway.
The woman says having the baby on her lap made the upgrade even more of a no-brainer for her. Maybe the rest of the cabin would have resented it but the extra space would be a miracle. The mother-in-law expected the baby to remain in back. And the upgrade upset the family hierarchy where “kids” are in a lower class of service.
Lots of families have hierarchies! There are kids tables. There’s often one family member that picks up the check at meals. My maternal grandfather held that role into his 90’s, but I figured out in my 20’s that I could ask his permission to pick up a check and then I could do it without offending him in the process.
When A Better Seat Is Available, Take It
I’ve written about couples splitting cabins many times when there’s one upgrade seat available. The correct approach is that when a premium cabin seat is available, take it. You don’t wish coach on someone you love. You want better things for them. Be happy your partner receives more space and comfort, even if you can’t enjoy it yourself.
Here the woman upgraded herself and her husband. No one was left unsupervised. She took two tickets she was given, and made them better. And all the family members left behind in Comfort+ were adults.
One commenter described the trip as a free gift carrying a high price: expectations about how the recipients would spend their money and their time. And when the mother-in-law wondered who would help with the baby, “why not you, grandma?”
I’d say the mother-in-law should have been proud of the upgrade, but the family had way too many SkyMiles and presumably spent them at about a penny apiece. That’s the part where reasonable critics have an opening.
There he goes again. Our dear ‘thot leader’ scraping the bottom of the barrel stories from Reddit, which were also likely ironically scraped from AI to karma farm. (No, no, it’s all real, shhh…)
“Reasonable critics,” you say? Psh. Gary, you’re 100% on the critics comment, but your message boards are not always, let’s say, ‘reasonable.’
All said, if this story is true (pics or it didn’t happen!), let’s be clear: It’s ‘who pays’ that decides ‘where we sit.’ Sure, chivalry is nice (ladies first), but, also, Comfort+ gets the job done as well.