The First Time in First Class Experience and 3 Pilots Fired for Faking High School Diploma

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. The guy in the first-class video is 100% right! And personally, I still always remember how fortunate I am when I arrange to fly first/business class.

  2. My first class adventures began in the 1980s when Delta targeted me for a special promotion for something called “the Executive Women’s Club”. When I joined Delta gave me 4 (transferable) First Class Upgrade certificates. After joining I soon realized that one didn’t need to be an Executive to join. And one didn’t even need to be a woman. Soon our entire family was enrolled—my husband joined and my 2 small sons- giving us 16 First Class Upgrades. We never looked back after that because when those certificates ran out we figured out how to use miles. I have asked many people over the years and nobody yet has ever heard of that Club. But it was one of my best travel coups over the years.

  3. My first First Class ride was after getting vountarily bumped, flying Toronto to Atlanta. This was however 37 years ago on an Eastern DC-9, so the free booze and leather seats were the only things I noticed.

  4. I spent my first time in First flying NRT-JFK on ANA back in 1996. I was seated across the aisle from Cyndi Lauper, who had been promoting her new album Sisters of Avalon in Tokyo and could not have been more lovely. It made the flight highly entertaining, in addition to being spoiled by ANA service and food. Back then, the seats were barely flat, even in First.

    As the Economist said long ago, one of life’s more particular pleasures is boarding an aeroplane and turning LEFT.

  5. Great job AA for finding the GoPro, but let’s not forget that this story was heavily publicized on social media.

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