People still do the ‘poor man’s business class’ hack: the controversial travel trend explained

Don't be that person on a full flight. Photo / 123rf

The often-criticised seat-booking ploy is once again at the centre of an ethics debate online.

Being squished in a tightly-spaced flight isn’t great. Being squished together with a stranger is, perhaps, worse. There’s an old controversial loophole around both problems - which some say is a classic d*** move - and in 2024, people are still doing it.

Passengers trying out the “poor man’s business class” travel trend to get extra room in economy has again sparked an ethics debate online, after a woman was accused of being “cheap” and “inconveniencing others” when she sat between a couple who paid for the window and aisle seats to get more room.

The trend usually plays out in two ways:

1) A person pays for the whole row and then has two of the seats refunded at the last minute so they have the entire row to themselves.

2) The window and aisle seats are paid for while hoping no one takes the middle seat - typically the option for couples or friends.

Stealthy.

On Friday, the 26-year-old travel-trend victim took to Reddit and said she had no choice when she was allocated a middle seat on a new flight after her first one cancelled as a result of a medical emergency.

Instead of being understanding of the situation, the passenger sitting next to her reacted rudely and said she was “not meant to be sitting here, anyway”, the original poster (OP) claimed on the popular subreddit Entitled People.

The OP continued: “The woman ... asked me, ‘Did you use one of those third-party websites to book your flight? It’s so frustrating when people cheap out to inconvenience others’”.

The woman’s story, which gained more than 12,000 upvotes and 600 comments, received a strong reaction from Redditors, with many shocked at the couple’s behaviour.

“Like a toddler having a tantrum,” read one comment with more than 1000 upvotes about the woman’s response to the OP.

“How entitled and shows she rarely travels. Every flight is full these days, especially long ones,” commented another user.

How did the travel trend become popular?

It’s been around for a while - cozzie livs could be partly to blame. But the trend took off online after a TikTok video by @ndainternet was posted in 2023. It has been viewed well over 2 million times.

@ndainternet

How to get a Poor Man’s First Class! 📉💰✈️ If you’re looking to fly on an airline or travel abroad on holiday, you can’t afford a private jet or the first class on most flights, but with this hack, you can book an airline ticket and get yourself the cheap version of first class and save money! 🤑 #airline #flight #firstclass #savemoney

♬ original sound - NDA

Why is it a problem?

It may seem harmless. But there are plenty of risks.

If you’re travelling solo, the success of the trick depends on the seats being refundable. Many of them aren’t: it depends on the flight, the airline and its policies.

On a full flight, it’s arguably unfair. As the OP of the Reddit post pointed out, “It’s not the other person’s fault”.

And then there’s the respect issue. As one user wrote online, “It’s not very nice, is it?”