Many people in the travel space, particularly travel influencers or bloggers, would happily pay $1000 out of pocket for a regular business-class seat on a 10-hour international flight. Usually, 1) their income is significantly above the median or 2) travel is their hobby and it’s a worthwhile splurge 3) they need the seat for work purposes 4) they are used to business class so economy is torture for them.
Most people would not pay $100/hr to be moderately more comfortable going from point A to point B. I would never consider paying $100/hr for a lie-flat seat. My parents would disown me at the mere suggestion of paying $2000 extra for a roundtrip ticket. So what is a reasonable price point for an average traveler? Here are a couple thoughts:
- Obviously everyone has their own price point. I’m interested in the price point that is reasonable for people in the middle of the bell curve.
- People who travel internationally typically have higher incomes. In fact, most people never fly in a given year at all.
- People who post/blog/participate in forums about travel typically have higher incomes and value travel more than most.
- Many people in business class aren’t paying for their own ticket.
- As a data point, SAS airlines allows bidding for upgrades and bids for $500 (or less) are routinely accepted for 8 hour flights. In other words, a vast majority of people on the flight would not pay $500.
- Families traveling with kids would be even more expensive
Based on the above points, I would argue that most travelers wouldn’t pay $50/hr for a lie-flat seat. For most people, business class is an unnecessary splurge that can easily double the cost of a trip without adding much value. It just doesn’t make any sense to spend days of post-tax income to be moderately more comfortable for a couple hours.
Personally, $50/hr is my maximum unless the product is exceptional. Even then, it is a splurge that doesn’t really make sense from a financial perspective.
Median Travels 