That sounds like a great deal, although shame you missed out on the even better deal!

I don't give a damn about premium economy on BA; I got the upgrade for free and was more uncomfortable than I would have been in regular economy. I was next to three empty seats and couldn't stretch out in them. In economy I have often been placed next to empty seats that I could use to get more comfortable. My company doesn't pay for First at all for employees at my level and Business class is only for flights to Singapore or Australia and then only if approved by a VP.

Yes, for me the overnight is the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't sleep, and I feel pretty sick in the morning. However, I find that once I'm moving around, pick up my baggage, take the tube into London at eight o'clock or thereabouts, I get a new lease of life and I'm fine. Problem is, I fly to LHR from Ottawa, Air Canada, and there's only one flight a day, overnight.

I've never flown anything but economy. I don't really feel justified in spending the considerable extra money. Fortunately, I never had to travel for my work, so never built up much frequent flyer miles. And I'd never heard of the concept of "premium economy." I don't think Air Canada has that.

I voted economy, based on the assumption that you are paying for it. If you can upgrade/get mileage tickets for business, and feel the need for business, go for it.

We tend to use our mileage awards for basic economy trips, rather than upgrading. In the last few years I was working I used to do upwards of 120k miles a month, mostly in business. I had clearance for First for anything over 5 hours, but only ever used it if business was full....the increment was just not worth it, and even with company money, it was still "my" budget it came out of. It also put some nice pressure on the guys that worked for me to keep an eye on their own travel costs and not milk it!

That was back in the days when miles had short shelf lives, so most of them were wasted as I didn't get chance to use them Yes, it was nice, but it'll be a cold day in hell next time I pay my own cash for regular business tickets...to me it simply isn't worth it for the 10-12 -whatever hours you are on the plane. The last time I paid for business was when I was working, and had all those miles in the bank, but couldn't redeem them for the flights I wanted when we got married. We flew from Sing to Houston for the wedding then via Europe to Southern Africa for the honeymoon, then on to Singapore on a round the world ticket. Lots of miles, special occasion, so I forked for business and it turned out to be only about 2k per ticket more than the equivalent economy RTW ticket. I reckon that was worth it, but in general, I'd rather sit in the back with the money in my wallet, than in the front with the knobs that think they're something special And yes, I can honestly say I have seen far more obnoxious knobhead spit-the-dummy-out-the-pram behavior in the front of the plane than the back, with the possible exception of the Friday night stag night flights from sing to Phuket.....those were just nasty

Made me smile, thanks

Economy, comrade.

(Obviously I'd fly first class if I could).

PS not sure what your poll is asking. What we do or what we'd like to do?

Sorry - it was meant to be what you do. Wanted to get an idea of what seasoned transatlantic travellers on her are doing in practice. The hideous memories of February's trip (when I was sandwiched between my broad-shouldered husband and a similarly sized bloke towards the back of economy) are still too fresh to consider downgrading just yet. However, I have a feeling we might be feeling the pinch at least the first few years out there, so if it comes down to a choice between flying home at all or not, I might just have to suck it up!

My husband usually configures it so I sit with the kids and he sits on his own with the nutters

He has to fly economy for work and is hardened.

Can't say I enjoy it, personally I find it one of the many minuses of emigration.

Exactly! In the deep dark past, my husband's company flew employees as well as expat families via business class. That was marvellous, but it ended around 1990.

A 6-7 hour flight from the east coast US to the UK isn't all that bad in economy. Try flying economy Tokyo to LHR, that takes 12 hours! We did it for years with young kids, so this US/UK jaunt seems pretty easy in comparison.

We're on the west coast though, that's around 11 hours .

Yeah, true. I do feel sorry for you folks on that coast. You almost need a stop somewhere along the route to stretch your legs, even though it increases the length of flight time even more.

Since we're not made of money, we fly pikey class. For 8 hours, it's fine and paying an order of magnitude more for your tickets won't make the plane fly faster. IMO, you're better off saving as much extra money for the destination rather than the flight.

Although, the thought of getting my daughter all pissed off, worked up and underslept and annoying business travellers appeals to me

Just a general note - it is possible to earn lots of airline miles without actually having to fly. In general you need a reasonable credit rating and the amount you earn will be directly related to how much time you choose to invest in it, but it does pay better than a part-time second job (if you have the time and the inclination).

As you're essentially only applying for a checking account, then the credit rating thing doesn't play into this nearly as much as it would do for a credit card application. This card is an essential part of my armoury and serves me very well indeed.

One of the reasons why BA premium economy is valuable to me is the additional tier points awarded. These means that I make Silver every year, which in turn leads to lounge access and - more importantly - a fairly good batting average when it comes to free gate upgrades to business class. The miles earned, however, become less and less valuable every year.

We always fly economy, I just can't justify the added expense to fly anything else. When we relocated here though, the company paid for us to fly business which was lovely, until the hostess threw champagne all over me, and my daughter knocked my husbands all over him. We must have smelt like alcoholics when we got off the flight.

As there are 3 of us, it's usually just us on our own row. But last year me and my daughter flew to the UK on our own. On the way back we had a stopover in Chicago, and my daughter slept all the way from Chicago to San Francisco. Unfortunately, she insisted she was going to lean to her left, on to the poor man who was in the window seat. Every time I pulled her over to myself to lean on me, she would throw herself back and lean on him instead. The more times I tried to move her, the more violent her throwback got to the point I thought the poor man was going to end up with a bruised arm. Eventually he just "she's fine, leave her" Bet he tries not to fly economy any more.