As a frequent business flyer, I always remark that I would never pay the price of Business class if i was travelling for pleasure.
Its roughly 8-10 times the price. Is it TEN times better? Of course not.
2 short examples:
- For our honeymoon (hawai'i) I used Air Miles to upgrade to economy plus on Delta and United. It only cost about €150 extra per flight. Its an extra 10" of feet space, which is enough (I'm 6' 1).
- I was in Tampa a few weeks ago, and was struggling to get flights at short notice. There were 2 options, Continental via Newark, or BA via Gatwick. The Newark flights were €600. The BA flight was Business class, and was £4,700! (about €7,000). Also, the return flight with Continental arrived in DUB at 9am. Happy days; waking up at home. The BA flight arrived in Gatwick at 6am, with another journey still to go.
No contest. Continental economy class all the way.
Quick point: as most have mentioned, upgrading is all but extinct these days, partly because of the cost (If you paid €7k, would you want to hear someone tell you they got bumped up for free!?), and mostly because Business Class is very popular with paying customers these days, and is more often than not full on every flight.
Using my Airmiles status, I usually get free upgrades on internal flights in the US (its pretty poor business class), by asking to be put on the stand-by list when checking in. If there is a seat, you get the boarding card at the gate.