Watch as man saves £900 upgrading plane tickets to business class & you can too

A MAN has revealed how he saved almost £900 on his business class upgrade, using a simple ticket trick.

The traveller was due to fly from Dubai to Cairo in economy class, but managed to get himself an affordable upgrade for the journey, by using the airline’s app.

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Sam Mayfair spent just £550 on his business class ticket with Emirates, instead of £1,400, and revealed on Tiktok (@sam.mayfair) how he did it.

In a video, he said: “Let me show you this little hack I discovered on how to get a cheap business class ticket on Emirates Airline.

“When the check-in opens 48 hours before the flight, head over to the app and go to check in. You will then see a little window open that says, ‘upgrade your flight’.

“If you hit the upgrade button, it will open another window and there will be a price there.

“In my case it was $300, which is about £250. So of course, I opted to purchase the upgrade, making my business class ticket £550 rather than the original £1400.”

Sam explained that there were a couple of downsides to upgrading this way, but said it was still well worth the price.

He continued: “Normally, if you purchase an Emirates business class ticket, you’ll get a free chauffeur to pick you up and take you to the airport.

“If you upgrade your ticket the way I did, this option will not be available to you.

“Also, because you’re in a promotional business class ticket, you will not have access to the business class lounge at the airport.

“But except for those two things, which for me personally didn’t make much of a difference, it was pretty great.”

Sam also had full food and drink service, priority boarding, extra luggage allowance and access to a bar on board the plane.

He finished by adding: “In my personal opinion, it’s definitely worth waiting until the check-in opens to see if these offers are available rather than buying the business class ticket straight away.”

Sam’s video has been seen more than half a million times, with lots of people keen to give his trick a try.

One commented: “Finally a real travel hack. Good to know for my next trip.”

Another said: “Will definitely try it next time, thanks.”

A third added: “Done that with BA many times! Well worth it.”

There are even cheaper ways of getting upgrades, including getting gifts for cabin crew, but it doesn’t always work.

Sun Online Travel’s resident flight attendant said: “The truth is, some gifts will get you an upgrade, but you have to put the effort in – we can’t move everyone up to first because they gave us a small bag of chocolates.

“The best gifts to get for your flight crew are vouchers.

“Cash feels a little too on the nose and we’re not that comfortable about accepting it, so vouchers feels like a happy medium.

“The best passenger we’ve ever had gave us a load of Nandos gift vouchers and it went down a storm.

“That person definitely ended up in first class that day.”

Meanwhile this frequent flyer revealed their method for getting upgrades on planes.

And this flight attendant explained how to improve your chances of sitting in first class.

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