Consolidator Discount Airfares - Travel Discounts offers 20 million consolidator airfares from the top consolidators in the industry. Lowest International Airfares Name Your Own Price . If you re a frequent business traveler, you already know the standard ways to upgrade from coach to first class while flying without paying full fare. But there s another way to get into first class. Call it the schmooze upgrade.
First class is as much a marketing tool for airlines as a revenue center.
Few companies permit anyone but their most senior management to fly first class, even on long intercontinental flights. So first class is largely inhabited by the airline s best customers who make it a point to fly a particular airline so they can achieve elite status. They re the American gold or platinum AAdvantage cardholder, the United 1K flier, or the Delta medallion flier. They re the ones you see hanging around the gate agents desk before a flight departs, hoping they re high enough on the airline s waitlist to receive an unoccupied first-class seat. Given that first class is a marketing tool, gate agents and even flight attendants have wide latitude in deciding who gets to sit in the front of the plane.