Lol: Guy Tries To Bribe His Way Into “First Class” With Gifts For Crew

There’s all kinds of (mostly bad) advice out there about how to score an upgrade on a flight. One of those tips is to bring gifts for the crew. Well, here’s a rather interesting example of that — I respect the hustle and find the whole thing to be sort of endearing, though the result is what you’d expect.

Man spends hundreds on gifts for crew, doesn’t get upgraded

Instagram user parker.seidel has shared a rather amusing saga over the past several months, of trying to score an upgrade by buying gifts for the crew. As he describes it, he’s trying to “bribe” his way into “first class seats” (okay, in fairness, he’s exclusively flying low cost carriers that don’t actually have first class, but they do have premium cabins).

What I respect about him is that he’s doing it with a good attitude and isn’t entitled, but the whole thing is still sort of funny, especially since he tries to up his game each time.

He first tried this several weeks back, on a French Bee flight to Paris. He spent a total of $99.96, buying $75 worth of Starbucks gift cards, a card, candy, chocolate, and a nice gift bag. When he boarded the aircraft, he told the flight attendant at the door “I just want to say, I really appreciate you, this is for you, this for all the flight attendants as well.”

The flight attendant asked him where he was seated, and after takeoff, they ended up bringing him champagne, snacks, other drinks, and even an amenity kit.

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Then several weeks later, he flew ZIPAIR to Tokyo. I guess he thought he wasn’t spending enough on gifts, so in this case, he spent a total of $192.34, buying everything from Starbucks gift cards, to chocolate, to candy. He even wrote a long letter to the crew (using ChatGPT), about how he’s grateful for what they do.

Nine hours into the flight, the crew brought him a cup of green tea as a gift (which is quite something on ZIPAIR, since nothing is included, hah). However, he doesn’t drink green tea, so he poured it out. They also gave him a bag of candy and a thank you note.

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For the third flight of this saga, he flew Norse Atlantic to Rome. This time around he spent $183.60 on gifts, and he tried to up his game. He created individual gift bags for each flight attendant, and wrote each flight attendant a handwritten note. He even prepared a gift for the gate agents, and tried to dress the part, by wearing something nicer.

As he boarded the aircraft, the flight attendant at the door said “are you with us?” (in other words, do you work for the airline, or perhaps another airline?). This time around he didn’t seem to get anything special.

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A post shared by PARKER SEIDEL (@parker.seidel)

But he’s determined not to give up, and plans on trying this a fourth time!

Is getting gifts for the crew a good upgrade strategy?

When it comes to questionable advice for scoring an upgrade on a flight, bringing gifts for the crew is probably one of the less-bad ideas. That’s not to say that it’s going to score you an upgrade, but it gives you better odds than some of the other bad advice out there.

With that in mind, a few thoughts on this specific situation:

• In order to be upgraded, there need to actually be empty seats to upgrade someone to, and that’s far from a sure bet
• If you want someone to bend the rules and upgrade you, spending nearly $200 on gifts on a Japanese airline probably isn’t the best investment