We all wish we didn’t have to worry about buying plane tickets full price or even just owning our own private jet, but for the most of us those are dreams.
Especially as college students and young adults, we spend our time looking at cheap prices online and wondering what would be the cheapest way to get to our dream destination. Instead of being stuck at school or work, we’d rather be on a flight to Iceland. I’m saying Iceland because that’s the latest hype…and I’d like to go very much!
So let’s go through the scale of most expensive to cheapest flight tickets to see what fits our budget. If your parents are loaded, any seat including first class are pocket change. Then you can save up a few paychecks and get yourself a normal coach seat with all the benefits of assurance you’ll be on that flight. Now, this is where it starts being tricky. You can look for cheap flights that take 30 hours instead of 12 and where you need to basically pay for anything additional to your seat. A lot of times, specifically in Europe, those flights can go as low as 5 euros when they go on sale. I know it’s ridiculous and super worth it! That option is neat, but comes with a special lifestyle. It is called stand-by.
Flying stand-by is a whole different league. The best way I can simply describe is: you get to tag along to the best club in town with your famous friend, but they might not let you in. This option is through an airline worker (flight attendant, pilot, etc.), which you represent through your travels. They allow you to fly for cheap with that airline as long as the flight has space. You basically get to choose in short amount of time where you’d like to go without worrying too much about money or dates.
That is how I have been going around for the past 10+ years.
This lifestyle does come at a cost. You could have picked your flight to go home or on vacation knowing there were 10 open seats calling your name, just to find out the morning of, the earlier flight rolled over and there is no more space. This happens a lot during the summer and Christmas time. It becomes difficult when you are in between two flights, in a place where you can’t leave. This has happened to me multiple times such as London. I had to leave Paris two days early via the Eurostar to fly out of Heathrow, but that backfired and for three days I stayed in the airport.
If the stars are well aligned, which they usually are, it’s a great way to travel and you might even get lucky by being placed in business class. Traveling is a lifestyle and if you choose the stand-by life, it will be an alternate version.
Are you ready to fly with your rich friend and get denied at the gate?
