Then the crew began to go from seat to seat, checking everyone’s ticket. I’d never seen anything like that before. Eventually they realized that I was the problem.
“Sir, we think you are in the wrong seat?”
“No,” I said casually. “I’m in the right seat. And can I get another glass of champagne since we’re delayed?”
“But if you look at your ticket you’ve been assigned—”
“I was promised an upgrade by your duty manager; perhaps he just forgot to manifest it. If you contact him, he’ll sort everything out. Here’s his card. What are the appetizers on this flight?”
I handed over his card and hoped he’d finished his shift so they’d be unable to reach him and they’d give me the benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile we heard from the captain . . .
“Folks, sorry about this extended delay. I’m afraid we’ve now missed our takeoff window. We are working with air traffic control to find us a new slot, and then we’ll be on our way, hopefully in just a few minutes.”
Then the guys upstairs did get back in touch. Or at least that one guy whose name I had tried to exploit. I didn’t hear what he’d said, but I assume it was along the lines of “What the fuck! That little prick tried to bribe me, and now he’s using my name to get some bullshit upgrade? Do we have time to off-load him? Does he have baggage in the hold? Let me call operations and see what they want to do.”
I’ve encountered many cabin crew with pissy expressions on their faces in my time, but nothing like this. These guys wanted to fuck me fervently with a blunt instrument. What was worse, after they’d informed me that we wouldn’t be going anywhere until I got into my assigned seat, I was forced to undergo a walk of shame back to coach. My fellow passengers, realizing I was the source of the delay, were less than sympathetic to my cause. That was a pretty tense flight.
I had been fucking humiliated. I mean, I appreciated the balls that I’d displayed by trying this shit in the first place, and, with a favorable wind, on another day I might have pulled it off. But I knew that if I wanted to stay out of coach forever, I would have to up my game. Devise some slightly more sophisticated techniques than simply hiding in the bathroom and praying for a miracle. I needed to put in some serious flying hours to work out the kinks. And that’s when the pussy offered me the opportunity.
Her name was Heather. She was an American-Parisian socialite, and a fucking ass load of trouble. I met her on the Champs-Élysées. She didn’t walk into a room; she floated in. Her charm and allure were next level. All I can remember is seeing this vision of Gallic loveliness and knowing I had to get to know her. We couldn’t venture into certain parts of the city, we couldn’t be too flagrant about our relationship, and we couldn’t go to her place. She was really devious and had a different excuse for the shadiness every time. She obviously had all sorts of rackets going on. Drooling dudes in every arrondissement. But man, she was worth it. I totally fell for her and had to see her at every opportunity. But how? She lived in Paris, and I was trapped in Hartford, Connecticut.
It was then I started to study. Not at school (obviously), but I tried to figure out the secrets of air travel. I looked into air miles and the attached offers and schemes. You see, most people fly a couple of times a year at most. They steadily accrue their miles (if they bother at all) and never consider the angles, letting them expire most times before taking full advantage. Those people who fly all the time (for work) tend to do it on someone else’s dime. Their company is picking up the tab, so they don’t give a shit about saving money or grabbing mileage. So most of these offers are ignored or overlooked. But to an operator like me, they are just waiting to be exploited.
So I started figuring out every single fucking thing about aviation. The ridiculous lexicon, the best airlines, the places to sit, the ones to avoid. And, I admit it, I became an absolute nerd about it. I worked out things like taking four or so internal flights that cost nothing, which can accrue you enough miles to get you across the Atlantic. I could pick up a few credit cards, make a few bullshit purchases, and grab even more miles. Soon I was flying over to France every other weekend for a spell of light continental boning followed by a hot croissant.
Eventually I realized I’d fallen out of love with Heather and into love with the high life. So I stopped shtupping her and started to fly just for the hell of it. And not just fly, but fly in style. I’d read about that classy, swinging, Pan Am style of aviation. All miniskirted stewardesses waddling down the aisle and handing you cocktails as you sucked on a Lucky Strike. I decided to start a one-man campaign to bring those days back. Or else live in a delusion where I believed those days still existed. Which, you must admit, is a lovely place to be.
And there was another reason it attracted me to such a degree. Flying is unique. As well as being utterly magical, disrupting all notions of human achievability and crapping all over understandable physics, it’s also the only institution where any sort of class system is still vigorously enforced. You see, the world used to be all about class. There were the “betters” and the “worse offs.” Everyone knew their place, which provided a certain amount of comfort. You didn’t have to try, because there was no point. You just lived in your hut, got used to the smell of sewage, and assumed that at least a few of your children wouldn’t make it to adulthood. Everything was peachy.
Then “democracy” raised its unwashed head. Suddenly everyone felt that they deserved to be just as good as everyone else. And everything went to shit. Expectations were raised, idiots lined up to be abused on talent shows, and every teenage girl had a blog chronicling her self-harm.
But none of that exists in the skies. The caste system is still firmly in place, and I couldn’t be happier about it. And despite desperate attempts to tone down the language and apply a few less offensive pseudonyms to the system, it’s still known as “first class” and “second class.” You can make reference to “economy” or “world traveler” or “main cabin,” but we all know what these euphemisms mean. Steerage. A cramped, painful seat next to a sweaty man with a flatulence problem and behind an old lady who treats her recliner like a goddamned rocking chair. Some have even discussed planning to make you pay to use the bathroom. To use the bathroom. You’re already paying to possess possessions, hydrate, and look out a window. It’s one thing to pay a little less and endure a less comfortable experience. But this is the stripping of basic human rights. What the fuck happened to flying?
Meanwhile, the divide between the shit you face in coach and glorious luxuries of first class increases exponentially. Now you get suites up there. Rooms with walls. You can happily saunter from one part of your personal cabin to the other. You can break-dance. You can limbo. And you can fuck.
Which, let’s face it, is what all this is about. The creation and eternal improvement of the upper-class section of the airplane were designed solely so rich people can fuck in peace. Because that’s what rich people do. They fuck. All the time. Mostly people over. And they assume they can fuck any place they want. And they can. Because they are rich.
So are you still asking yourself, “Why would JRL want to dedicate his life to the acquisition of this?” Yeah, why would I want to be surrounded by luxury and have hot- and cold-running pussy, plus a button I could push for champagne or caviar or a fresh duvet to be brought directly to me? Flying first class is a fairy tale. For the length of the flight, you are royalty. Pampered, polished, and pandered to by a dedicated staff and surrounded by like-minded sociopaths. To live this life on the ground takes years of dedicated hard work or else the good fucking fortune of being born into it. It’s something that hardly any of us can hope for. But getting into first class and staying there is easy. You just have to master the system; take the rules and fuck them a little.
So not only did I fuck the rules. I also gave it a name: JewJetting.
What the Fuck Is JewJetting?
First, you need to make a little alteration of consciousness.
You need to embrac
e the idea of traveling and getting nowhere. Jettisoning the destination. Ditching the departure board. Not even considering where you are headed until you see the Eiffel Tower or the Sydney Opera House under the wing. And even then you can barely give a shit. Because those are the fundamentals of JewJetting.
And that’s it. It’s all done for the joy of doing it. Frankly, if you can’t quite grasp that, then there’s a wonderful seat waiting for you way down at the end of the fuselage. Right next to the bathroom and in the perfect target zone for the sharp elbows of a dusty stewardess who seems to be colliding with you for fun or punishment. You can always comfort yourself with the thought that we all die with urine in our pants if this plane goes down, no matter where you are sitting. Though, to be honest, it doesn’t cross my mind much as I recline to 180 degrees and sip my luxury cocktail.
And there was a wonderful side effect to all this extravagance. People were interested in it. And consequently, they were interested in me. Once my exploits, like the Robin Hood incident, started to get written up in blogs and make the news, people started asking themselves, “Who is this asshole and how did he get into first class?” I started to chronicle my JewJetting exploits, which caused further consternation and even more fascination with my douchery. Then I figured out that I didn’t even have to do that much. There was no need to repeat lunacy and get further written warnings. All I had to do was take a picture. If I documented something salacious or ludicrous or unbelievably fucking decadent, my stock rose exponentially. It was fantastic. I was doing what I loved and, as a consequence, consolidating my brand. It was all gravy.
A far more sensible question, which gets fired at me constantly, is how the fuck I manage to do all this. As an answer, let me tell you a little story.
On one occasion, I found myself in first class (of course) sitting next to a man I recognized from an in-flight magazine. He would mean very little to you, but to me this was a figure of inspiration and also my archenemy. He was my tormentor and my victim. He was Doug Parker, the CEO of US Airways. The fucking CEO of the airline that I fly on the most, right here next to me—a captive audience. The odds of being seated next to this man are staggering.
(That is another wonderful aspect of air travel. There is no escape. Whoever is in the section with you stays in the section with you, giving you the opportunity to schmooze, pitch, photograph, or harass to your heart’s content.)
Anyway, I’m sitting there with Doug Parker. (I should mention we were not traveling on his particular carrier. He’s smart enough not to always fly on company metal and get suckered into serving Sprite Zero or wishing people happy birthday and that kind of shit). I waited until we are airborne, and then I turned to him.
“Hi,” I said to him. “I’m Justin Ross Lee, and I have been legally fleecing your company for years. I’m currently Silver on your airline. Change my status to Chairman’s Preferred, and I’ll tell you everything.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. But here we were in first class. So if I was crazy, I was crazy and had access to money. Or I did have some secrets to share.
“Really?” he said with worry.
I told him all about one of the many schemes that I invented and regularly exploited with glee. Being a Preferred member of US Airways Dividend Miles (when the airline and program existed) means you can get an upgrade to first class if there are seats available and if those higher up in the cardholding food chain don’t bag those seats first. Except they always bag those seats first. At the time a twenty-five-thousand-mile-per-year schlub like me would never snatch a seat by legitimate means. So how can I ensure that I get my sweet little ass into 1A?
Weeks before a flight, I go online and buy refundable tickets for every single seat in first. Remember, you need refundable tickets, or else you’ve just made an incredibly expensive blooper. I’ve now completely sold out first class. And not only sold it out, but also assigned each seat to someone with a comical name. Just for funsies. So you can have John Hinkley next to Jodie Foster. Kim Kardashian next to Albert Einstein. Rambo next to Rocky. Any old shit. Then, a few days before the flight, I cancel all these seats. I get the money back on my credit cards. Then I’d immediately call the airline . . .
“Hey, I am ticketed on the two-thirty flight to Miami, and I noticed that first class is completely empty. I’m not sure what happened to your system’s sweep at my upgrade window, but I was hoping, as a loyal Silver, you can manually process my upgrade.”
“Golly!” they say (or similar). “That’s weird. No one is in first. Sure, we can do that for you.”
So I get a seat in first. It takes a little effort and conjuring up a bunch of dumb names, but there you go. First class every time. Sometimes I’d book a refundable ticket and not go anywhere. Just head to the lounge, conduct my business, stock up on free booze, and then have my ticket refunded. All for the price of an Uber.
“But that’s just wrong,” Old Doug tells me. “You’re just a swindler.”
“But I’m not,” I joyfully tell him. “It’s a loophole. Check out your own contract of carriage. Nothing legally dubious is taking place. It’s as kosher as I am. And I’m pretty fucking kosher.” (I had bacon that very morning).
And he had to agree with me. He was impressed with my candor, and we actually hit it off. He gave me his card and eventually had his personal assistant bump me up to the top tier, Chairman’s Preferred, so I didn’t have to pull that kind of shit anymore (on that particular airline).
They’ve changed the rules now, but this is just one of a myriad of ways I fuck these companies. It’s a constant battle with them. They work out there’s something going on, they change their rules, and I find another hole.
For instance, there are always ridiculous offers and deals relating to air miles. Back when I was a rookie JewJetter, one airline had an online-shopping-mall-portal promotion partnering with the Sharper Image for the holidays. Pretty simple stuff: earn twenty or twenty-five miles per dollar spent online. So I would order online for in-store pickup and saunter down to the Sharper Image to fetch one of those pointless, ridiculous $3,000 massage chairs designed for desperate middle-management executives to blow their bonuses. I’d walk in, have the chair placed in the back of a Grand Cherokee, drive straight over to another Sharper Image, return the dumb chair, and get the refund put on another card (telling them the original form of payment was lost or stolen). I’d get the miles for the purchase and the money for the refund. Positive net.
I’d do this several times a week, until the guys at the Sharper Image thought I was some kind of weird, chair-sniffing deviant. But by this method I had generated hundreds of thousands of miles, more than enough to circumnavigate the globe a few times on my back. Yeah, it was a pain in the ass to hump chairs all over the place and interact with that certain level of desperation you only find in stores like the Sharper Image—but who cares when you can roll those miles over into a first-class seat to Tokyo?
I’d spend all of my time scouring the press for these types of deals: taking out credit cards with air miles attached (I think I was up to about $250,000 in credit at my zenith), looking for promotional deals with airline hookups, planning internal flights with tons of stopovers that just cost a couple hundred bucks but clocked up massive amounts of extra points.
It’s an addiction. You get obsessed with accumulating these things and swapping tips with fellow junkies online who also do this shit. It can be hard work, and you need a decent grasp of organization and spreadsheets, but it’s worth it. A nice lounge to sit in. No bullshit with security. No waiting at the gate. Gourmet food and nonstop pampering. And then there’s the slightly more dubious perks.
I love Johnnie Walker Blue Label. But that shit is expensive. Sitting in first, you obviously get it for bubkes. I was taking a flight to Hong Kong, I think. I asked for some Johnnie Walker Blue. They brought over a one-and-a-half-liter bottle of the stuff. Massive and with a cherry that had yet to be popped.
“I don’t want to keep both
ering you; just leave the bottle if you want,” I told my server with nonchalance.
They left this massive amount of premium booze, knowing I couldn’t do that much damage to it. But they were wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. I’d also been ordering Perrier throughout the flight. Why? Perrier bottles are colored in such a way that they disguise anything. Including Johnnie Walker Blue Label. I funneled the juice into the bottles—using the glossy, pointless in-flight magazine—and stowed it in my carry-on. At the end of the flight, a disturbed crew member came and collected this enormous, empty liquor bottle. Obviously, if I’d drunk all that I should be dead at the very least. But I soberly gave him my warmest regards and alighted as smugly as possible.
Do you think that’s stealing? But how can it be? It’s free! If I’d sat patiently in my seat and downed this entire bottle of whisky, it would have been thoroughly unpleasant but totally legitimate in the eyes of the moral world. I just applied the doggie-bag rule and got a lot of lovely booze to enjoy at my leisure. It’s a perk! You got any tiny bottles of hotel “body lotion” in your bathroom? Of course you do! Everyone does and everyone is a hypocrite.
Even if you’re trapped in coach there are tricks you can pull to make your trip less harrowing. One thing I always used to travel with? A small baggie of ground-up peanuts. If you get seated between a vomiting baby and an obese midwesterner eating a Subway sandwich, just whip out your nuts. Sprinkle a few crumbs on your seat and your tray table, and then alert the crew. Inform them that you have a deadly nut allergy and your lovely seat is practically caked with detritus. They have to reseat you. They have to. If you start swelling up midair because the staff don’t like the look of you and an emergency landing is required, that costs the airline a dickful of money. It makes more sense for them to find you a new spot to inhabit, maybe even an upgrade if they’ve oversold the fucking thing.
Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?: Confessions of a First-Class Asshole Page 9