Let’s face it: Sitting in first class when you fly is an out-of-reach luxury for many people. Even if you book the cheapest flights directly through the airline, the price for a seat up front can still be hundreds of dollars higher than one in economy (if not more). But flight attendant and TikTok influencer Cierra Mistt recently revealed a seemingly counterintuitive hack for getting the occasional free upgrade: sit in the very last row.
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Want a Free First Class Upgrade? Flight Attendant Says to Sit in the Last Row
@cierra_mistt travel tips and tricks i’ve learned as a flight attendant (p. 7) 💙✈️
According to Mistt, flight attendants are responsible for balancing out the weight on the plane. So if the flight is empty but there’s someone who snagged the very back seat by the bathroom, they’ll need to move them up.
“If we do have to move people for weight and balance purposes, that’s where the flight attendant’s going to go,” Mistt says in the video.
There are, of course, some important caveats here. First off, the plane has to be pretty empty for this to work. Second, there has to be available seats in first class to be moved up to. Third, if there happen to be multiple people in that last row with you, your odds of being moved up shrink. Plus the obvious fact that no one wants to be stuck in the last row on a plane if it ends up being full and no weight distribution switches are needed.
If you’re rather find other, less risky, ways to get comfortable on the plane, some travelers opt for buying blocks of economy seats to create makeshift “sleeper rows” of three. Mistt also noted in previous videos that bringing a chocolate and being kind to the flight attendant will put you in their good graces. When all else fails, there are always those affordable products out there that make economy class more bearable. 