Man sparks debate with rant about girlfriend’s ‘messed up’ habit on flights

Redditors were divided over the etiquette surrounding individual upgrades

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A man has divided Reddit users with a complaint about his girlfriend’s “messed up” habit when they take flights together.

The traveller took to Reddit to call out his partner for frequently accepting an upgrade on her plane seat – even though he remains in economy class.

In a thread called ‘GF won’t sit next to me on the plane’, he said that it was “kind of messed up” that his girlfriend uses her airline points to upgrade her seat to premium economy.

If the tables were turned, he said, he would “never” accept an upgrade if it meant that they had to sit separately.

His relationship dilemma has split online opinion over whether his expectations of his girlfriend are reasonable.

In the post, the man wrote: “Quick question – When my GF (27) and I (M30) fly a certain airline she has status on – she usually gets upgraded 90 per cent of the time.

“When she does get offered the upgrade, she takes it while leaving me behind in the economy.

“In my mind, I’m flagging this as like kind of messed up cause I would want never take that upgrade since I’d want to sit with her. You know, like a couple.”

The post garnered more than 400 replies, and many of the responses were from people who said they believed that the girlfriend’s actions could be a “red flag” indicating wider selfish tendencies.

One of the Redditors that agreed with him wrote: “Selfish as hell mate and with something so minor? Yikes.”

Another wrote: “My ex-girlfriend used to do that regularly as well. If it’s just airplane seats I wouldn’t worry about it.

“You might find, as I did, that this type of casual selfishness extends beyond airplane seats to just about everything.”

One respondent said that they were “upgraded to first class consistently” without their girlfriend being moved with them.

But, they said, they would choose to sit next to their partner and instead offer a “stunned” stranger – who would have been sitting next to her – to swap and take their seat in first class instead.

They added: “So red flag for you, maybe not. Yellow flag, probably. I prioritized spending time with my girlfriend over my comfort. I would look for a pattern and see what kind of a priority you are for her.”

Others had more nuanced responses. One person wrote that their husband encourages them to take the upgrades, but that they “always offer” to alternate who takes the upgrade if the couple takes more than one flight in a day.

Another poster said that the girlfriend is “entitled to her upgrades and isn’t obligated to share them” but that they would find being left behind “a little irksome”.

A Redditor said that they would not be bothered if their partner accepted the upgrade, but that they would only accept one themselves if their partner wanted them to.

Some commenters defended the woman in the relationship by suggesting that it was selfish of the boyfriend to expect her to forgo a more comfortable seat just to suit him.

One user wrote: “I’d want my partner to get the upgrade and I’d encourage him to do so. Likewise, he would tell me to do the same.

“We are not attached at the hip and have the whole trip together. I see this as an ‘if I can’t have it, you can’t either’ situation, but that’s just me.”

Another wrote: “I’m actually kind of surprised that the majority of comments are calling this a red flag. Why should both people have to suffer through crappy seats just to spend a few hours next to each other?

“When you’ll be with each other all the time when you reach your destination? I don’t see how this would translate to selfish behaviour in anything else either. But who knows?”

With a similar view, a Redditor posted: “I think it’s selfish of OP [original poster] to want his gf to sacrifice comfort just to sit next to him.

“He would rather his girlfriend was less comfortable than spend a flight alone? That’s the red flag behaviour.”

Heated Reddit threads often attract hundreds of opinions on the subject of travel.

In one woman’s viral post, she asks if she was unreasonable to dump her boyfriend at the airport after his family upgraded all of their group to first class, but left her in economy class.

Meanwhile, a man recently attracted criticism for being “hurtful” to a fellow flyer who he said was wearing too much perfume.