I bought the tickets about 5 months prior to the trip. About a month out, I decided to buy the Economy Plus add-ons. I first bought it on my outbound flight from Des Moines to Chicago. It was an extra $42 for that segment on a 737. 45 minutes in the air from DSM to ORD, so no problem to sit that long. But I had a 1.5 hour connect, but I really wanted to make sure I made my connection, so Economy Plus got me on the front of economy, and an extra 5 inches (I think) of leg room. So would I do it again on that segement? If Chicago was my final destination, no way. For a short flight like that, at 5'10" I could handle a regular economy seat like that with no problem. But in my case, the extra $42 was worth it, to know it would buy me a couple extra minutes to get to my connecting gate.
On the flight to/from Brussels from Chicago, it was around $170 extra each way. To me, that is a noticeable extra amount of cash, especially when buying upgrades for my wife and I. The advantage of getting on or off the plane sooner was not an issue in this case. It basically came down to an advantage of having an extra 3" on the 777. Also, the gamble of my wife and I having a 3 seat section for the 2 of us. I'd been watching the flights to/from Brussels, and at united.com, you can see the taken seats on a given flight. And I had noticed that Economy Plus seats on the Brussels flight frequently was way less than full. So I was also hoping that nobody would take that 3rd seat by us. (as an aside, the Boeing 777, in economy, has a 3-3-3 layout for seats).
I thought it was going to pay off on the flight to Brussels. Pretty much everybody was on the plane, and no more passengers were getting on, and nobody was sitting next to Vicki. Joy went to despair when a lady holding about a 1.5 year old baby started walking down our aisle, and she stopped at our seat. Shit! The last thing I want is a lap baby next to us for the next 7.5 hours.
Then the grandma showed up, and they called a flight attendant, because they thought they were in our seats. After much rigamarole, the flight attendants asked a guy sitting by himself in a row behind us, if he would move next to Vicki, and the mom, baby, and grandma could go back there. Fortunately the dude agreed (probably so he wouldn't be by the baby), and we had a decent flight. The extra 3 inches bought us some extra leg crossing.
The flight home was full, so no empty seat next to us this time either. So the question is, would I again spend an extra $680 total for my wife and I, to each have an extra 3 inches of legroom for a total of 16 hours in a plane seat? Initial thought? Yes, I would. Since I'm an Economics major, I'll break it down with a math equation. Between my wife and I, we had 32 person-hours in that seat for $680. That is paying $21 an hour for that extra 3". That is a little more painful with that factoid. We probably could have used the $680 for back massages and physical helps.
My wife and I are both 5'10", so we fit into economy seats ok. If it was my 6'4" son, I'm sure it would definitely be worth it.
Here are two pics I took. One is the leg room by itself. And then a pic with my magazine pushed up against the seat in front of me, and where it is in my lap. As a reminder, I'm 5"10.
As for my United experience overall, I know they are one of the lower rated airlines. But for me, it went about as smooth as possible. Flights on time. And I know people like to bag on airline food, but I thought it was pretty good. Hot and tasty. Free beer on the international flights. Bags arrived quickly and undamaged. Only minor complaint is that the flight attendants on ORD/BRU were a bit surly and seemed like old bags that were easily annoyed. But on the way back, they were typically older flight attendants, but they seemed happy and ready to help customers.
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