A passenger has shared a travel tip for getting an entire row of seats to himself and preferential treatment during a flight.
Travel influencer Jeremy Maclellan shared the trick on his @x_travels TikTok page, in a post titled “crazy travel hack”.
The caption reads: “Gave my flight attendants $130 to Starbucks and I think it was worth it.”
Flight attendant @flyingrealtor first suggested followers try buying cabin crew coffee vouchers back in January, asking people let him know what happened when they tried it.
“So I tried that travel hack where you give your flight attendants some Starbucks gift cards and see what happens and this is what happened,” Mr Maclellan tells followers.
He explained that he was about to travel on a 12.5 hour flight from New York to Abu Dhabi, and felt apprehensive about the long journey.
After looking up his flight online, Mr Maclellan said: “There was still a business class seat available on this flight,” but said that this more comfortable option would set him back $12,000 (£9,810).
“I didn’t want to pay that,” he tells followers, so he bought eight $15 (£12) dollar Starbucks gift cards instead.
Mr Maclellan then got on the plane and was greeted by two flight attendants. After asking them how many cabin crew members were on the service, they said “a lot, probably like 12” and asked: “Why, did you get us a gift?”
When presented with the gift cards to share around, the flight attendants thanked him.
Mr Maclellan went and found his seat, which was “at the very back of the plane”.
Soon after, he spotted the supervisor walking down the aisle holding the Starbucks gift cards.
Asking the passenger for a word, she then summoned him further back into the plane and thanked him, before suggesting: “Do you wanna take the exit row?”
“It’s not a lay-flat seat, but you get some extra leg room,” the flight attendant told him, adding: “We really appreciate what you did, that was very nice.”
“It was a completely full row all to myself, with unlimited leg room”, he said, adding: “I think it was worth the 130 bucks. It wasn’t business class, I didn’t get a full lay-down flat seat, but I think it was worth the gift cards.”
“They were so nice to me the whole flight,” he adds, explaining that he woke from a nap to find a packed lunch on the seat beside him.
“This is just a life lesson. Be kind to people, show appreciation, show respect,” he finishes. “It goes a long way.”
The video has garnered nearly three million views, and users were quick to comment underneath
“That’s amazing,” one wrote, while another person added: “Nice. Sounds like it was definitely worth it, plus you made some people happy.”
But some people reported they hadn’t had similar success with the hack.
“I did the same and they asked me what seat I was in and I told them and they never even came by lol,” someone commented.
“We did that on the flight to GER - the flight attendant seemed annoyed and wouldn’t give me extra food for my daughter bc she didn’t have a seat,” another added.
However, many flight attendants were appreciative of the gesture.
“I’m a flight attendant and I’ll definitely give you whatever I can when you bring us kind gifts,” one user wrote.
“FA here… thank you for being kind!” another added.
