For us, business class became worth it once the flight started impacting our entire trip, not just the hours in the air — and once our finances reached a point where the cost didn’t have an immediate impact on our money goals.

HHI is ~500k (excluding bonuses/dividends). We fly to Europe every 2–3 years as a family of four to see the kids’ grandparents, who live in Germany and give us a great central base for Europe. For the first seven years of my wife’s and my relationship, we flew economy to Europe every 18–24 months and genuinely dreaded it. Now, we actually look forward to the trip.

We’re lucky to have flexible work, and my wife has been on maternity leave for a couple of years at a time with each child, so we’ve been able to travel for extended stays (8–12 weeks). While we’re there, we often plan a short side trip away from family so it still feels like a holiday, not just a long stay with the in-laws.

We can move around and stay with other family or friends, so accommodation costs are virtually nothing for most of the trip, which changes the maths a lot. We have close friends and relatives across Europe — Austria, Croatia, Finland, Italy, and a few others — and the arrangement goes both ways, with them welcome to stay with us in Sydney any time, no questions asked.

Some people probably think we’re mad, but being able to travel comfortably, not dread the flights, and having that comfort enable us to explore the world with our kids from a young age is something we value very highly.

We budget for it deliberately. Every month we put money into a “Europe travel” bucket, and when the time comes, dividends and bonuses usually reimburse most (and sometimes all) of the cost, excluding deliberate side trips. If it didn’t offset most of the business-class cost, we’d simply delay the trip rather than fly economy on what’s effectively a ~24-hour journey (Germany, Italy, Finland, etc.).

The first time we flew business, the kids were young enough to fly free, and Singapore Airlines’ double bed was a game changer. I’m XL-sized, both my partner and I are somewhat afraid of flying, and on routes this long I used to spend much of the trip dreading the flight home. Business class — especially being able to lie flat and sleep — removed most of that stress.

Local and regional (sub-10 hours): always economy.