What It Feels Like To Get Unexpectedly Upgraded To Business Class On A Long Flight

In airline travel, the phrase "free upgrade" is something we often hear about, but few of us are ever lucky enough to actually see.

Not so for John De Langhe, who was recently traveling economy on an Emirates A380 flight, returning from Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam to Amsterdam with a layover in Dubai. As the flight was overbooked, John and his girlfriend were moved up to business class free of charge.

"The upgrade came as a complete surprise since we were going through the checkpoint at the gate," John told us in an email. "It was only there that during the ticket scan, the machine started bleeping, so we thought the worst and thought there was something wrong with our tickets, but on the contrary, the ground crew smiled and announced we were upgraded to Business Class."

John uploaded his photos to Reddit over the weekend, and was kind enough to allow Business Insider to republish them with his captions.

It's a great glimpse into what John describes as the best flight of his life.