I never thought a smart couple on my flight would be able to trick me, but they did. This event taught us how to protect ourselves from bullies and turn a potentially hostile scenario into a useful one.
As I settled into my first-class seat, a woman and her husband came up to me and told me to switch places.
You could feel their confidence, but not their sense of entitlement. I couldn’t believe they were so brazen, but I didn’t want to get into a fight.
As part of the plan, I gave up my place and turned over my boarding pass. But I had something planned.
I asked the flight attendant for help because I knew she had seen what happened. We worked together to come up with a way to teach them a lesson.
The flight attendant told me that the couple was given seats in row 12, which are not premium seats.
Even though I was mad that they had ripped me off, I kept my cool. Instead, I told the chief purser what happened, and he gave me two options: I could go back to my original spot or get a lot of airline points.
I picked the points because I knew they were worth more than the difference in price between first class and economy. Not only that, but as a nice gesture, the purser also put me in first class on my next trip.
The couple’s lies caught up with them as the flight went on. The purser talked to them about how they were acting, and security led them off the plane. They were having an affair, and their lies caught up with them.
I couldn’t help but smile as I got off the plane. Sometimes, getting even doesn’t mean going up against someone; it means watching as they realise they were wrong. I turned something that could have been bad into something good, and I learnt a useful lesson about standing up for myself.
