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I don't necessarily fly a lot but I used to manage some large affiliate programs, of which, Continental was an affiliate. As a token of their appreciation they extended me Elite status and also gave me access to the President's Club which is their VIP lounge at the airport.

To make a long story short, the flight out was full so no upgrade for my family. Unfortunately, my kids acted exactly as we expected. My younger daughter didn't want to sit still for a minute and kept kicking the chair in front of us. I received a number of angry glares from the guy sitting there. The best is when the people around you tell you that your kids have strong lungs.

A strange thing happened on the flight back, however. We received two upgrades from Boston and Cleveland and one first class upgrade from Cleveland to L.A. Now for those of you familiar with this Continental route, it is virtually impossible to get bumped up to first class from Cleveland to L.A. because this is a very busy route. On this day, however, the frequent flyer gods were favoring us. Not only did we get to annoy the other people who were sitting in first class, but my kids actually behaved better. The seats are more comfortable and there is much more leg-room so my youngest daughter had more room to move. This got me to thinking, if I buy a nicer, bigger car, will they stop screaming while I'm driving? If I buy a bigger, nicer house, will they behave better at dinner? Good questions, unfortunately, no money to test out my theory. For now I'll have to stick to the first class upgrade on Continental Airlines.