Woman dumps boyfriend after his mother refuses to buy her first-class plane ticket

You may be sitting in first class, but that doesn’t make you classy

A kindly airline staffer saved the day with some good advice (Getty Images)

A woman has united the internet with a Reddit tale of how she broke up with her boyfriend at the airport over a first-class ticket.

The US-based woman, writing under the moniker ‘NotGoingThank’, posted in the website’s “Am I the Asshole? (AITA)” sub-forum, where users pose a moral dilemma - often a family disagreement - and readers vote and comment on whether the poster is, in fact, the asshole.

Titled “AITA for refusing to get on a flight?”, the saga details how the woman was set to travel with her boyfriend’s family to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for the spring break holiday.

She gives some background on the potential in-law hosting the trip: “Becky, his mom, hasn’t seemed to like me for some reason - she always makes snide remarks about my parents’ blue -collar jobs, and my field is nursing.”

The woman says that once the group got to the airport, “Becky” revealed she’d paid for seven first-class seats for the rest of the party - including her boyfriend’s brothers’ partners - but had booked her a lone seat in economy.

“She told me I was used to it and she had a free coach ticket, so I should be grateful for going,” says the Reddit user.

“They all did their express check-ins and left me in the long line for me to think about what the heck is going on.

“I had to keep from crying the whole time in line. My boyfriend at the time never once helped me through the coach line or said anything to his mom.”

When she got to the front of the economy check-in queue, the woman was told she had to pay an extra baggage fee. It was the final straw.

“I looked over at his mom’s smug face as I was about to pay the checked baggage fee. And I let all of my frustrations out on the attendant and started crying,” says the poster.

When told the situation, the staff member at the check-in desk helped her make a decision.

“Basically, she said, ‘Don’t go with that family sweetie, they don’t appreciate you.’”

The woman says she got out of the check-in queue, took her luggage and tearfully told her boyfriend that his mother’s treatment of her was unacceptable. She refused to go on the trip and ended the relationship.

“I broke up with him at the airport and his mother was so embarrassed.”

Yet her now-ex-boyfriend feels she is in the wrong for making a scene.

“My boyfriend has been blowing up my phone, saying how could I do that to his mother and just back out of a vacation last minute,” she adds, saying he feels she “wasted everyone’s time and money”.

The reaction from Reddit readers was a near-unanimous “NTA” - Not The Asshole.

User Complex-Lemon-371 said: “The check-in lady was correct. If you would have got on the plane, you would have been treated like this for the entire vacation. It was absolutely the right decision to stand up for yourself. As far as wasting money, she said the ticket was free and I’m sure she didn’t spend much on your hotel accommodations.”

While most Reddit “AITA” threads get a few dozen or a few hundred comments, the woman’s post has already had more than 2,000, plus more than 30,000 “upvotes” (similar to likes).

“NTA!” declared MumisMatist. “The fact she got seven (7)!!! other people first class tickets and yet magically the budget ran out when it came to you tells you everything you need to know.”

“Had you gone, you would have been mistreated the whole time, and I bet you anything you would have made to feel like this vacation was a handout to you. The mother should have either bought everyone coach, gotten you a first class ticket, or your AH boyfriend should have switched his ticket and allowed you to sit in FC. That would have been the gentlemanly thing to do,” replied Willlovecoffee4ever1.