Andy Richardson: Upgrade? Not for this savvy consumer

A ditzy flight attendant made her way through the winding snake of humanity, leaving a trail of cheap scent in her wake – like the air that rushes over the wings of a Boeing as it careers through cumulonimbus.

And we realised in that second that we’d played it all wrong – that everybody wastes £20 on pointless tickets in the mistaken belief they’ll get to the front.

Exclusivity has been turned on its head and if you want to stand out from the crowd and be among the minority, it is cooler, smarter and wiser not to bother with tickets that are simultaneously expensive and self-defeating. The smart money is held by those travelling cattle class – paradoxically, they’re the ones in the shorter queue.

I showed the attendant our tickets.

They didn’t just say Priority Boarding. They said Super Duper Ultra Luxe Defo-First-In-The-Queue With An Extra 100g of In-Cabin Baggage Boarding, or something similar.

She smirked and pretended not to understand, flashing her false eyelashes and demonstrating that she only understood English when it was necessary to sell fun-size Snickers for £5 a pop while 30,000ft over Biarritz.

And so we joined dozens of half-cut Scousers who were wending their way back to Blighty after a weekend on the sauce. Damn. Damn. Damn.

If only we’d known, we could have spent the £20 on half a wilted sandwich, a thimbleful of Prosseco, a three-day old muffin or two packets of crisps. For airports are nothing if not exploitative. And Sunday evenings in foreign airports were designed for a degustation of first world problems.

There are other times when being ordinary is the exception that makes you stand out from the crowd. The veteran Tory politician Ken Clarke has decided not to run for the leadership of his party following the Maybot’s meltdown. In 1997, 2001 and 2005 he gave it a go, being defeated each time as he realised he was more popular with the public than he was his own party. Everybody loves a guy in suede shoes who puffs a cigar – except for his colleagues.

This time, Suede Ken appears to be in a minority as there are more leadership candidates than those sensible enough not to go for the top job.

So while Jeremy Hunt uses Radio 4’s Today programme as a vehicle for self-promotion and Rory Stewart waltzes through London’s Borough Market inviting Twitter uses to challenge him, Mr Cigar is a man apart as he stands sensibly on the sidelines and opts against the poisoned chalice.

An indubitably bizarre less-is-more-encounter came at a gig earlier this year. The auditorium had been sectioned off in two, for VIP ticket-holders and those who’d bought standard. We’d imagined the smaller contingent would be the VIPs, after all, they were paying more and were supposed to get the best seats.

From the luxury of their £10-extra-chairs, they could relax near the lip of the stage while others would sit further back, their aural enjoyment being spoiled by the casual chat of the sound men at the mixing desk. Who knew conversations about ham hock and piccalilli sandwiches could be dragged out for eight songs and 45 minutes?

But yet at the gig we attended, so many people had wanted to sit near the front that the venue sold 250 VIP places and only 200 standard.

And that kinda turned the notion of being Very Important on its head. I imagined the staff in the box office laughed all the way to the, erm, box office. For when the majority is purporting to be an exclusive minority, something’s very wrong. The maths don’t add up – unless you’re holding the cash at the end of the night. It’s as though trying to make your way to the back of the queue leads you to the front; as though trying to get in first ensures you’ll be last.

So I’m thinking it’ll be smarter to let moths gather in my wallet as I adopt a don’t-be-seduced-by-the-tinsel approach to life, or, as I call it, Operation Lidl. There’ll be no more upgrades or spending an extra few quid to get in first. There’ll be an absence of VIP schizz and first-in-the-queue-chicanery.

And if I’m given the choice between a gold wrist band and one in muted, standard black, I’ll opt for the later.

I’m sure my new policy will get me to all the places I want to go – without the added expense.

Hell, it might just get me down the front.