An Unexpected Gift or Instant Joy

On our flight back from Chicago ORD on Wednesday night, we were asked upon check-in if we wanted to upgrade to business class for USD 400 per person (instead of 800). Personally, I found it a good deal, but we declined. As we were waiting at the gate, tired of hanging around at the (pretty  boring) airport and ready to board, we were paged and asked to come to the counter. As there had been many announcements before, requesting connecting passengers to proceed to the gate for document check or having their carry-on luggage tagged, I assumed that we also had to show our passports or something so was more than presently surprised when the same lady that had checked our bags waved new boarding passes and said "you have been upgraded to business class". My joy was out of this world. Ten hours of comfort and the possibility to sleep in a proper bed, not mentioning decent food, was a prospect I was extremely thrilled about and my tiredness evaporated immediately. I had flown business class on  long distance flight before (not on Austrian Airlines, though) and remembered what a difference it made. The flight must have been overbooked and so we, having tickets for the premium economy class (not bad, either, actually), had first upgrade priority. I had actually paid a rather hefty sum for this short trip so this was the perfect ending to a lovely mini-vacation. My giddiness and excitement about this unexpected gift lasted for hours and actually made it harder to fall asleep. I wanted to hug the nice check-in lady for making our return flight such a comfortable experience and probably smiled from ear to ear for most of the flight, taking photos of every meal and my legs stretched out, like the tourist I was.