Read any story about frequent flyers published on a national news site and you will invariably see commenters expressing their disgust at “entitled” frequent flyers who feel they deserve “free” upgrades and assorted other perks.

What the non-frequent flyers don’t understand is that most frequent flyers don’t particularly care for the entitled types either.

That, and the upgrades and perks don’t come for free.

In an ongoing thread on FlyerTalk.com, frequent flyers share their favorite “Do You Know Who I Am?” (DYKWIA) stories. While it’s nearly impossible to select stories or quotes that do this discussion justice, here are a few excerpts to whet your appetite and entice you to go and read the thread:

“I had a DYKWIA on my flight from DFW the other day. We land and as we’re taxiing, the guy across the aisle from me gets up and gets his bag down and starts going through it. The FA sees this while making her landing announcements and says, ‘to the gentlemen who has his bag out now in the aisle, you’ll need to put that under your seat until we get to the gate.’

“He ignores her so I turn to him and say, ‘Ummm… She’s talking to you.’ He replies that he’s a Diamond Medallion and he’d like to see her try to make him put his bag away. So I replied, ‘I didn’t know Diamond status allows you to act like an entitled douche’.” –DLmedalliongold

“I had kind of a reverse DYKWIA, or perhaps a SIKWYA (Should I know who you are?) story a few years back. Flying on DL from PDX – ATL. Flight was delayed, so much that making my connection home, which was the last for the day, was iffy. At the gate I asked if I could possibly be moved toward the front so that I could get off the plane faster and get to my next gate. They obliged and put me in first. So I’m sitting in first, for the first time in my life, on a nice, long flight. Get the typical treatment, place my drink and meal order, everything is wonderful. Then the FA comes over, when serving the food, and tells me they’ve run out of what I had ordered, as someone messed up and gave someone else the wrong meal. She apologizes profusely, brings me the other meal, extra bread, extra everything in fact, the whole nine yards. Tells me she’ll be my personal FA for the flight, hovers over me the whole time, and a little while later asks me if she can take me to dinner in ATL. I told her no, it wasn’t necessary.

“Meanwhile, the woman next to me has been soaking this all in, but not hearing any of it as she’s had her headphones on the whole time. She finally takes off her headphones, and says “Pardon me sir, you’re getting a lot of attention. You don’t look familiar, but are you someone famous? I’ve never seen anyone get so much attention on a flight”. I told her no, and that in fact I hadn’t even paid for first class. She laughed. I’m sure I’ll never get treatment like that again!” –Roxors

And last, but not least, is a classically funny tale about one Mr. DYKWIA and his family, including his young son Bubbles. Below is a brief passage, but if you do nothing else today you absolutely MUST read the entire post:

“As the gate agent (GA) began to get all the different people seat assignments (due to the four-hour delay and lots of questions from non-regular trackers) a man came up to the gate. Mr. DYKWIA cut to the front of the line to ask if he and his entire family got their upgrade to first class. It looked like three of them had first class tickets and two of them were on the upgrade list.

GA #1 Very politely told him that she was working on it and would let him know when the time came.

Mr. DYKWIA: My name is Mr. DYKWIA. Could you check and see if all of us will get an upgrade?

GA #1: We will begin processing the upgrades later sir. I will announce when the upgrades have cleared.

Mr. DYKWIA: Scowl

So Mr. DYKWIA walks away an unhappy camper. He is traveling with two kids-aged 6-10 years old, his wife and mother.

He then loudly (so that everyone can hear) announces to one of his kids… “if we don’t get the upgrades, you will have to sit in coach.” The kid is about 10 years old and starts crying and throwing a full-blown tantrum.

He then yells at the kid, ‘Hey that’s the way it is, this isn’t the Navy.’ Whatever that means.

Now the crying kid has gone into meltdown mode. He is crying and is so upset that he has begun to blow snot bubbles as he whimpers, ‘I (breath, breath, breath)…hate… (breath, breath, breath)…coach’.” –Esltroy

You can’t make this stuff up.

This is obviously a very long thread so bookmark it now, and read through it when you have some time to spare … perhaps on your next flight, while you are also on the lookout for your own DYKWIA story to add to the list. To read the thread in its entirety: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-air-lines-skymiles/1318124-do-you-know-who-i-am-definitive-thread-dykwia-stories.html

Mikel Bowman writes a blog called Thread Tripping at BoardingArea.com.
ThreadTripping highlights great online conversations among travelers, no matter where those conversations are happening.