DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife and I had an amazing and intimate honeymoon in the Leeward Islands. In the spirit of the occasion, we booked first-class tickets for our flights. During boarding for the return leg, the flight attendant asked if we would like anything to drink. We requested champagne to commemorate a perfect week spent together. The attendant stated that they only had enough champagne for us each to order a glass, and that there wouldn’t be any more for the flight. We took this to mean that each passenger on this flight could only order champagne once, so our reply to the flight attendant was, “That’s fine, we’ll take it now, thank you!” However, after she served us the champagne, the couple behind us asked her for some — to which the flight attendant replied that we had finished the champagne for the entire flight! In the moment, we had misunderstood her, but it got me thinking: If we’d known no one else would get champagne but us, would it have been poor manners to take the last of it? Certainly that is the case in a social setting, but is it still the case on a commercial flight?

GENTLE READER: The rule you refer to is a social rule, as distinct from a business rule. And a meal at a restaurant — and, by extension, a meal on an airplane, even in first class — is a commercial transaction.

You would, therefore, defer to another couple you were traveling with, but not to the people a few rows back, whom you have never met. In your case, you did no wrong — although it seems worth mentioning that the flight attendant blaming you for the lack of champagne was hardly first-class treatment.

And while Miss Manners realizes you were probably borrowing adjectives from the resort’s brochure when you described your honeymoon as “amazing” and “intimate,” she thinks that next time, you might just leave it at “amazing.”

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at missmanners.com, by email to [email protected], or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.