Who is in a position to be flying round weather in a commercial jet and asks this on an internet forum.

:confused:

New/inexperienced guys.

At some point we all had zero high altitude weather experience.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Latest flight - hours of deviating. Due to radar/non-radar areas we continually cruised 500-1000' above OPT ALT. Picking our way around significant weather at 370, 390, then 410. If we used "4000' lower than OPT ALT" we would have been at 310, 330, and FL 350.

We were MUCH better off at 370/390/410 instead of 310/330/350.

Yes. Like BOAC properly stated in one of his posts, it all depends on each given situation. At times you are better off climbing as you did. Some other time you might have to descend for better margins. Anyway, thanks for sharing.