Were you not a member of any loyalty programme? If you get silver or equivalent status they let you use the business class checkin regardless of the class you're actually traveling in. No need for any tricks.
At the time I was not on the airline I was flying and because it was short hops I only made it to the right level near the end and although that allowed business class check in, that's a useless benefit since I was checking in on line. The high level status didn't allow access to the business class security line.
