Whoa are you saying that as an MVPG, you could book a DL operated flight with a DL flight number (ie

Almost every day I come across something in the travel industry that makes me wonder why? Some are good, some are bad, and some are just downright strange, so I figured I d share a few of my favorites (again, some of these are good policies, los angeles county department of public works which are actually more surprising than the bad policies, given the direction los angeles county department of public works the airline industry in general is heading).
Delta has done everything they possibly can to monetize on their mileage program and make SkyMiles as difficult as humanly possible to use. They charge $150 for any change los angeles county department of public works (even just date or time changes, which American and United don t charge for), they don t let you make any changes to an award ticket within 72 hours of departure, they impose fuel surcharges for award tickets originating in Europe and on many of their partner airlines, los angeles county department of public works etc. Yet they don t have any close-in ticketing fees on award tickets, like American, United, and US Airways. They ve leaving $75 on the table!
Have you ever tried selecting seats with Asiana? I can understand an airline holding back some of their seats, though they block a majority of their first and business class seats for pre-assignment. For example, los angeles county department of public works on the 777 they ll block at least four of the eight first class seats, meaning you can t actually assign seats to sit together in the center los angeles county department of public works section in advance. Why, and how exactly does this benefit anyone? It causes more of a shuffle aboard than if they just let people assign seats to begin with.
While we re talking about the airlines of Korea, have you ever tried to redeem an award ticket with Korean Air? Not only can they not be booked online, but you have to fax in your birth certificate, rights to your firstborn, and a blood sample or something like that. In all honesty they make you fax in a copy of your ID and an authorization form. What the ? Fine, do that to me if I m redeeming an award ticket for someone else, but if the member is traveling, what s the point of all this authorization garbage?
Airlines have rates desks, to, ya know, calculates rates and taxes. When an award ticket is complicated they often have to go to the rates desk to have the taxes calculated. I swear the rates agents are just throwing los angeles county department of public works darts at a dartboard when trying to decide which taxes to charge.
It s most evident when you re making a change to an award ticket. When you make a change taxes almost always change, even if it s by a few cents. This is because on an international itinerary many of the taxes are calculated in local currencies, and they often fluctuate.
One incredibly obvious example would be an award itinerary with a flight originating in London. Last week I changed an award ticket from Los Angeles to London roundtrip to Los Angeles to Frankfurt roundtrip. The UK has a ~$200 air passenger duty (APD), making the taxes the highest in Europe. So there should have been a hefty refund when changing the destination to Germany (which still has high taxes, though not nearly as high). After the agent put me on hold for 20 minutes to have the rates desk recalculate the taxes, she comes back and says okay, the taxes stay the same, it s just the $150 change fee. I don t think so
If you call US Airways Dividend Miles the agent will answer the phone with Hi, this is _____, I see you need help with making a new Dividend Miles reservation. los angeles county department of public works If you call Alaska they answer los angeles county department of public works the phone with hi, this is _____. My gosh, you get a better greeting at Dominos.
Picking up on my point from earlier about Delta not charging close-in ticketing fees, why on earth do their miles not expire? Most US airlines miles expire after 18 months of inactivity, and I can totally see why they do that. There s liability on their books for unredeemed miles, and if someone doesn t have any sort of activity at least every 18 months los angeles county department of public works they re probably not at all engaged in your program or dead. But there s still liability associated with those miles, no?
I mean, I think it s great miles don t expire, I just don t get why . Because it s really an improvement for those that aren t interested in being engaged in the program, and not those customers you d actually want.
Delta gives this benefit to their Gold, Platinum and Diamond members, and United gives this benefit to their Premier los angeles county department of public works Gold, Premier Platinum and Premier 1K members. American, on the other hand, charges their top tier members $75 to make a same day flight change. It s an area where they re way behind.
Though I guess this is one of those complaints where I know the reason they don t have to provide it for free, since the program is sufficiently rewarding otherwise. Eight non-fare restricted systemwide upgrades? As long as they offer those, everything else is just a nice bonus.
While most airlines don t have ticketing or change fees for their top tier members los angeles county department of public works on award tickets, Alaska takes it a step further and offers their MVP Gold members free changes on revenue tickets as well. That means you don t pay any change fees on revenue tickets booked through Alaska, even if they re for travel on a partner airline like American or Delta.
It s an awesome los angeles county department of public works benefit, though for the life of me I can t figure out why. The Mileage Plan program is actually los angeles county department of public works really rewarding and I think Alaska is in the fortunate los angeles county department of public works position to not really have too much network-wide head-to-head competition. Yes, they have airlines competing with them in individual markets, but their route network los angeles county department of public works is unique, and I think people fly with them because of that. Globally airlines made close to $23 billion in ancillary revenue in 2011, and I feel like Alaska is missing out a bit on their share of it by doing that. But of course I d hate to see this policy change! Just something that s surprising to me in this day and age of nickle los angeles county department of public works and diming.
Late last year Lufthansa started only releasing first class award space to their partner airlines 14 days out , yet Aeroplan and United have continued to show phantom award space further out than that. I suspect this results in a lot of lost productivity for them since they get calls from people over award space that s not bookable los angeles county department of public works online. And this makes me wonder why they haven t fixed it. Or more accurately, where are Aeroplan and United pulling space from that shows it inaccurately, while ANA shows Lufthansa award space accurately?
The us airways rate desk is really ridiculous. One time I tried to book a first class ticket los angeles county department of public works to Hong Kong through CDG and they quoted me ~$790 in taxes and fees. I was like since when have you started charging fuel surcharges.
Alaska refunds in general Alaska has a somewhat peculiar fare mechanism due to their route network. They don t really have (significantly) below-cost fares to just fill in some marginal los angeles county department of public works seats like is often common for legacies. Adding up segments often leads to a fare comparable to their respective parts (e.g. I d expect GEG-SEA + SEA-DCA ~= GEG-SEA-DCA, whereas SEA-EWR + EWR-BWI != SEA-EWR-BWI). Their full Y fare is often much lower than a legacy, and there s no 200 transcon in L/O. Given the lower spread of fares, there isn t as much that a traveler can game fares are fairly constant and tend to go up over time fairly steadily.
@ Murphy I don t think so, though I m curious, is it really beneficial to select a room? You never know for sure when the person will check out or when you ll arrive so I always appreciate los angeles county department of public works when the hotel automatically allocates the best available room for me based on status (as I find good hotels to do), and then modifies that at check-in as needed based on availability.
as UA Gold, the free SDC benefit is immense for me (esp since I don t have top tier status). If time permits, I could switch from nonstop to 1-stop to squeeze more PQM, or if my original flight is delayed, I could switch to one that s on-time.
I don t know AA s program very well but the last time I did a change (to an earlier flight ORD-CVG since I arrived from HKG on CX early ) they charged me a $50 change fee but indicated los angeles county department of public works that I wasn t an elite on AA (so my impression was that if I was I wouldn t be charged).
Whoa are you saying that as an MVPG, you could book a DL operated flight with a DL flight number (ie, not a codeshare) on alaskaair.com and be eligible los angeles county department of public works for free changes? Does that include full cancellation and refund?
Delta tried both of those things, close-in fees and miles expiration. They still didn t make any money because the only people who can figure out how to cash out Delta miles are Plats who don t pay fees anyway, so they weren t leaving $75 on the table. They were just making people mad to no profit. That s how I remember it anyway I guess it s been awhile.
Too bad AS sells DL-only tickets for a very few routes. It would be awesome if they sold my beloved SFO-ATL-SFO since I buy tons of these every year. If they sold that, I would work to keep my status-matched MVPG status!
@oleg I can find some AA-only (eg, SFO-JFK, SFO-LAX) and DL-only (eg, SFO-LAX) itineraries at alaskaair.com. Are you saying that these itineraries would not be eligible for the MVPG change/cancel fee waivers?
Maybe I m doing something wrong, los angeles county department of public works but why does Hyatt not allow you to put your choice of airline program los angeles county department of public works in your profile and select if you want points or miles? I ll take points usually, but this summer los angeles county department of public works they had a Delta promo for earning up to 24,500 miles and I decided to go with that the headaches associated with getting a front desk person to A) Know how to put my miles request in the computer and B) Getting credited the miles instead of points los angeles county department of public works were both a hassle nearly every time. Also, why can I not book more than 2 rooms on line at a time? I m pretty experienced at the travel game but am new this year to Hyatt (thank you diamond status match and credit card!) so is it just me or are these two issues lame?
@lucky I guess so but was given the boarding los angeles county department of public works pass with seat assignments right then actually this was the 3rd change los angeles county department of public works that I ve done with AA the other 2x were at YYZ (also in conjunction with a CX award) once I was charged $50