Knowing the Golden Rules is Half the Battle

On our way home from Portland, Chris, our friend (at the moment, he has no nickname) and I could have encountered major major trouble. However, I remember the basic rules of frequent travel and refused us to get caught in a trap.

It all started, when I heard commotion in the bed room between Chris and our friend. We stayed at the Embassy Suites, downtown, and got a large room with two beds and a sleeper couch. I took the sleeper couch. They were talking about times, airplanes and Denver, Seattle, and Chicago, I was half asleep, so it did not make sense.

Shortly thereafter, Chris comes out and tells me that our flight is delayed by 45 minutes out of Portland (PDX) to San Fransisco, due to the aircraft arriving delay. I asked Chris, if he had called to change our flights. He said he tried, but they said out turnaround in San Fran was sufficient (45 minutes now).  I asked, if he called back, and he said no.

I am going to cut-in here to talk about, what I think are the three most important rules of frequent traveling/mileage running:

1) Be Proactive! Always speak to a telephone/twitter/email agent vs. going to the airport with a delay. If you have advanced notification, do everything in your power to change your flight for the delay. Doing it before getting the airport opens more options for you.

2) Never accept no. If the first phone agent says "no," hang-up and try again. There are very nice agents out there at every airline, maybe your next call will get you one.

3) You are your only advocate. Don't wait for the airline to bail you out. Call them and do research on the flights available before you make the call.

In the end, I forced Chris to call United back and plead our case. Our friend had to be back at work at 6am and the red eye would put us in to late (8:30am). Luckily, we got a sympathetic attendant that rebooked our flights through Denver.

Luck must have been on our side, because the San Francisco flight ended up being delayed 2 hours. About 80 people missed their connecting flights and the remaining options out of PDX were slim. We ended getting home 15 minutes after our originally scheduled flight.

Knowing these three simple rules are half the battle. The harder part is putting them into action when you need them. Chris knew these rules, but in the heat of the moment, your judgement can be clouded. Never accept the first "No," maybe the 3rd or 4th or when they say, "Sir, my 8 previous colleagues all have said the same thing to you."

In the end, the trip was great and we got home at a reasonable hour ie 2am.
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Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com

United ~ Best Frequent Flyer Program???

During one of my trips on United, I saw this ad in their in-flight magazine:

In this ad, United claims to have the "Best Frequent Flyer Program" for the past 8 years. This is based upon a survey of readers of the Global Traveler magazine.

This made me think. Does United have the best frequent flyer program? I have only been a member of MileagePlus, United's frequent flyer program, for the past few years. However, I don't see what makes it better than other programs. For a person without status, what the diffidence between one airline's frequent flyer program and another. Typically, a flyer normally earns 1 frequent flyer mile for each mile flown. Yes, some airlines like Delta give you less based upon the type of ticket you buy and Southwest determines it by the cost of ticket and type of ticket. Am I over thinking this?

In regards to people with status, I hear many complaints, on other blogs, about United removing the benefits to people with status. So, what makes United the Best Frequent Flyer Program? And for eight straight? Wouldn't after losing to United for eight years other airlines make changes to their program to at least compete with United. Something smells fishy about this claim. Is my gut feeling wrong? Do you think United has the best program?

On the ad, their was also the claim "we're ranked #1 in award seat availability among U.S. Global carriers."  This was based upon a survey taken of saver-style award available for June-October 2012. They define US Global carriers as United, American Airlines, Us Airways and Delta. I also saw this claim on hundreds of signs at Dulles (IAD), during a recent trip:

What the advertisements don't say is how the survey was conducted. What award tickets were they trying to purchase? From the pictures in the advertisements, it looks like international destinations (from the pictures I see Paris and Holland). Looking at the survey conducted by Ideaworks, the survey was conducted with specific outbound and return flights dates. However, to get the best tickets, savey flyers know that flexibility is key to get the best seats for fee. Here is a link to the press release with the results. Specifically here is their methodology:

              "Notes regarding reward query methodology:  Booking queries for a party of two          

            travelers were made at frequent flier program websites during March 2012.  Some  

            airlines require a Saturday night stay for reward travel; all of the queries used date 

            pairings that included a Saturday night stay.  While the city pairs varied for each 

            frequent flier program, the travel dates queried did not.  280 specific dates were 

            selected for survey queries and only reward seat availability for travel on the date 

            specified was recorded; any departure time was acceptable.  Furthermore, reward 

            travel had to be available on the outbound and return dates queried.  Overly circuitous          

            routings and layovers longer than 4 hours were not accepted.  The top 10 routes 

            longer than 2,500 miles and the top 10 shorter routes were selected for each airline.  

            Due to a lack of long-haul routes, the top 20 overall routes were queried for these 

            airlines:  AirTran, GOL, JetBlue, Southwest, and Virgin Australia.  Two

            mainland – Hawaii city pairs (out of 20) were substituted for Alaska Airlines to reflect  

            the carrier’s increasing emphasis on longer-haul flights.  Ten top Europe - Palma de 

            Mallorca city pairs (out of 20) were substituted for Air Berlin to reflect the carrier’s 

            major Mediterranean emphasis on holiday flights.  When offered, online reward 

            availability for partner airlines was always requested; rewards fulfilled by calling the 

            airline were not."

What I found most interesting about this survey is where the US Carriers are ranked compared to international based carriers. Out of 23 carriers, Southwest ranks tied for first (1st), Airtran and United tied for seventh (7th), Jetblue at ninth (9th), Alaskan at sixteenth (16th), American at nineteenth (19th), US Airways at twenty-first (21st) and Delta last at twenty-third (23). 

So, in reality, Southwest/Airtran (they are in the middle of a merger) is the best US Based carrier.  United used some very very very tricky wording to say it has the "#1 in award seat availability among US global carriers," since it limited it to US Airways, Delta and American. One can assume out of this survey that if one is looking for domestic tickets, one should focus your attention on Southwest. However, if one is looking for international award tickets - United is the place to look.

I would agree to some degree. I have a lot of luck with US Airways with domestic tickets; however, their requirement to purchase a roundtrip ticket is antiquated; especially since they allow you to pick two one way tickets for cash purchases. For international trips, United is a member of the Star Alliance, which opens up many different award ticket possibilities  In addition,  United's trip routing and ticketing rules for award tickets are amazing as well. For example, I would not be going to Tokyo if it not for United's allowing one way ticketing.

The moral of this post. Don't believe everything you read, because with the right data any airline can be number 1 in any category. 

Who am I reading: Part 2 Electric Boogaloo

Since JD gave great list of who he reads on a regular basis yesterday , I figured that it was my turn to do the same thing!

One of the hardest parts of being in the points and miles game is just keeping track of the sheer number things that are going on at one time. Today there was a huge fare war  for flights to Hawaii that was almost at mileage run levels, 500 free Hilton points for watching a video and  U.S. Airways offering double EQMs for just flying. 

The easiest way I have found to keep up with all of the amazing blogs out there is to run an RSS feed with every blog I follow on a regular basis. I really like Google Reader and think it works for my "regular" news as well as my points and miles news. (I hope you will consider adding us to your RSS feed). 

Now, JD put together a great list of bloggers, and I have to say that you should read each and every one of them because they are all great at what they do. But, I wanted to put together a different list of people that I enjoy reading on a regular basis. 

Heels First Travel 

The ladies of Heels First Travel are all kinds of awesome. They are also in the DC area, so I know that I can count on their knowledge if I have a question about their experiences flying out of DC. They also have the best primer on different ways to get to elite status that I have seen. It's really cool to see how they did it and the awesome mileage runs they have been on to just go to the beach for a couple of hours. 

The Wandering Aramean 

The Wandering Aramean is someone that I love reading on their blog,  following on Twitter and interacting with on Milepoint. He has some great advice on points and miles, but also covers the airline industry some along with some trips to really cool places. He also has a really cool section of "travel tools" where you can set up seat alerts for different alliances and find airport information for lounges around the world. 

Frequent Flying 

Another great Boarding Area blog...those guys know how to do it! What I especially love about Frequent Flying is his daily wrap up post for the best deals of the day. I also really enjoy Vintage Airline Seat Maps he does. It's so cool to see the old seat arrangements and trying to imagine what it was like to fly in "Clipper Class" on PanAm. 

Travel By Points 

I have written previously how Travel By Points got me inspired to make it to London on points and miles. He has been an awesome sounding board for my questions and his trip report from Machu Pechu is really awesome to look at. He is also great at finding the little deals that others miss. 

Who did I miss? Who should I be reading? Do you have a blog? Send me the info because I would love to give it a read!