Airlines

[QUOTE=Jaimito Cartero]One thing you have to understand about airlines, is that they all screw up, sooner or later. Rarely would I write off an entire airline because of one mistake. You learn the pros and cons of an airline and try to avoid the cons, and take advantage of the good stuff. [/QUOTE]When I worked for United when people would tell us they would never fly us again because of a mistake we had made I would tell them, "that's fine, all the people that American just screwed today will, go switch places with one of them."

What Jaimito said is so true, as complex as modern air travel is, it amazes me when any airline gets it right, not that they make mistakes. Find ones that excel at what's important to you. I think UAL's coach seats are better on international flights, but if you're going to BsAs AA has so many more options, while CO probably does have the nicest staff everywhere else except in Houston, Aierolinas Argentina, hottest flight crews blah blah.

Just remember they're not planes anymore they are busses that fly. Good service, good food, the idea that anybody, anywhere, in any airline, cares about you as a traveler is long a thing of the past.

[QUOTE=Sidney]You are without peer! I wish that you were my travel agent. There are certain ''niche'' markets, where you could profit handsomely and provide a most appreciated assistance to some needy people and there families. We will talk on PM's.[/QUOTE]I'm middling at best among the real airline deals people. However, there are some things that people just don't seem to understand when traveling.

[B]First:[/B] To get a good deal on flights, you usually have to book more than 3 weeks in advance for international. In fact, many times 8-3 months before your trip is the best time. If you book one week in advance, you're likely to get screwed for intl travel.

Here's a site I've been using extensively of late:

[url]http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/prego[/url]

It's easy to enter in how long you want to stay somewhere, and find the best price in a month for your stay. Click on the 30 day search for best results. In checking EZE-SDQ for a two month stay, for the next month, you'll find $1274-$2414 for pricing. Really horrid pricing. Often it's better to find the cheapest EZE-USA city, and then buy a SDQ ticket separately.

[url]www.farecompare.com[/url] has a lot of options to pick from. They'll tell you the lowest fare that they sell (but it's often not available), usually fuel surcharges aren't included, so take the pricing with a grain of salt.

LAN has a EZE-MIA ticket for $468 plus tax RT. AA has MIA-SDQ fares of $382 all in. Now, you may have to search a bit to find dates that have the lowest fare classes available, but right there you may save up to $400 on your ticket.

And you can credit LAN miles to AA, and use their excellent awards in the future. I just checked AA awards, and found plenty of 40k awards EZE-SDQ for March, April and beyond. For an expensive destination like SDQ, miles would really be a good choice for this trip.

[B]Second:[/B] Don't fly on or near major holidays unless you can get a good price. Many airlines raise their prices in Mid December, since they know people have to travel to visit relatives. Book your trip before or after the busy season and save big bucks.

[B]Third:[/B] Make sure you participate in a frequent flyer program too. Even if you only fly once a year, you'll get a free ticket every few years.

I value frequent flyer miles at about 2 cents each. For instance, if I could use 40k or 50k for Sidney's ticket, I'd do it, as that put the value at about $800-$1000. If the tickets were $400, it would be a waste of miles.

If you want a kick ass vacation, save up some miles and fuck on 6 continents in one year. You can fly around the world, and hit every continent except Antarctica for 140k miles in Coach, or 220k in Biz class. Tack on about $300 in taxes, and you've got a $10,000 to $30,000 trip for just a moderate amount of miles.

I did this in 2006, and had a blast. If flew Biz or FC on Continental, Air France, Czech, Korean and Alitalia.

[I]As for helping with itineraries, I don't mind too much as long as you're not in a hurry. If I find you a deal, you'll owe me a dinner, or something in the future, probably.:)[/I]

I can't dig up a $500 RT EZE-NYC business class ticket every day, but it's surprising how often deals come around, if you keep your eyes open.

You really should charge for your services JC. Your recent posts have really opened my eyes.

I have all kinds of miles with Air France, LAN, KLM, Swiss, and a few other carriers and have never done anything with them. I don't even know how many I have.

After reading your posts, I am determined to use them.

Thanks again,

BB

[QUOTE=Badboy13]I have all kinds of miles with Air France, LAN, KLM, Swiss, and a few other carriers and have never done anything with them. I don't even know how many I have.

After reading your posts, I am determined to use them.[/QUOTE]Many mileage plans are now nuking your miles after 18 months, so make sure your account is active.

In particular, many of your airlines are in the same alliance, so you're just spreading your seed a bit too far! AF, KLM, CO, NW, DL, AM, KE, SU, CZ and a few others just added are all part of Skyteam. The other two main alliances are Star Alliance and Oneworld.

I generally recommend that you join the frequent flyer program of the airline you'll be flying the most. For North American fliers, Northwest or Continental have some of best programs. Delta has recently downgraded many of their awards, plus they don't give as many bonus miles for their top level elites, so I generally don't recommend their FF program.

Many airlines have associate members that give full mileage and EQM's. Alaska Airlines participates in many different programs, and Copa is the stepchild of Continental, so will now credit to most plans. CO fliers get good upgrades on Copa, with NW fliers getting upgrades 1 or 2 days in advance, if seats available.

Many European plans really suck, as they tax you to hell on your awards. Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France and others may charge you as much as $200-$300 on an economy award ticket!

Most US based airlines have a three tier system. Usually 25k miles in one year (almost always Jan 1-Dec 31st) will get you to the lowest level. At this level you get a 50% bonus on your flown miles (or 25% in some less generous programs). At 50K you get Gold and 100% bonus miles (or 50% bonus), and at 75K on some (And 100k on others) you get 125% bonus miles. Now some airlines play by different rules, so the bonus amount will differ a bit, so it's important to really research a bit, before you decide.

Some airlines don't give you the full amount of EQM (Elite Qualifying Miles), if you buy a cheap ticket. AA has a point based system, so a cheap flight might garner you .5 points per mile, or a First Class ticket may get you 1.5 points. In most cases, Biz Class or FC give you nice extra bonus points, and miles.

[B]Do I need to fly on the airline that I'm getting frequent flyer miles on?[/B] Not really. There are some European plans that give quite liberal flight miles on, even if you don't fly them. BMI is one example. If you fly a lot with them (55k+ per year), all miles after 55K, count at double the normal rate. They award 300% of miles for FC tickets, and 200% for Biz on many Star Alliance members. So you could actually get more than 6x the miles you flew in award miles!

[B]Which is the best plan for North American fliers?[/B] Well, I'm partial to Northwest, as I find a lot of their promotions really beneficial. Changing awards for free, and great customer service is really nice. Plus on all my flights in North America/Central America/Caribbean that they fly to, I get upgraded to First Class for free about 90% of the time. I also get free upgrades on Continental and Copa, though not as often. And I hear that I might even be getting free upgrades on Delta in the near future.

Last year, NW also announced a bonus program for upper level elites. They have graduated rewards at 60k, 90k, 120k and 160k. At the lower levels they give you a $50 travel cert, or some bonus miles, but at the higher levels, they give you free upgrade certificates that you can use on any NW or KLM flight for Biz class. So you can fly to Africa on a cheap ticket, and fly in the front, or go to Bangkok, Manila or Prague and do the same.

Other plans that have a lot of good buzz about them: American Airlines has a nice challenge program where you can become their lower tier or middle tier with just one or two flights (AA Challenge). Plus they aren't very stingy with awards, and have low off season rewards to South America for only 40k miles!

I know a lot of United Airlines people who love their program. You get some nice upgrade certificates (System Wide Upgrades aka SWU's) at their higher level elites. Their upper level elite requirement is 100k miles. Supposedly lots of awards available as well.

[B]Programs to stay away from. [/B] Lots of turmoil at US Air of late. Often hard to get an award, and they only award 25% and 50% bonus at the low and mid level tiers. Delta has reduced a lot of awards of late, and their SWU's are pretty difficult to use.

As I mentioned, many plans have started to delete your miles if there is no activity within 18 months. 3 years or more used to the the average. NW is probably the best, with a 3 year limit, but they're not actively enforcing it.

If you fly for business, many airlines have an additional Business Perks that you can enroll yourself, and employees too. Points accrue and are awarded the the business account, which you control, hopefully. Although I don't book a ton of stuff, I still got enough points in a couple of years for a free Asian trip in coach. Free to join, most of them require a Federal Tax ID to open an account.

[QUOTE=Sidney]They are allowing different baggage weight restrictions to different destinations! Normal, I think is 44 kilos for 2 bags. The surprise was a total of 20 kilos+8 kilos for a carry-on. Then after only mentioning this in the ''fine print'', having the ruthless audacity to charge $12 per kilo, over these limits. I suspect they may do this on other routes. Other airlines may be participating in this same scheme to ''nail'' thu unsuspecting customer![/QUOTE]I don't know if this is of any help to you all livimg in Argentina but every time I fly from Europe to Latin America I use Brasil as entry and especially exit point.

That is because Brasil and some other Latin America countries, unfortunately not Argentina, are using the so called "PC" system. This is an allowance of two checked bags of 32 kilos each. Lately they are trying to reduce it to 23 kilos each but I don't think it's in effect yet. That also applies to / from USA to those countries.

Happy new year to you all.

El Greco

Jackson,

Don't forget Continental [url]http://www.continental.com[/url].

T Tuna

I just turned on the TV looking for the Packer game and they showed a lived shot of EZE with thousands of people stranded, apparently from Aero Argentina striking. I called AA and they said so far no flight have been cancelled, but perhaps I know better how other would support a strike. Any local pro's out there know what is going on? I am leaving on Monday and any information or a site would be much appreciated. They said something about 72 horas?

Thank you in advance. Help!

Check stories in Clarin or La Nacion, both have online articles.

I wouldn't be too worried about the strike effecting (or is it affecting) other airlines. One reason is that the Aerolinas Argentina is not a part of the IATA, which allows their passengers to use the tickets with other carriers. Also it seems that this is a dispute with the customer service agents and pilots as opposed to the air traffic controllers problem that was going on earlier in the year.

I would like to fly from the US (anywhere) to Bogota and about a week later to Buenos Aires. I need to fly with United (I have some vouchers)

Any ideas?

P. S. Date should be around 15th of February

[QUOTE=Redondo]I would like to fly from the US (anywhere) to Bogota and about a week later to Buenos Aires. I need to fly with United (I have some vouchers)

Any ideas?

P. S. Date should be around 15th of February[/QUOTE]I'd say that you're in a bit of a spot. Looking at paid tickets, it would be quite expensive. ($2400) I'd probably recommend looking at each flight separately first, and then see what you can piece together.

So look NYC-BOG (or whatever city you want to fly out of) and then BOG-EZE, and then EZE-NYC.

United doesn't fly to BOG that I'm aware of, and when I entered NYC-BOG into the United site, they came up with nothing. Is your voucher only good on UA flights, or on codeshares as well?

From the quick search I did, it seems that AA, CO, Avianca, Mexicana and Lacsa / Taca fly to Bogota, at least from New York. DL may fly there from ATL, and I'm sure there are others.

From BOG-EZE, you have Copa, Avianca, Taca, Lan, Aerolineas, DL and AA. Some of these connect in Panama, some like AA and DL even go back to the US.

You might be able to do something, easier with reward miles, but it looks like using UA vouchers for all of this trip might be hard. (It might be easier to use a UA voucher USA-EZE, and then miles for EZE-BOG, if you went to EZE first)

[QUOTE=Jaimito Cartero]I'd say that you're in a bit of a spot. Looking at paid tickets, it would be quite expensive. ($2400) I'd probably recommend looking at each flight separately first, and then see what you can piece together.

So look NYC-BOG (or whatever city you want to fly out of) and then BOG-EZE, and then EZE-NYC.

United doesn't fly to BOG that I'm aware of, and when I entered NYC-BOG into the United site, they came up with nothing. Is your voucher only good on UA flights, or on codeshares as well?

From the quick search I did, it seems that AA, CO, Avianca, Mexicana and Lacsa / Taca fly to Bogota, at least from New York. DL may fly there from ATL, and I'm sure there are others.

From BOG-EZE, you have Copa, Avianca, Taca, Lan, Aerolineas, DL and AA. Some of these connect in Panama, some like AA and DL even go back to the US.

You might be able to do something, easier with reward miles, but it looks like using UA vouchers for all of this trip might be hard. (It might be easier to use a UA voucher USA-EZE, and then miles for EZE-BOG, if you went to EZE first)[/QUOTE]Thanks.

I was looking at the site as well and BOG didn't come up.

I could do a DC - Eze (Which they flew from O'Hara) and then a EZE - BOG but I would prefer if I could do it via Bogota.

As far as I know it's not with code share and they are valid for about a month more so I should use them soon

I'm a newbie when it comes to mileage programs because I may not even have half (who am I kidding more like 1/4) of the accumulated mileage of Jaimito. I consider his inputs on mileage programs very useful and relevant. In fact I have printouts of some of his posts which serves as references for me whenever I get confused with all these mileage program lingo.

Keep them coming.

[QUOTE=Redondo]Thanks.

I was looking at the site as well and BOG didn't come up.

I could do a DC - Eze (Which they flew from O'Hara) and then a EZE - BOG but I would prefer if I could do it via Bogota.

As far as I know it's not with code share and they are valid for about a month more so I should use them soon[/QUOTE]If the vouchers are transferable, it might be wiser to just trade them to someone. Also the dollar amount of the vouchers is important, too. So you have $2,000 worth of vouchers, or only $500?

Almost all the fares I did a quick check on out of the DC area (IAD or DCA) on UA are very, very expensive. $1800-$2000 for a 2-4 week stay. Delta has some that are almost half the price.

Most of the inter South American tickets are really expensive, at least compared to what the same distance flight would cost in the US. BOG-EZE from mid February goes for $768 on Taca for a round trip, or about $80 less for a one way trip.

American Airlines has a 25k mileage award for South America, but only for flights totally within SA. You might be able to get a LAN award, not sure if it's the same mileage or not. Continental charges 40k miles (probably for Copa flights) Northwest actually only charges 20k miles, and it's probably on Copa as well.