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Lyon
Apr 17, 2003
My company tried to institute Concur and everyone used it for a little. What I do now if I'm booking a particularly pricey flight I go into Concur and show the best flight for the dates/times and screen cap it. Then I book mine through someone else which is usually cheaper or within company guidelines but from an outside site. I really only book outside of Concur when I'm flying US Airways so I can make sure they're counting the double miles for using their credit card and that my FF# goes in and I have a shot at upgrades etc.

I did no air travel in January sadly. I had three training engagements but two of them were virtual and one was in New Jersey so it was just a short drive up to company HQ. I will do a little over 10k miles in February because I got luckily assigned to a training engagement in Barcelona and then I'm going to Boston for another one.

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Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene
Yeah, I got in trouble for doing that. They almost didn't reimburse me, which would kinda sucked. And right now it is awful. Something came up, so I booked something yesterday for today. I wake up and find out that the person from the travel service wants to cancel it because (???) so, huh? It is awful.

Lyon
Apr 17, 2003
The argument is that the/a corporate travel portal provides extra protection for your tickets/trips/etc but I have never found that to be the case in reality. Concur charges you $25 to call the line and fix any problems... so we're paying all this money and a $7 fee per flight just to have access to Kayak? Then for an additional fee they will help you adjust your flights/trips/whatever? Awesome.

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

Lyon posted:

The argument is that the/a corporate travel portal provides extra protection for your tickets/trips/etc but I have never found that to be the case in reality. Concur charges you $25 to call the line and fix any problems... so we're paying all this money and a $7 fee per flight just to have access to Kayak? Then for an additional fee they will help you adjust your flights/trips/whatever? Awesome.

Yeah this is total bullshit.

TouchyMcFeely
Aug 21, 2006

High five! Hell yeah!

We use Concur in my company but I'm pretty meh about it.

The biggest pain in the rear end I run into is the "must take the lowest logical airfare" requirement my company has. Usually that simple translates into "lowest airfare period" so I get flagged every time I fly to Montana from Salt Lake City.

Usually ends up with a phone call wanting to know why I purchased the direct flight for $1000+ when there were other flights for around $600. The answer is always the same and it's because a 50 minute direct flight for $1000+ is cheaper in totality than a 5 hour trip with a layover but it never fails and gets flagged every time.

What I really love is when I book a last minute flight and the person I always go through this dance with is unavailable to approve it so my trip gets cancelled and I have to rebook it at even more money.

Then again I could probably attain higher status with another airline if I didn't take the directly flights but who wants to double up their travel time just so they can spend more time traveling?

Lyon
Apr 17, 2003

TouchyMcFeely posted:

We use Concur in my company but I'm pretty meh about it.

The biggest pain in the rear end I run into is the "must take the lowest logical airfare" requirement my company has. Usually that simple translates into "lowest airfare period" so I get flagged every time I fly to Montana from Salt Lake City.

Usually ends up with a phone call wanting to know why I purchased the direct flight for $1000+ when there were other flights for around $600. The answer is always the same and it's because a 50 minute direct flight for $1000+ is cheaper in totality than a 5 hour trip with a layover but it never fails and gets flagged every time.

What I really love is when I book a last minute flight and the person I always go through this dance with is unavailable to approve it so my trip gets cancelled and I have to rebook it at even more money.

Then again I could probably attain higher status with another airline if I didn't take the directly flights but who wants to double up their travel time just so they can spend more time traveling?

The requirements are fairly configurable and it seems like whoever set up your rules is kind of a dick. Ours is set so we can take any flight that is within $200 of the cheapest flight and I think we exclude anything with more than 1 stop from being considered the cheapest.

How does $1000+ end up being cheaper for the company than the $600? Obviously for you an hour is better than five hours, but how does that translate to finance?

mim
Apr 25, 2010

Yeah, we also use concur and I don't mind it that much, but I only travel 25%. Before this year it was just "recommended" we use it so I never did, but now its required. That said, our rules are pretty flexible. You get flagged for flights $400 more than minimum, and like $120 for hotels.

TouchyMcFeely
Aug 21, 2006

High five! Hell yeah!

Lyon posted:

The requirements are fairly configurable and it seems like whoever set up your rules is kind of a dick. Ours is set so we can take any flight that is within $200 of the cheapest flight and I think we exclude anything with more than 1 stop from being considered the cheapest.

How does $1000+ end up being cheaper for the company than the $600? Obviously for you an hour is better than five hours, but how does that translate to finance?

We don't bill the customer for my time if they have a contract. That 50 minute flight ends up costing my company the ticket price of $1000 + our internal cost of $250/hr for my time. If I take that 5 hour flight it's $600 + $250/hr x 5, so roughly $2250. Plus I can't work that day since I get in so late so the trip is extended by at least a day if not 2. That delay results in my being unable to respond to other customers in a reasonable amount of time which costs us additional money in terms of customer irritation and reflects poorly on myself.

The joys of field service.

Oh - I'm about to complete my trip to the UK with my Red Ox Air Boss and holy poo poo, I'm never checking bags again if I can avoid it. Don't know how often that will be but drat if that isn't the way to go for ease and speed during air travel.

Small White Dragon
Nov 23, 2007

No relation.
Hi all! Just noticed this thread, thought I'd chime in.

Buckhead posted:

I only fly domestically for work and stick to the majors, and Delta is far and away my (and everyone else's) favorite. United is a distant second, and American an even further distant third. I don't think American has renovated any of their plane interiors or terminal areas in decades. DFW is a dump. United does seem to have the most space in coach though. Also, Delta seems to have wifi on all of their planes, while United and American seem to have wifi on none of their planes. I can't do any work without the internet, so it really annoys me when I get to a hotel at 9 p.m. and have to catch up on a day's worth of e-mail.
I don't have much experience with United (*), but I've flown American, Delta, and US Airways a lot. Before I got status, my opinion was American >> Delta >>>> US Airways. A few years ago, I got entry level status on American and Delta, and the experience was much better with American than with Delta, so I consolidated a lot of my travel on American.

(*) United's regional jet system is really odd in some states resulting in me having to make extra connections.

TouchyMcFeely posted:

I know in my case the cost of my time to take an extra flight or route less efficiently is significantly less than the cost to lose status.

For example, if I fail to maintain silver medallion on Delta I will start getting hit with the $25.00 bag fee increasing the cost of travel by $50 per trip. The total cost of baggage fees would end up costing more than a quick turn around flight between SLC and DEN to keep my status.
I agree elite status rocks, but I don't understand all the people talking about the free bag. You can get that with a credit card :confused:

dexter posted:

It just needs to be at more airports (I'm looking at you, JFK.) I haven't had a chance to use precheck yet (NEXUS was stupid easy to sign up for except for driving to the Mexican border for the interview) but I've used the hell out of Clear. It sure makes you feel like an rear end in a top hat though while they're escorting you past 150 people at SFO Terminal 1 since there's no dedicated line.
PreCheck is at JFK. I used it on AA months before you posted this, although the PreCheck lanes at some airports are airline-specific.

Lyon posted:

Hah I promise US Air isn't that bad.. I pretty much only fly US Air and United and I have never noticed a major difference. I am very curious as to what will happen if US and AA merge, sounds like US Air would leave the Star Alliance which will suck.

Have you AA guys been keeping tabs on the talks at all?
I disagree. I've flown US (even paid for an F upgrade a couple times), and AA beats it hands down. Both mainline and regional jets.

I've been keeping tabs on the merger situations, and have discussed it with some folks in the industry and a few fellow business students. The situation with the AA merger is this:

US Airways's CEO (Doug Parker) is really gungho on mergers, and US Airways has a lot of outstanding labor problems that management can't resolve, although a merger with a much larger employee body might.

When the other legacies went through bankruptcy, AA's unions agreed to pay cuts but it ultimately wasn't effective, the airline lost market share and eventually ended up in bankruptcy anyway. A big chunk of AA's staff has no confidence in the current management team, and Mr. Parker (of US Airways) has dangled them significant incentives to support a merger with US Airways.

However, it's very possible that Mr. Parker's offers will make the merged company ultimately unprofitable, resulting in another bankruptcy down the road, although the investors who believe this to be the case can sell their stocks/debt before that happens.

In any case, a merger is likely to be bad for the traveling public: the loss of another major carrier will result in less competition and higher fares, plus AA and US's award redemption chart has not been updated in a long time, and US Airways' management believes the current amounts are far too low.


EDIT: The merger discussions are purportedly largely stuck on the money and who is charge. If it occurs, regardless of which side comes out on top, the merged airline will be named AA, headquartered in Dallas, and a member of OneWorld. Both sides have promised this, and it makes sense -- American's brands are more well recognized, it has ATI/JV (Anti Trust Immunity/Joint Ventures) with several alliance partners, and it sits at the head of its alliance. Furthermore, government regulators are not likely to approve a merger that would leave OneWorld without a major North American airline.

Lyon posted:

I live in Philadelphia and have never seen a OneWorld alliance member be the most cost effective flight. AA and British Airways occasionally have flights for about the same price but I've never seen them significantly beat US Air or United in all of my trips. US Air and United seem to have the strongest presence at Philadelphia and since they are both Star Alliance this means I get to credit all my miles back to US Air/Star Alliance. If US Air went over to OneWorld it would potentially cause me to lose a lot of miles in my preferred program. I just ran a bunch of dummy flights from PHL to all over the country/world and US Air was the cheapest for every spot except Seattle and Berlin where United was the cheapest. Even PHL-ATL US Air was the exact same price as Delta and Southwest/AirTran.
In my experience, US Airways has the cheapest flights in and out of a lot of markets.

Small White Dragon fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Feb 2, 2013

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

Does anyone have a good experience with a travel agent that also books personal/leisure travel?

Never wanted to go through one for personal stuff but with hotel rooms and other things that I don't really care about status with it might be nice to have someone set all of that stuff up.

Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene
Anyone know of a good spot in Salt lake city to kill some time?

squeakygeek
Oct 27, 2005

Shbobdb posted:

Anyone know of a good spot in Salt lake city to kill some time?

The Great Salt Lake is pretty... great :)

FrozenVent
May 1, 2009

The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.
My plane landed in a snowstorm bad enough that I didn't see the ground before the wheels hit the runway. Get into the terminal, half the flights are cancelled and most of the ones that aren't are delayed.

So, so glad I took the direct flight home instead of bouncing through YUL or YYZ for the extra segment.

Anybody get stranded by the HellStorm?

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

FrozenVent posted:

My plane landed in a snowstorm bad enough that I didn't see the ground before the wheels hit the runway. Get into the terminal, half the flights are cancelled and most of the ones that aren't are delayed.

So, so glad I took the direct flight home instead of bouncing through YUL or YYZ for the extra segment.

Anybody get stranded by the HellStorm?

Yeah I am "stuck" in California. I was supposed to leave Thurs night but everything got cancelled. The earliest I can get home is Sat night, all in time to turn around Sun morning and fly out again.

Thankfully I am on a work trip so I just extended my stay and have been chillin' (drinking).

TheLizard
Oct 27, 2004

I am the Lizard Queen!

Lyon posted:

The argument is that the/a corporate travel portal provides extra protection for your tickets/trips/etc but I have never found that to be the case in reality. Concur charges you $25 to call the line and fix any problems... so we're paying all this money and a $7 fee per flight just to have access to Kayak? Then for an additional fee they will help you adjust your flights/trips/whatever? Awesome.

Evidently we get some kind of refund from Concur due to volume. Ours is $7 per hotel and $12 per flight. Thankfully most of my travel right now is on Amtrak so I don't have to deal with them much. They do get a good price on the San Fran Financial District Hilton.

Also, just came back from my free tickets honeymoon to Thailand; this is what makes the business travel worthwhile. Thai's 380 is the poo poo.

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

Nice! First or biz on the 380?

Availability sucks right now. I was sweating bullets for my honeymoon at 310-331 days out and booked a flexible ticket but I've spent probably 10 hours on the phone this past week booking it. With the weather in the northeast it's obviously been an "all hands on deck" mentality as I've gotten some terribly trained agents.

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.
The AMR-US merger is official:

http://www.aa.com/arriving/index.html

Lyon
Apr 17, 2003
I just landed in Philadelphia flying on US Air and they announced it briefly on the plane that the merger was official. Time to burn my modest accumulation of miles before they update all the mileage charts.

I'm still upset to be losing the option to fly United but I'll get over it I'm sure once I see all the OneWorld options.

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

Lyon posted:

I just landed in Philadelphia flying on US Air and they announced it briefly on the plane that the merger was official. Time to burn my modest accumulation of miles before they update all the mileage charts.

I'm still upset to be losing the option to fly United but I'll get over it I'm sure once I see all the OneWorld options.

oneWorld is total poo poo compared to StarAlliance. US Air FFs just got hosed.

TheLizard
Oct 27, 2004

I am the Lizard Queen!

Lyon posted:

I'm still upset to be losing the option to fly United but I'll get over it I'm sure once I see all the OneWorld options.

Also I hope you don't have low-level status on either. During the CO-UA merger, those people got hosed.

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.
My guess is the hub structure will look as follows in a year:

PHX (West Coast/Asia) - DFW (Central/LAM) - MIA (LAM) - PHL (East Coast/Europe)

Focus Cities: ORD - CLT

I think the AA side will drop LAX and JFK/LGA where they are not number 1 in favor of PHL and PHX given the proximity. I think CLT will be dropped or downgraded in favor of MIA where they are #1 and already have an established line of flights to LAM. The only one I am a bit iffy on is the future of ORD where they are #2 behind United. I don't think it will drop off the face of the earth completely but I believe they will scale it down to a regional only or a focus city for both carriers. I think DCA will be downgraded to a similar setup to RDU where they serve both regional and main carriers with a few additional routes.

FT is saying this will most likely be the layout so it turns out I was totally wrong, maybe:

quote:

Prior to any post-merger rationalization, the two airlines will have around 94,000 employees, 950 planes, 6,500 daily flights, and nine major hubs (American: Dallas, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York; US Airways: Phoenix, Philadelphia, Charlotte). Although the carriers promise to maintain all current hubs, Phoenix and Philadelphia are likely to be downsized in the post-merger “rationalization.”

Belldandy fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Feb 15, 2013

kansas
Dec 3, 2012
Welp. Gotta burn through a giant pile of AA miles ASAP.

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

Belldandy posted:

oneWorld is total poo poo compared to StarAlliance. US Air FFs just got hosed.

I gotta disagree here wholeheartedly. Oneworld has LAN which does a great job in South America and Cathay Pacific which I would put up against Singapore or anyone else. With Malaysia on board they cover a ton of Asia pretty nicely. Qantas availability sucks but south pacific is nicely covered as well. A great spread for your elite status to matter.

In terms of using miles on these carriers, Qantas aside, I'd put availability for redemptions better than a lot of the StarAlliance carriers. I was able to book a 2x business class RTW award for 190k miles each and had the option for first class. Had I earned miles with UA and Star Alliance, Singapore would have not had that availability because they werent KrisMiles and barring the computer glitch last year they don't open the suites up for partner mileage redemptions. And the around the world ticket would have cost me 325k miles each in Business and been limited to 10 segments whereas OneWorld it is 16.

And while I'm sure they'll do it to AA sure, US Air just silently upped their cost for all US Air redemptions. Which also sucks.

kansas posted:

Welp. Gotta burn through a giant pile of AA miles ASAP.

There's no evidence that they're going to severely devalue or erase the miles. Too much competition with UA domestically to piss off that many frequent flyers.

Belldandy posted:

My guess is the hub structure will look as follows in a year:

PHX (West Coast/Asia) - DFW (Central/LAM) - MIA (LAM) - PHL (East Coast/Europe)

Focus Cities: ORD - CLT

I think the AA side will drop LAX and JFK/LGA where they are not number 1 in favor of PHL and PHX given the proximity. I think CLT will be dropped or downgraded in favor of MIA where they are #1 and already have an established line of flights to LAM. The only one I am a bit iffy on is the future of ORD where they are #2 behind United. I don't think it will drop off the face of the earth completely but I believe they will scale it down to a regional only or a focus city for both carriers. I think DCA will be downgraded to a similar setup to RDU where they serve both regional and main carriers with a few additional routes.

FT is saying this will most likely be the layout so it turns out I was totally wrong, maybe:

I hate to agree with FT here but I can't see American removing their hubs in the biggest 2 markets (LAX & JFK) for regional flights in PHL and PHX. LAX and JFK passengers don't have time to connect in smaller markets and there's too premium traffic between them. LAX is a great connection to CX or QF's network as well. AA's also announced a serious upgrade to the LAX and JFK route specifically and there's no reason to think they're going to abandon this.

sellouts fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Feb 15, 2013

Small White Dragon
Nov 23, 2007

No relation.

sellouts posted:

In terms of using miles on these carriers, Qantas aside, I'd put availability for redemptions better than a lot of the StarAlliance carriers.
Here's the thing about Qantas. They are notoriously stingy on US - Oceania redemptions, but they are very generous on some of their other routes.

sellouts posted:

There's no evidence that they're going to severely devalue or erase the miles. Too much competition with UA domestically to piss off that many frequent flyers.
Your miles are safe. However, the US and AA charts haven't seen a major update in quite a while, meaning they're probably overdue.

sellouts posted:

I hate to agree with FT here but I can't see American removing their hubs in the biggest 2 markets (LAX & JFK) for regional flights in PHL and PHX. LAX and JFK passengers don't have time to connect in smaller markets and there's too premium traffic between them. LAX is a great connection to CX or QF's network as well. AA's also announced a serious upgrade to the LAX and JFK route specifically and there's no reason to think they're going to abandon this.
There's a lot of overlap network-wise between DFW/PHX/LAX and PHL/DCA/JFK/LGA.

For whatever it's worth, AA's hubs are generally considered more "valuable" than US's, and the people internally that seem most concerned are at the PHL and PHX hubs, which might tell you something.

Also re: LAX, AA's network feeds a lot of international traffic into and out of LAX, including a lot of partner flights, which are unlikely to follow to PHX. In general, in every category, LAX wins out over PHX with the sole exception that there's not many gates for AA to expand to at LAX at the moment, although this is solvable within a few years.

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

sellouts posted:

I gotta disagree here wholeheartedly. Oneworld has LAN which does a great job in South America and Cathay Pacific which I would put up against Singapore or anyone else. With Malaysia on board they cover a ton of Asia pretty nicely. Qantas availability sucks but south pacific is nicely covered as well. A great spread for your elite status to matter.

In terms of using miles on these carriers, Qantas aside, I'd put availability for redemptions better than a lot of the StarAlliance carriers. I was able to book a 2x business class RTW award for 190k miles each and had the option for first class. Had I earned miles with UA and Star Alliance, Singapore would have not had that availability because they werent KrisMiles and barring the computer glitch last year they don't open the suites up for partner mileage redemptions. And the around the world ticket would have cost me 325k miles each in Business and been limited to 10 segments whereas OneWorld it is 16.

I hate to agree with FT here but I can't see American removing their hubs in the biggest 2 markets (LAX & JFK) for regional flights in PHL and PHX. LAX and JFK passengers don't have time to connect in smaller markets and there's too premium traffic between them. LAX is a great connection to CX or QF's network as well. AA's also announced a serious upgrade to the LAX and JFK route specifically and there's no reason to think they're going to abandon this.

Yeah, oneWorld has good Asia carriers but I think Star Alliance has better carriers - ANA and Singapore are incredible and IMHO better than Cathay and JAL but I may just be nitpicking. oneWorld Europe is just bad. I am totally unimpressed with BA whereas was totally impressed with guys like Swiss and Lufthansa. The only area I think they shine, to your point, is with LAN in LAM. I have no experience with Malaysia.

Regarding the hubs, as said above, there is a TON of overlap with those hubs could really cause an odd structure. While I certainly HOPE they don't scale back operations in LAX or JFK, both of those hubs are relatively small compared to CLT, PHX, DFW, MIA or even ORD. AA serves relatively few routes in LAX or JFK. From a pure financial standpoint it may make sense to pull out completely and hold fort where they are already number one and have a large route base. AA's plan for a while now has been to consolidate to a small number of profitable hubs and in past mergers they ALWAYS migrate to the larger hubs. Take for example TWA, namely with the STL hub, which once served over 800 daily flights, depreciated to nothing in a matter of years in favor of ORD as it was larger. I think in both of the cases of LAX/PHX and JFK&LGA/PHL this is a similar sort of setup.

But also as said, the "brand value" of LAX and JFK is incredibly high and obviously it makes sense for airline partners. So, I *HOPE* FT is right.

My dream setup:

LAX - JFK - DFW - ORD - MIA

Focus Cities: DCA - LGA - SJC (Third times a charm)

Belldandy fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Feb 15, 2013

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

Small White Dragon posted:

Here's the thing about Qantas. They are notoriously stingy on US - Oceania redemptions, but they are very generous on some of their other routes.

Yes and no. For my most recent trip it was a lot easier to go SIN-SYD. SYD-AKL was booked up except for the 6:15am flight at 320 days out and I got out of the south pacific by doing AKL-HKG on Cathay.

Qantas generosity isn't matching AA, CX or even BA. You can be on a business OneWorld AA explorer award ticket, there can be business seats open at boarding, and at no point will revenue management open up those empty seats. The flight will leave with empty seats in business vs opening them for last minute mileage redemptions or for people on OneWorld tickets that include that class of service.

This isn't the case for AA or CX, who are truly generous and open up basically every seat by the time the doors of the aircraft close.


Belldandy posted:

Yeah, oneWorld has good Asia carriers but I think Star Alliance has better carriers - ANA and Singapore are incredible and IMHO better than Cathay and JAL but I may just be nitpicking. oneWorld Europe is just bad. I am totally unimpressed with BA whereas was totally impressed with guys like Swiss and Lufthansa. The only area I think they shine, to your point, is with LAN in LAM. I have no experience with Malaysia.

Yeah I'll respectfully disagree about Cathay not holding their own against Singapore and especially ANA. JAL's service in premium cabins is great too and their hard product on long haul international is tops. Great food/drinks too. What makes the difference to me is how easily mileage is redeemed for first class but even business. Singapore is tough unless you've got KrisMiles. CX is easy, JAL isn't bad either. And for RTW trips OneWorld offers them at almost 60% of what StarAlliance does with more segments allowed. Even less mileage cost if you fly less, which is great.

Europe is a bit of a shitshow for OW. Lufthansa is one of the best airlines out there and Swiss does good work too. BA is very hit and miss service wise but I don't mind Iberia's premium hard product and when you start throwing in Air Berlin there's decent route coverage. OneWorld can redeem on Qatar airlines soon if not now, which combined with RJ, offers decent middle east coverage too. I really think it's more comparable than you'd think.

Lufthansa is a great airline though and their revamped first class looks amazing. And Singapore is Singapore. Great, always. Tradeoffs sure but it could be worse. They could be becoming members of SkyTeam

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.
I think we can all agree that SkyTeam = ShitTeam.

Also I am totally pissed going from a mostly Boeing to a mix of Boeing/Scarebus.

TheLizard
Oct 27, 2004

I am the Lizard Queen!

Belldandy posted:

The only area I think they shine, to your point, is with LAN in LAM.

Star Alliance has both COPA and TACA/Avianca in LatAm. Both are really good and cover a pretty respectable number of cities.

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

TheLizard posted:

Star Alliance has both COPA and TACA/Avianca in LatAm. Both are really good and cover a pretty respectable number of cities.

Yeah, I flew Copa out of Panama last year and was super impressed, mostly at their alcohol selection. Plus I almost proposed to one of the disgustingly hot stewardesses on the spot.

Small White Dragon
Nov 23, 2007

No relation.

sellouts posted:

Yes and no. For my most recent trip it was a lot easier to go SIN-SYD. SYD-AKL was booked up except for the 6:15am flight at 320 days out and I got out of the south pacific by doing AKL-HKG on Cathay.
Interesting.

I booked 5 people business/first class to Australia on OW, but had to route them through Asia. (Note this requires extra miles.)

The domestic and international non-English speaking availability was pretty good if you looked far enough out, at least when I was monitoring it.

But I concur, US-AU and AU-NZ availability on Qantas was bad.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Belldandy posted:

Take for example TWA, namely with the STL hub, which once served over 800 daily flights, depreciated to nothing in a matter of years in favor of ORD as it was larger.
Yup. With the latest round of cuts from last winter, STL is now down to 4 AA gates and 30-35 departures a day. They're leaving money on the table, as Southwest has been adding routes where AA's cut, but it's not like AA was in a position where they could sustainably operate them.

When they announced the acquisition they were touting the STL hub as an opportunity to address demand that outstripped AA's capacity. Then again the deal closed in April of 2001, just before other externalities took care of the extra demand. Seems like they tried to give it a go for a little longer and hoped things would stabilize, seeing as how the first wave of TWA route cuts (from 400-ish daily departures to 200) didn't happen until November 2003.

sink the biz
Jun 13, 2002

My goodness my Guinness
So glad I found this thread. I travel 4-5 days every week for work + do the occasional mileage run here and there. I'm definitely curious to collaborate w my fellow travelers.

Currently Platinum on Delta, Starwood, Marriott, and AMEX.

Lyon
Apr 17, 2003
I am starting to use up my miles on US Air before they adjust all of their award charts. Upgraded my flight back home from Boston with miles just as a guarantee. Strangely the flight to Boston hadn't been released yet but it is early Sunday morning out of DCA so I think I might just hope there aren't many preferred travelers on the flight and see if I get auto upgraded.

I think the spring will be really busy for me so I'll at least get to keep my Star Alliance for a little while! I don't image we'll see the full merger until the 3rd quarter at the earliest and potentially stretched into next year (but I doubt that).

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

Lyon posted:

I am starting to use up my miles on US Air before they adjust all of their award charts.

Haven't they already done this?

http://www.flyertalk.com/the-gate/blog/14461-us-airways-quietly-raises-some-award-redemption-levels-lowers-two.html

Nifty
Aug 31, 2004

Hilton raised the points required to book a bunch of their hotels. I have been loyal to Hilton but am considering switching. At times I go to middle of nowhere towns, and Hyatt etc do not have enough locations for me to regularly book at, so the only other option is Marriott.

http://thepointsguy.com/2013/02/the-state-of-hotel-loyalty-programs-a-devaluation-story/

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

Nifty posted:

Hilton raised the points required to book a bunch of their hotels. I have been loyal to Hilton but am considering switching. At times I go to middle of nowhere towns, and Hyatt etc do not have enough locations for me to regularly book at, so the only other option is Marriott.

http://thepointsguy.com/2013/02/the-state-of-hotel-loyalty-programs-a-devaluation-story/

I switched from HHonors to SPG and never looked back. I don't do nowhere towns really often at all but in the cases I have, I can usually find a Four Points around the area. Sadly those lack compared to an HGI or something.

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

Nifty posted:

Hilton raised the points required to book a bunch of their hotels. I have been loyal to Hilton but am considering switching. At times I go to middle of nowhere towns, and Hyatt etc do not have enough locations for me to regularly book at, so the only other option is Marriott.

http://thepointsguy.com/2013/02/the-state-of-hotel-loyalty-programs-a-devaluation-story/

I'm using my accumulation of Hilton points to cover most of a trip to Germany this fall. Good thing I've already got most of it booked. Hopefully I can get the rest set before this hits.

Nifty
Aug 31, 2004

Who wants to refer me to Marriott rewards and you earn 10k points?
http://joinmarriottrewards.com/Friend/US/

Nifty fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Mar 9, 2013

Small White Dragon
Nov 23, 2007

No relation.

Lyon posted:

I am starting to use up my miles on US Air before they adjust all of their award charts. Upgraded my flight back home from Boston with miles just as a guarantee. Strangely the flight to Boston hadn't been released yet but it is early Sunday morning out of DCA so I think I might just hope there aren't many preferred travelers on the flight and see if I get auto upgraded.

I think the spring will be really busy for me so I'll at least get to keep my Star Alliance for a little while! I don't image we'll see the full merger until the 3rd quarter at the earliest and potentially stretched into next year (but I doubt that).
Supposedly there is a six month transition period out of Star Alliance, and I think they're waiting until they have approval on the merger before "giving notice."

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Lyon
Apr 17, 2003

True but if you look at the award chart changes it doesn't really affect the economy travel for inside the US or to Europe. I'm not on the level of some of you racking up insane amounts of miles. I flew a little over 50k and earned another 90k or so by signing up for the CC and some other bonuses.

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