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sellouts posted:Yeah. Wasn't intentional and I am sure they have record that I booked them at different times and via different methods. A million SPG points? Holy crap. I thought I was sitting pretty good with my 50K after booking the Westin in Berlin for Christmas. 
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Jul 27, 2014 02:58
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I was transferring in Atlanta and saw a pregnant woman going to the same destination but 2 hours later. So I offered to exchange flights and the gate ticketing agents were very happy. They tried bumping me to first class but first class was full. Oh well
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Jul 27, 2014 03:56
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Mackieman posted:A million SPG points? Holy crap. I thought I was sitting pretty good with my 50K after booking the Westin in Berlin for Christmas. He's got a 1500+ dollar round trip ticket every week alone, not counting hotel stays, food, expenses, personal spending, promos and he has been doing it for many years. "Yeah that's not my phone number" was his smug line for a while Also now all I want is uber VIP status.
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Jul 27, 2014 06:17
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PHL is my home airport and most of my flights are non local so I very rarely see Gate F but I was flying from EWR to PHL today (ugh) and I have to say I was surprised how nice F is post construction. Granted I just went straight to the shuttle and didn't hang around for more than 5 minutes but it looks a million times better than before and the food options looked decent at the very least. Edit: free (well) booze at US Airways clubs now! Thanks AA. Lyon fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Jul 27, 2014 |
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Jul 27, 2014 20:51
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What's a local flight as opposed to a nonlocal flight?
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Jul 27, 2014 23:25
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Aristotle Animes posted:What's a local flight as opposed to a nonlocal flight? I should have said regional, 99% of the US Airways flights operated by Regional Partner ABC fly out of F at PHL, most of my flights are not regional so I hardly ever fly out of F. I don't hang out on flyer talk so pardon any jargon confusion.
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Jul 27, 2014 23:34
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Lyon posted:PHL is my home airport and most of my flights are non local so I very rarely see Gate F but I was flying from EWR to PHL today (ugh) and I have to say I was surprised how nice F is post construction. Granted I just went straight to the shuttle and didn't hang around for more than 5 minutes but it looks a million times better than before and the food options looked decent at the very least. Your opinion will differ drastically if you depart from gate F. I stood in security for over 2 hours on a Monday morning commuter flight to SYR. Only one security line open early am. Fortunately I only travel once a quarter for work so I still do the whole paranoid show up 2+ hours early thing.
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Jul 28, 2014 12:00
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They did some good work on Terminal F recently. The new food court is nice and means you can actually get food! On the other hand, even flying only 50-seat RJs, seat capacity in the gatehouse is about 35% of the seat capacity of the aircraft at gates. The only explanation I have is that the terminal was designed exclusively for Beech 1900s and maybe Dash-8-100s.
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Jul 28, 2014 14:39
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So it's like Atlanta, only at smaller scale? (Atlanta is great if you like standing and never getting to recharge your phone/laptop/whatever.)
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Jul 28, 2014 15:09
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Ynglaur posted:So it's like Atlanta, only at smaller scale? (Atlanta is great if you like standing and never getting to recharge your phone/laptop/whatever.) Atlanta has 110V and USB outlets in abundance at every gate now.
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Jul 28, 2014 15:32
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Sorry to interrupt airport chat, but this is an extreme case of DYKWIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LTI_Y_TrFo
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Jul 28, 2014 16:47
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Hilton has a pretty nice promo going on starting next month, double points Monday-Thursday and triple points Friday-Sunday. Except a full third of their hotels are opting out. Including just about every Hilton family hotel in Southern California, it seems. I've got around 25 nights planned during the timeframe of this promotion so that list is really disappointing. Luckily there is one Embassy Suites in Anaheim that didn't opt out. I guess I'll be staying there the next few months, since the difference in points for staying there vs. a hotel that has opted out will probably end up being around 70k.
Thoguh fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 17:41
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caberham posted:Sorry to interrupt airport chat, but this is an extreme case of DYKWIA That is so amazing I wouldn't believe it was real if The Smoking Gun didn't have a page on it. I wonder what she was really yelling though. Thoguh fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 17:43
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Thoguh posted:Hilton has a pretty nice promo going on starting next month, double points Monday-Thursday and triple points Friday-Sunday. Except a full third of their hotels are opting out. Including just about every Hilton family hotel in Southern California, it seems. I've got around 25 nights planned during the timeframe of this promotion so that list is really disappointing. Luckily there is one Embassy Suites in Anaheim that didn't opt out. I guess I'll be staying there the next few months, since the difference in points for staying there vs. a hotel that has opted out will probably end up being around 70k. Weird. I'm staying at the Hilton in New Orleans next month and they're in but the lower tier spots (HGI and Hamptons) opted out. What's the point of having the promotion if you can't get all your properties to participate?
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Jul 28, 2014 20:16
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oxsnard posted:Weird. I'm staying at the Hilton in New Orleans next month and they're in but the lower tier spots (HGI and Hamptons) opted out. What's the point of having the promotion if you can't get all your properties to participate? It's usually a function of the property's need to build revenue/fill the rooms. If you're already sold out or have strong bookings during the period, there is little incentive for a property's revenue manager to recommend to the GM that they hand out extra points. This is precisely why the quality (being the value of stuff given away) of promos at all of the major chains has reduced steadily as we come out of the economic poo poo from 2008 that killed business travel for a while.
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Jul 28, 2014 20:38
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Got my new hire packet in the mail over the weekend, and have been reading up on the travel policy. Apparently company policy is to make all travel arrangements through Egencia, uninfluenced by reward programs. Should I just go ahead and toss all of my reward program memberships in the trash?
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Jul 30, 2014 00:56
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Depends on your spending! You don't travel or buy groceries on your own? Points accumulation would be much slower but doesn't mean it's all over!
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Jul 30, 2014 02:07
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Fryhtaning posted:Got my new hire packet in the mail over the weekend, and have been reading up on the travel policy. Depends on what exactly they mean and how they enforce it. My company's policy forbids us costing the company extra money due to a rewards program preference. But that doesn't mean it isn't possible to drive 90% of our travel to our chains/Airlines of choice. A lot of the time the price differences between the various options on a given route or area are pretty trivial. If it means you aren't allowed to even collect points though... Then you're boned. Thoguh fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 02:17
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Thoguh posted:Depends on what exactly they mean and how they enforce it. My company's policy forbids us costing the company extra money due to a rewards program preference. But that doesn't mean it isn't possible to drive 90% of our travel to our chains/Airlines of choice. A lot of the time the price differences between the various options on a given route or area are pretty trivial. I can still collect points, I can just see it easily being scattered across 4 or 5 airlines instead of with 1 or 2. Supposedly Egencia will spit out the lowest fare it can find, and, unless it doesn't make you reasonably on-time for a meeting or get you there outside of 2 hours of your desired arrival time, you have to accept it. I just hope it doesn't end up doing some bullshit like sending me through ORD and then back down to Florida or something just because AA beat Delta by  It also includes hotels (and car rentals, for that matter), of which they apparently have company-preferred ones. Not sure if they're all within one or two groups, though - I'll have to find out next time I get to talk to HR since I'm still 3 weeks away from my start date. One of the guys I worked with over there before I got hired always stayed in a Hilton or Hampton Inn, so at least I may reasonably be able to stick with the 2nd best hotel program. I think Egencia is a new thing for them, so who knows if they've since dropped the hammer on that.
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Jul 30, 2014 02:40
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Fryhtaning posted:I can still collect points, I can just see it easily being scattered across 4 or 5 airlines instead of with 1 or 2. Supposedly Egencia will spit out the lowest fare it can find, and, unless it doesn't make you reasonably on-time for a meeting or get you there outside of 2 hours of your desired arrival time, you have to accept it. I just hope it doesn't end up doing some bullshit like sending me through ORD and then back down to Florida or something just because AA beat Delta by Jigger your arrival and departure times so the airline you want is the best choice price-wise. When I was traveling a lot and stuck with Concur this worked great, and nobody at the company did any auditing after the fact because that would be difficult. And if you're connecting anywhere with AA on the way to Florida it'll probably be MIA.
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Jul 30, 2014 03:09
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We book through concur and the vast majority of people get their preferred airline. I even overrode a lower rate for a flight on an airline I have rewards for with the reason "preferred airline" in the explanation box and no one cared. The difference was ~70$ anyway. So don't despair yet.
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Jul 30, 2014 03:18
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Xguard86 posted:We book through concur and the vast majority of people get their preferred airline. I even overrode a lower rate for a flight on an airline I have rewards for with the reason "preferred airline" in the explanation box and no one cared. The difference was ~70$ anyway. I have a feeling that they very carefully worded things to protect themselves in an audit, like someone else alluded to. Saying you chose the +$50 option for rewards would not look good, but "preferred airline" is hard to find fault with when it came down to pocket change. Hell, since you have to use a personal CC I can claim a free checked baggage as what tipped the scale.
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Jul 30, 2014 03:51
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Fryhtaning posted:Got my new hire packet in the mail over the weekend, and have been reading up on the travel policy. SELECT REASON CODE: "Non-stop route" "Dates/times required" "Poor on-time performance" "Cabin availability" "Travel with client" Really the systems are so easy to game in so many ways. You want the 7am UA but your tool is incesent about taking the 7:30am AA? Start your search from 3am and find out the computer only searches for alternates within 4hours of your *requested* departure time. Say you want a flight from JFK-SFO, you preferred flight is not the cheapest, find a more expensive fare from LGA-SFO then click select alternate and enable near-by airports and choose your original flight as the 'low cost option'. Look how accommodating you are being flying out of a different airport! I'm not advocating use these techniques to get out of big fare deltas, but most minor ones are easily accommodated. Everyone who is in the game has the same understand, no one does 150,000 BIS miles to have it spread across six airlines. Just be reasonable about it and you'll be fine.
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Jul 30, 2014 05:58
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kansas posted:Everyone who is in the game has the same understand, no one does 150,000 BIS miles to have it spread across six airlines. Just be reasonable about it and you'll be fine. Depending on who does your audits this may not be true. I often find my auditors have never traveled for business and apply the rules rigidly (or in some cases make up their own) and you can't always bank on them not caring about a $50 difference.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:04
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Midjack posted:Depending on who does your audits this may not be true. I often find my auditors have never traveled for business and apply the rules rigidly (or in some cases make up their own) and you can't always bank on them not caring about a $50 difference. agree! I would not say you should blindly charge onward without checking how things are done at your company.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:36
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I don't know about Egencia, but in Conquer it is pretty easy to view what causes a booking to get flagged for an audit by looking at what the booking rules are.
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Jul 30, 2014 14:54
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Yeah, Concur lists the rules. I remember at one point when I had to use it, the audit flag was +$100 fare differential. That made it trivially easy to book preferred airline.
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Jul 30, 2014 17:39
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So I ended up about 200 miles short of Gold so far with United. For some reason I thought the Air Canada flight from Reagan to Ottawa would be counted as a 500 mile leg as opposed to the actual mileage. Oops! Won't be upping my status for another two weeks, oh well. Ended up with two F upgrades out of the 6 legs so not bad For an actual question, do they send out an actual card once you achieve a certain status? I never received anything when I got Silver but I assumed that was because there were so many they wouldn't bother sending anything out for that.
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Jul 31, 2014 06:56
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They are notoriously late with premier packages but typically mine have come in quickly, maybe 3 weeks or so? Wait 6 weeks and then call the mp service center.
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Jul 31, 2014 11:51
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Kinfolk Jones posted:So I ended up about 200 miles short of Gold so far with United. For some reason I thought the Air Canada flight from Reagan to Ottawa would be counted as a 500 mile leg as opposed to the actual mileage. Oops! Won't be upping my status for another two weeks, oh well. Ended up with two F upgrades out of the 6 legs so not bad If it was in the last two years or so, they had a massive backlog of sending out cards due to the merger. You should get it in fairly short order this year.
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Jul 31, 2014 12:50
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There have been a few years I haven't gotten my freaky flyer status card from United at all.
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Jul 31, 2014 12:55
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If you live near a hub the easiest way out is the availability of non-stop routes. Its way better to pay a little more than miss a bunch of commitments during the winter when you have a bunch of multileg routes. Every once in a while we start getting pressure about it, but nothing makes it go away faster than a trip with $1500 spent and 2 days time with zero output.
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Jul 31, 2014 13:27
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I haven't gotten my 1K card yet but the website shows that it should be here within the next couple of weeks. Normally I couldn't find a poo poo to give about the card, but the LH lounge dragons insist on having a card showing Star Gold on it before they'll let you in.
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Jul 31, 2014 13:58
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Mackieman posted:I haven't gotten my 1K card yet but the website shows that it should be here within the next couple of weeks. Normally I couldn't find a poo poo to give about the card, but the LH lounge dragons insist on having a card showing Star Gold on it before they'll let you in. Will they not accept the card that is in the United app? I've used that with success before.
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Jul 31, 2014 14:12
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kansas posted:Really the systems are so easy to game in so many ways. You want the 7am UA but your tool is incesent about taking the 7:30am AA? Start your search from 3am and find out the computer only searches for alternates within 4hours of your *requested* departure time. Yeah, this is the easiest way to game our system. The most strict filter options are aimed at people who have to go somewhere for a meeting at a specific time with no stayover, so it's only a two hour window. They ask you to not use that filter if you don't really need it, but don't enforce that, and it's pretty easy to dial in a specific flight unless you are leaving from a hub.
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Jul 31, 2014 14:23
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smackfu posted:Yeah, this is the easiest way to game our system. The most strict filter options are aimed at people who have to go somewhere for a meeting at a specific time with no stayover, so it's only a two hour window. They ask you to not use that filter if you don't really need it, but don't enforce that, and it's pretty easy to dial in a specific flight unless you are leaving from a hub. kansas posted:SELECT REASON CODE: Cocoa Crispies posted:Jigger your arrival and departure times so the airline you want is the best choice price-wise. When I was traveling a lot and stuck with Concur this worked great, and nobody at the company did any auditing after the fact because that would be difficult. I knew that goons would give the best advice on honorable cheating. Thanks.
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Jul 31, 2014 14:35
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Kinfolk Jones posted:Will they not accept the card that is in the United app? I've used that with success before. I've not had the issue myself but I know people that have. It depends entirely upon the agent that you encounter, sucks but very par for the course with most airline service folks.
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Jul 31, 2014 16:05
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smackfu posted:Yeah, this is the easiest way to game our system. The most strict filter options are aimed at people who have to go somewhere for a meeting at a specific time with no stayover, so it's only a two hour window. They ask you to not use that filter if you don't really need it, but don't enforce that, and it's pretty easy to dial in a specific flight unless you are leaving from a hub. I generally do this from the perspective that my time is valuable. If getting me to my destination two hours earlier via direct flight allows me to work more effectively with my client, I'm going to do it. In return, on those odd days where it really doesn't matter if I get there at 1:00pm or 6:00pm, and I don't have any meetings, I'll take the cheaper flight. Just curious: is anyone else using Microsoft Lync for business calls while in-air? I've done it a couple times just to listen in, but can't bring myself to take a meeting with a speaking role. Not that the person reclining into my lap would care.
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Jul 31, 2014 18:56
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Jesus Christ, don't talk on the phone while on a plane.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:06
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Jesus Christ, don't talk on the phone while on a plane.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:19
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