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Just did a ORD -> YYZ flight and was able to buy a business upgrade on an embraer 175 from 20c to 2a for $40. I've never seen the upgrade option be so cheap. Made back all of that in alcohol, with free space just being a perk.
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Jan 16, 2015 02:51
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It's such a short flight though... Barely 1:20 on the long end. I usually only try for upgrades in flights closer to 3+ hours
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Jan 16, 2015 03:12
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taco show posted:It's such a short flight though... Barely 1:20 on the long end. I usually only try for upgrades in flights closer to 3+ hours Ended up being just shy of 3 hours end to end. Never underestimate ORD delays on the tarmac!
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Jan 16, 2015 03:16
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Thoguh posted:SNA Upgrade list out of there is always silly long.
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Jan 16, 2015 03:31
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sink the biz posted:You don't need a mifi at all in S Korea. There are hotspots everywhere including on the busses, subway, etc. SK, Olleh, and LGU+ all offer packages and have English versions of their website. If you don't have mobile internet in this day and age, you are sub human. Or a teenager circa 2007 with an ipod touch relying on some free hotspot
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Jan 16, 2015 04:55
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Can someone explain how splitting reservations with United affect your complementary upgrades? Somehow I hosed up in the check-in while doing it quickly with my phone and our reservations got split. We got two first class upgrades on seats apart even when there are close open seats available. Also upgrades happened at a different time - I got it first. My companion has no status and it was my first time booking a companion in the same reservation with United. I called United and they put us together but I never got a clear answer of what happened.
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Jan 16, 2015 05:29
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The Risk posted:Can someone explain how splitting reservations with United affect your complementary upgrades? If there is one seat available (or at least fewer seats available than number of people on your PNR), if you choose to upgrade the system will split your PNR to allow your upgrade since UA's systems cannot have one upgraded person and one not within the same PNR (without some shenanigans). When this happens, you go on the upgrade standby list and are processed normally. Your companion goes on the list as a companion which means at the bottom of the list for your status level. So if you're a 1K on an L fare and there is another 1K on a G fare, you would be first, the other 1K second, and your companion third. This is why they processed at different times. Aren't CPUs fun? 
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Jan 16, 2015 07:20
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In other news, good morning from the Senator Lounge at MUC. I've got my breakfast beer and am about to attempt to sneak it into the shower with me. 
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Jan 16, 2015 07:21
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Mackieman posted:If there is one seat available (or at least fewer seats available than number of people on your PNR), if you choose to upgrade the system will split your PNR to allow your upgrade since UA's systems cannot have one upgraded person and one not within the same PNR (without some shenanigans). When this happens, you go on the upgrade standby list and are processed normally. Your companion goes on the list as a companion which means at the bottom of the list for your status level. Noo! If you split the PNR, they lose all companion status! Bags, CPU, and with more disastrous implications, IRROP handling. The only thing that doesn't go away for them is if you booked them in E+ originally they keep their seat. Do not split the outbound unless you want to split the whole thing. And once it's split, not even the best SHARES wizard can put it back together. It's done so be careful. Do not check in before going to the airport as if you aren't immediately added to the gate CPU list, it kicks both of you off. Check in at the airport and ask the agent to remove the NO UPGRADE flag from your PNR. Also do not use the auto-checkin feature for the return on the same itinerary. This will automatically split your PNR! The only thing I hate about the split/auto-split system is the elite dads and moms that don't know about it or forget or split without knowing the implications and then throw the plane into upheaval because they got upgraded leaving 4 and 6 year old Billy and Sally in coach. Frustration Friendly 
AgrippaNothing fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 13:59
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Mackieman posted:If there is one seat available (or at least fewer seats available than number of people on your PNR), if you choose to upgrade the system will split your PNR to allow your upgrade since UA's systems cannot have one upgraded person and one not within the same PNR (without some shenanigans). When this happens, you go on the upgrade standby list and are processed normally. Your companion goes on the list as a companion which means at the bottom of the list for your status level. Aristotle Animes posted:Noo! If you split the PNR, they lose all companion status! Bags, CPU, and with more disastrous implications, IRROP handling. The only thing that doesn't go away for them is if you booked them in E+ originally they keep their seat. Do not split the outbound unless you want to split the whole thing. And once it's split, not even the best SHARES wizard can put it back together. It's done so be careful. Do not check in before going to the airport as if you aren't immediately added to the gate CPU list, it kicks both of you off. Check in at the airport and ask the agent to remove the NO UPGRADE flag from your PNR. Correct me if I am wrong but to avoid all this poo poo with United all I need to do is disable auto checking and check in personally at the airport? Why things can't be simple...
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Jan 16, 2015 20:35
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The Risk posted:Correct me if I am wrong but to avoid all this poo poo with United all I need to do is disable auto checking and check in personally at the airport? Yes. And buy one ways so you can be flexible and not worry about the other bullshit. It's one of a few nutty things about the SHARES system that CO migrated after the merger. It's ridiculous and they refuse to fix it. Even this old CO dog hates it. Edit: if you do split, you can add your companion to the gate CPU battlefield at the airport and they will clear with the last of your elite class. I think that is what Mackieman was referring to. AgrippaNothing fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 22:06
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So United clears people with companions at the same level as whoever they are with? I actually prefer the way Delta does it in this instance where people with companions clear after all elites have cleared all the way down to Silver unless they split their PNR. Which I have done before in order to make sure I'd get an upgrade that I could then give to my fiance. Basically I look at the upgrade likelihood and if neither or both of us are looking like we'd move up I don't split the PNR. If it looks like one of us will I split it and make sure her seat is the one in the aisle since I'll be the one who ends up sitting in it while she takes my seat up front.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:36
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So I'm going to Germany and Turkey this year from Hong Kong. gently caress you One World, your network sucks. HKG -> STR --> BER -- > ADB (Izmir) --> ESB --> IST As much as I love to book everything through One World to claim mileage, it seems like Star Alliance is the most hassle free and comfortable way to go. Lufthansa to Stuttgart, drive to Berlin (6 people on a VAN) and then a flight to Izmir. I'm debating on driving a van across the highways of Turkey but maybe just take a train or short flight. Arrgh. Edit: is there a way to combine everything into 1 giant itinerary? Do I contact star alliance because it seems that I will be using a mix of Lufthansa in Germany for direct flights and Turkish Airlines for Direct flights. caberham fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 04:19
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caberham posted:So I'm going to Germany and Turkey this year from Hong Kong. gently caress you One World, your network sucks. HKG -> STR --> BER -- > ADB (Izmir) --> ESB --> IST I think your trip is already too busted up over days but I'm not really understanding what it is you are doing. Are you flying to Stuttgart for a couple days work and then trucking to Berlin to catch a crazy itin into Istanbul? I mean, you are not really going STR-BER because you are driving that leg so it's not like they can interline your bags. If the point of this is that you are seriously going HKG-IST, you can achieve this on LH by flying into MUC or just going TK direct but you already know that so I would say no. What's the purpose of joining it all to one?
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Jan 19, 2015 16:06
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Hi frequent flyer thread. I have a question about AA's current promotion for buying miles where they say you get bonus miles. I only found out about this yesterday and as I'm not a flyer (frequent or not) my new AA account isn't able to buy miles until after the promotion. Has anyone had any luck before calling up their AAdvantage desk to get this restriction removed?
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Jan 19, 2015 19:17
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puchu posted:Hi frequent flyer thread. I have a question about AA's current promotion for buying miles where they say you get bonus miles. I only found out about this yesterday and as I'm not a flyer (frequent or not) my new AA account isn't able to buy miles until after the promotion. Has anyone had any luck before calling up their AAdvantage desk to get this restriction removed? Generally buying miles is a terrible value outside of needing something to top off a balance so you can get a specific reward flight.
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Jan 19, 2015 19:19
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Thoguh posted:Generally buying miles is a terrible value outside of needing something to top off a balance so you can get a specific reward flight. That's what I've read online, including this thread I think. However I did a comparison between the cash price of a trip and a trip using miles and it turned out to be far cheaper with miles (instead of 4k it works out to be under 2k). I'm surprised as well and will be double checking all my working for sure.
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Jan 19, 2015 19:24
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My family is going on a vacation in March, but due to a business event I'll traveling on separate itinerary to meet up with everyone at our destination. My parents almost never fly, but will be for this trip. They will likely fly AA/USAir, and I always fly AA for work travel. Since any miles they would earn will no doubt expire before they fly again, is there a way I can get these miles? If they sign up for an AA account can they transfer the miles to me after they've been awarded?
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Jan 19, 2015 19:28
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Almost like buying miles, transferring the miles won't be cheap and generally not worth the money.
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Jan 19, 2015 19:38
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nickutz posted:My family is going on a vacation in March, but due to a business event I'll traveling on separate itinerary to meet up with everyone at our destination. My parents almost never fly, but will be for this trip. They will likely fly AA/USAir, and I always fly AA for work travel. Since any miles they would earn will no doubt expire before they fly again, is there a way I can get these miles? If they sign up for an AA account can they transfer the miles to me after they've been awarded? Xfer fees are terribly expensive and you cannot deposit them directly to any account not belonging to the individual whose butt will be in the seat. Protip, you can keep the mileage account active with a silly 5 buck purchase through the Aadvantage shopping mall.
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Jan 19, 2015 19:47
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caberham posted:Edit: is there a way to combine everything into 1 giant itinerary? Do I contact star alliance because it seems that I will be using a mix of Lufthansa in Germany for direct flights and Turkish Airlines for Direct flights. TripIt is probably the best way to do this.
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Jan 19, 2015 21:20
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So AA won't remove the 14 day restriction. Pity, but also what I expected.
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Jan 19, 2015 21:33
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puchu posted:That's what I've read online, including this thread I think. However I did a comparison between the cash price of a trip and a trip using miles and it turned out to be far cheaper with miles (instead of 4k it works out to be under 2k). I'm surprised as well and will be double checking all my working for sure. Is that assuming that reward tickets are available at the lowest levels? Or did you check for actual availability on that flight (which still could change between now and five minutes from now)? If the tickets available for sale are expensive, chances are the reward tickets are as well.
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Jan 19, 2015 21:42
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Aristotle Animes posted:Xfer fees are terribly expensive and you cannot deposit them directly to any account not belonging to the individual whose butt will be in the seat. Somewhat annoying but not unexpected. Probably wont even worry about registering them in the program as I doubt they'll ever fly enough to earn a reward flight while they're still healthy enough to travel.
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Jan 19, 2015 21:50
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Edit: ^ it can be as low as 12.5k for a domestic ticket! Might as well keep it active Yeah, puchu, what's your goal here? It seems very weird that you can get a deal like that via miles on AA. They've tightened up a lot of the reward travel in the past years. Cocoa Crispies posted:TripIt is probably the best way to do this. Also, I believe once a numbrt is assigned to an itinerary, it's very hard to combine trips. That's what's true for AA, at least. taco show fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 21:54
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Thoguh posted:Is that assuming that reward tickets are available at the lowest levels? Or did you check for actual availability on that flight (which still could change between now and five minutes from now)? If the tickets available for sale are expensive, chances are the reward tickets are as well. I did two searches on AA's site, one for one way and another for redemption. The one way had ridiculous routing do I checked it against kayak - lowest kayak price was $4k. The redemption availability (requiring $2k worth of miles) hasn't changed for 12 hours - or at least, it's still coming up as available to redeem on the AA website when I searched 5 mins ago. I don't know if it will still be there in two weeks time. This is an Asia to Europe route.
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Jan 19, 2015 21:57
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taco show posted:Edit: ^ it can be as low as 12.5k for a domestic ticket! Might as well keep it active Essentially I've think I've worked out that I can potentially buy miles from AA and get a business class redemption ticket for less than the cash price. I am most likely loving up a calculation somewhere and will be embarrassed in due course heh If someone here has an AA account and wants to see if they can find what I see, please let me know here and I will PM you. puchu fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 22:01
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Probably everyone here has an AAdvantage account - just post your dates and routing.
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Jan 19, 2015 22:12
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Ok. I basically searched AKL to LHR flying Sep 1 2015 in business. This comes out at 60k miles + $100 tax. Miles can be bought for under $2,000, which is less than the cash fare. Sorry, routing is AKL -> BNE -> HKG -> LHR
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Jan 19, 2015 22:17
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Well, I certainly see it available for 60k miles. Hopefully it sticks around for you! Maybe try and work out a deal with a friend to gift you the miles. Also, that iten is a slog. 33 hours good loving lord.
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Jan 19, 2015 22:28
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taco show posted:Well, I certainly see it available for 60k miles. Hopefully it sticks around for you! Maybe try and work out a deal with a friend to gift you the miles. Unfortunately I don't know anyone else with an AAdvantage account apart from I guess the posters in this thread. If anyone knows anyone... The standard itinerary for AKL -> LHR is 20 hours on Air New Zealand and 30 hours on Emirates. You can see why I'm looking for business class here.
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Jan 19, 2015 22:31
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I'm tempted to take 2k for the 60k in my account.
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Jan 19, 2015 22:56
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I should clarify that I was speaking in New Zealand dollars which are like .78 of a U.S. Dollar. 2k us in miles can fly first on that same route
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Jan 19, 2015 22:58
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Ah. Good luck! I love the akl to hkg direct on cx a340s with the old herringbone style biz seats.
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Jan 19, 2015 23:00
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puchu posted:I should clarify that I was speaking in New Zealand dollars which are like .78 of a U.S. Dollar. 2k us in miles can fly first on that same route Sent you a PM
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Jan 19, 2015 23:07
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sellouts posted:Ah. Good luck! I love the akl to hkg direct on cx a340s with the old herringbone style biz seats. I've heard it's delightful (from those lucky enough to fly it). Have you ever had a chance to fly in to the old airport at Hong Kong with the ridiculous approach? This must be about 20 years ago before they moved to the new airport.
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Jan 19, 2015 23:13
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Nifty posted:Sent you a PM Haha dammit! I was gonna suggest that exact idea to puchu- you could offer goons to just book the award travel for you and pay the cost of the miles.
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Jan 19, 2015 23:14
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air- posted:Haha dammit! I was gonna suggest that exact idea to puchu- you could offer goons to just book the award travel for you and pay the cost of the miles. Well I need 3 tickets (one for me, two for my elderly parents so they can experience it for the first time ever) so any goons out there willing and able are most welcome I worked out that the BNE HKG LHR routing has two seats available and another routing leaving sept 1 through Sydney and Haneda has one seat, so I might be stuck doing a 10 hour layover in Tokyo puchu fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 23:17
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nickutz posted:My family is going on a vacation in March, but due to a business event I'll traveling on separate itinerary to meet up with everyone at our destination. My parents almost never fly, but will be for this trip. They will likely fly AA/USAir, and I always fly AA for work travel. Since any miles they would earn will no doubt expire before they fly again, is there a way I can get these miles? If they sign up for an AA account can they transfer the miles to me after they've been awarded? Alternatively, sign each of them up for AAdvantage Eshopping and make a $1 iTunes purchase or somesuch through the portal once a year.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:06
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Trip it looks fun, thanks guys.Aristotle Animes posted:I think your trip is already too busted up over days but I'm not really understanding what it is you are doing. Are you flying to Stuttgart for a couple days work and then trucking to Berlin to catch a crazy itin into Istanbul? I mean, you are not really going STR-BER because you are driving that leg so it's not like they can interline your bags. If the point of this is that you are seriously going HKG-IST, you can achieve this on LH by flying into MUC or just going TK direct but you already know that so I would say no. What's the purpose of joining it all to one? Sorry, I have a site visit in Stuttgart, a week long expo in Berlin, then another site visit in Izmir, Ankara, and finally a meeting with the client head office in Istanbul before I go to back to Hong Kong. It will be 5 guys and 1 girl in this trip. When I booked for 6 individual rooms in Berlin, one co-worker asked "hey man, no need to book individual rooms, we can all share 1 twin room, 1 triple room, and 1 single room for the girl". Sharing rooms is perfectly kosher and encouraged  I supposed I will just buy 2 tickets separately. The reason I wanted everything in one sabre# is for travel insurance, and easier to expense things for *shudder* finance. Also, that single leg from HKG --> STR is kind of expensive. If it's 2 separate Itineraries, I might as well fly Cathay and claim that little bit of air miles for myself and pay for exit row seats. Does Lufthansa/Turkish Airlines have something similar? I can't find it through their websites and the only information I found was that it's a "discretion basis not available for online checkin" Going to drive a Mercedes Vito VAN at 200 km/h again. Oh so fun. And load up on instant noodles. Oh yeah and bringing multiple ziploc bags to bag those receipts with a little note book.
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Jan 20, 2015 05:12
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