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Anyone else done a mileage run for status' sake? I needed four segments at one point so I tried to find the cheapest possible routing I could get. Ended up going out on a Saturday morning and flew to Omaha by way of O'Hare. I got off the plane in Omaha, bought a snack, and got right back in the boarding line. Locked in status and back home in time for dinner.
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Nov 15, 2012 02:43
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:National is fun to fly in to. Sit A side window and hope you get the River Visual approach. Great view of the Mall. I have never seen a flight attendant yell so loudly and so quickly at someone, as when a dude a few rows ahead of me unbuckled just before final approach to put something in the overhead.
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Nov 16, 2012 02:15
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When I was traveling a ton I was going to the same customer every week - longest engagement of mine had me going the same place (via two flights and a border crossing, 10 hours door to door) for 9 months on end. I came on the project in the middle; by the time everyone rolled off at the end a couple of my colleagues had been traveling to that same client for 2 years. I left that company but a friend of mine still works there, and she had been assigned to one customer for about four years straight. Her schedule was so solid that every springtime she'd buy a bike off Craigslist, and her hotel would hang onto it over the weekends for her in a storage room. In the fall she'd put it back on Craigslist. Logistically, going the same place seems so much easier. I had my own desk and lockable cabinet at the client office so I could leave a bag of toiletries in there and not have to worry about a TSA Freedom Baggie. I could drop off dry cleaning on a Thursday morning and pick it up on Monday evening on the way out to the hotel. The club lounge attendants didn't bother to charge my room when I grabbed a beer. All good things.
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Nov 27, 2012 03:06
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Belldandy posted:I usually ask the people I am working with for good spots to check out, and I know its dumb but I use Yelp a lot. As obnoxious as Yelp reviews can be, it is still really helpful for "I just landed here, it is 9pm, what is open that isn't an Applebees." OpenTable is also handy too; I would make a reservation or two for the week before even getting into town. That helped beat the inertia I would get once I got back into the hotel room after a long day and wouldn't want to go back out again. It was too easy for me to head to the hotel to "rest up for an hour" and then next thing I know it's 10:00 pm and my options were severely limited.
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Nov 27, 2012 19:38
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sellouts posted:Lounge access at Exec plat level is like what, $350, with free access on any intl itinerary. Bearing in mind that "international" is defined as "your itinerary is not wholly within North America or the Caribbean, even if you are in fact flying to another country." Although somehow Mexico City is exempted from this rule. I only was made aware of this fact after being turned away (granted by a very friendly front desk agent) after presenting a Canada-bound boarding pass. Makes sense, I guess, must be too many people with status flying solely within NA to give them all lounge access.
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Dec 2, 2012 17:59
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FrozenVent posted:At least with AirCanada (Aeroplan, but they're a star alliance member), buying a tank of gas at Esso was enough for me. Same with United, any earning/redemption activity at all will bump the expiration date. Even buying one $1 song/app through iTunes, so long as you click through United's referral links first. That usually clears pretty quick but can sometimes take 60-90 days, so while it's something you can do every couple months to keep the account current if you're not flying with them, it's probably not something to rely on if you're really closing in on your expiration.
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Dec 4, 2012 02:24
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sellouts posted:You do not earn EQM or EQP via credit cards on AA anymore. That program you watched is pretty outdated. Miles required to get status are BIS miles. Butt in seat. Sometimes there are double EQM or EQP programs but yes. Up until last December any mile (BIS, credit card, rental car/hotel bonus) counted for the 1MM/2MM lifetime Platinum/Gold programs, but I didn't think you could ever get annual status qualifying miles from cards. There were lots of people on FlyerTalk applying for dozens of AA Citi cards and using them just enough to get the 25/50/75K mile bonus off each card to get them closer to the 1MM or 2MM mark though. Then again, I could be wrong; the AA program used to do plenty of things that are long gone now, like blocking out the middle seat if an elite passenger was sitting in the row. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Dec 7, 2012 |
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Dec 7, 2012 19:28
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routenull0 posted:I see a good bit of travel coming on in the next few months for this project in STL The AA concourse was closed for a year for repair and they moved them into the old TWA section that had since been closed off and was just used for storage and occasional movie filming. The airport looked like a total backwater dump with all of the terminal windows boarded up for so long. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 19:41
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Vortex Street posted:The Bad: This right here is why I got out of the travel game. I was sick of my friends cutting me out because they just assumed I was going to be out of town, even on weekends. It really wore down on me, way more than the 4700 mile/week travel schedule did. It wasn't as rough on my marriage as it is for some people. My wife is a lawyer and she worked long enough hours that realistically we had just about the same amount of quality time if I was traveling or not. I was working a long term project in Vancouver and loved the city, so that made up for a lot of it. It did ruin the movies for me since I can spot way too many filming locations now.
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Dec 10, 2012 20:16
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size1one posted:You have two choices for PreCheck: If you live in a city where you can do a NEXUS interview easily, get NEXUS. It's just $50 instead of $100, and will get you Global Entry for free because the US side of the background check is the same and they already have your fingerprints on file. NEXUS is a little more versatile too because you can use it when transiting through Canada (as they make you clear customs even if just passing through). Suppose you're traveling to the US from Asia and have a stopover at YVR, as some folks often end up having to do - you can use NEXUS to zip through Canadian customs, then immediately use it again to go through US preclearance. At least when I got my NEXUS pass, the interview was just for taking my fingerprints and iris scan. I think the only question they asked really was why I wanted the pass, and "I travel here every week" was a perfectly acceptable answer.
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Dec 14, 2012 07:54
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Lonely Wizard posted:Took me 3 months from application to interview for Nexus at a large hub. I hear the wait times are significantly smaller if you want to go really far out of your way, though. I've had coworkers wait up to 6 months to get one in Toronto. It took me 3 weeks to get an application approved and the soonest interview timeslot in the Vancouver area was 2 months away. However I checked the scheduling site every few days. Within a week of being approved I sniped an interview spot someone canceled out of and got right in. My boss and I were approved at the same time and he was able to snag a canceled spot a week after I did, so it's worth it to keep checking often. Edit: I got my pass 3.5 years ago (it's valid for 5 years) so the wait time could well be much longer now. The advice about looking for cancelations still stands. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Dec 17, 2012 |
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Dec 17, 2012 17:47
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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. 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.
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Feb 20, 2013 04:59
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Small White Dragon posted:It's $50 now? I thought I paid $100, but I could be wrong. Global Entry is $100, Nexus is $50. And they give you Global Entry for free if you have a Nexus pass, since they've already fingerprinted and background checked you. So if you're either traveling to Canada a lot or you live on a border town where you can do the Nexus interview, then you ought to just take the Nexus 2-for-1 deal and save $50. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Apr 9, 2013 |
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Apr 9, 2013 02:45
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Lonely Wizard posted:Check daily, cancellations happen all the time and you can reschedule it much closer. My initial interview was 5 months out, switched it to 1 month. Closer dates were even up, but I didn't want to have to skip work.
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May 8, 2013 15:00
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Now that United's done it, I assume post-merger American will dump the "elite qualifying point" concept and will be the next to add an annual spend requirement.
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Jun 19, 2013 14:29
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kansas posted:I'm not a UA flyer but Marriott (where I'm platinum) just sent me an email stating they were granting me whatever third tier status is. It sounded like a big program based in the graphics and branding so I'm guessing other Marriott folks may get the same thing. It is a thing: Your United status gets you status on Marriott. Also, your Marriott status gets you status from United.
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Jul 17, 2013 22:07
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Belldandy posted:That's called a Platinum Challenge. The caveat is that you can only do it once. If this is the deal in question, it actually looks like it was different than the standard challenge. Under this you could even earn EXP for flying 30K miles between 9/1 and 12/31, and I don't think you've ever been able to challenge into any level above Platinum. http://thepointsguy.com/2013/08/american-airlines-elite-status-fast-track-offer/
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Dec 8, 2013 07:19
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You're actually lucky that you didn't make gold, because if that promo was like the one they did earlier in 2013, it was also only for people such as yourself who had no AA status at all. Not a bad deal even if you can't requalify for EXP in 2015, because assuming they keep their soft landing policy going forward you'll have some kind of status till the end of 2017.
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Jan 12, 2014 17:00
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Has anyone gone through the PreCheck enrollment directly with TSA? My Nexus pass expired, I live in STL where there's no Global Entry enrollment facility, and I don't travel internationally enough to justify the hassle of trying to line up an appointment somewhere that I think I might be a month or two from now. So it's just easier for me to pay the $85 for a 5 year membership and be done with it. I've got an appointment tomorrow for the in-person part of the process, just curious how much time I should budget and what they actually do besides take fingerprints and (I assume) a photo.
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Mar 20, 2014 02:35
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I went to the address listed on my PreCheck enrollment appointment, which was near an airport (but the second-tier one used mainly for private jet flights), so I thought it was just a satellite gov't office. Turns out it was some third party contractor's office that in addition to TSA PreCheck, they did TWIC cards, life insurance physicals, general fingerprinting services (like for a professional license), and a bunch of other similar services. Took 5 minutes, if that. They verified my info, scanned my passport, took my fingerprints, and my $85. Now I just get to wait for them to turn it around.
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Mar 20, 2014 22:21
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oxsnard posted:There's literally nowhere to plug your phone in and the food options are dogshit This reminds me; it's been a year and a half since I've been through the AA terminal at LAX, so I don't now if this is still a problem anymore, but I realized I could print money if I could source some adapters for the funky electrical outlets there and sell them on the internet for $20 each.
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Mar 31, 2014 01:55
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Shbobdb posted:It depends on where you are going in Canada. Vancouver? They don't care. Ottawa, oh yeah. They care. They really really care. Edmonton has been a bit of a mixed bag for me, it depends on whether I've got an Albertan nationalist on my hands. I haven't worked much with Montreal but they seem to be more on the Vancouver "who gives a poo poo?" end of the spectrum based on my co-worker's experience. I went to Vancouver weekly to do on-site implementation for a software product my company sold. After about three or four trips (this was while my NEXUS background check was in process) and them seeing weekly stamps in my passport they started giving me a bit of hassle. I was always arriving at YVR in early afternoon at the same time as about four or five 747-loads of people from various points in Asia, making the customs line often 1.5-2 hours deep, so that added to the frustration. The phrasing I used was extremely important in order to make it all go smoothly, and on one trip the CBSA agent stopped being a dick long enough to explain this to me. I had to specifically make it clear up front the client purchased the product from us, and I was providing implementation services pursuant to the sale contract. Under NAFTA you do not need a work visa for service after the sale. I made sure to get a letter from my company's Toronto office (where the rest of my project team was based out of) stating specifically the name of the client and the services to be rendered. After six weeks or so of this my NEXUS pass cleared and everything was right with the world.
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May 2, 2014 14:29
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Take care of yourself. Eating poo poo food, not exercising, and drinking too much are hard habits to break, so just don't start them. Pack exercise clothes and shoes, and a resistance band set if there's no gym in your hotel. If you're going the same place every week, wash your clothes Wednesday nights and leave them in a bag with the hotel concierge for when you come back.
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May 9, 2014 01:50
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Ynglaur posted:Sign up for every single points program their is, for every single airline, hotel, rental car agency, and train. If you make a career of
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May 9, 2014 02:52
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The worst hotel internet I've seen was one whose "free wifi" login page said that you were subject to reasonable usage constraints, but they didn't elaborate as to what those were. Turned out that it was configured such that if you downloaded more than 250MB within an hour, you were put in the penalty box and throttled down to dial-up speeds for 60 minutes.
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May 16, 2014 05:20
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Mackieman posted:Yep, selling miles to banks and other marketing partners is wildly profitable for most US-based airlines. It's like crack to them. Most loyalty programs have their own P&L responsibility, with some going so far as to spin off separate companies to manage it. It also gives them a nice source of cash injections when they need it. Citibank pre-purchased $1b worth of miles from AMR in 2009 to use for the AAdvantage credit cards, for example. However, according to their SEC filing, it was more like a loan, and the miles weren't "payable" to AAdvantage/Citi customers until 2012.
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Jun 6, 2014 20:53
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kansas posted:My only ever opup in 500+ flights has been the coveted STL-ORD route. It was caused because of irrops and there was an equipment swap of a 777 for several 737s (I forget exactly why, but I believe the 2 class DFW-ORD flight was diverted due to storms). I flew on the intl F hard product for a full 35 minutes. All it did was confirm my suspicions that I was way wiser to book my real intl F on JL or CX instead of AA. Living in St Louis, I'm sad that the only reason why we ever see any kind of reason for a widebody aircraft here anymore is disrupted operations like this. I miss TWA.
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Jun 18, 2014 10:05
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Do you get precheck on other airlines as a FF? I use my NTN for everything so I always get it now, but for those whose precheck is tied to a specific FF program, do you get it on other airlines as well? If you get precheck by way of a specific FF program, then you only get it if you're flying that airline.
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Jul 19, 2014 02:23
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DJCobol posted:Absolutely get it. And if you ever go to Canada, just get Nexus, which will get you Global Entry and Precheck anyways. Or if you live/travel near the border or close enough to get to one of these enrollment centers, just get Nexus anyway, because not only does it get you Global Entry, it costs half the price of GE.
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Aug 13, 2014 03:51
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Goober Peas posted:So my complaint about airline seats are that they make my tailbone hurt. I'm 6'2", 195# and can get reasonably comfortable unless i'm in the window seat of a regional jet. But something about airline seats kill my tailbone. I need to start carrying a hemorrhoid cushion. United's newer slimline coach seat design seems especially bad to me in this regard. It feels like the cushion may as well just be painted on.
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Aug 30, 2014 20:16
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Aristotle Animes posted:MCI is a joke of an airport. Frigging car rental building is a grandeur the traffic of a regional airport could never fill. It's also a joke if you have the misfortune of having to connect through there. The architecture pre-dates security checkpoints of any kind, let alone the TSA, and the design was driven by TWA wanting parking garages integrated with the terminal so you could just drive in and walk a minimal amount to your gate. So you end up with a security checkpoint for a cluster of gates and minimal services for passengers beyond security.
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Aug 31, 2014 21:35
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Lambert in St. Louis is its own special form of too big for its britches at this point as well. And landing and facility fees are sky-high compared to other airports because of the debt service on the bonds issued to fund this project, so it impacts the ability to attract new carriers to take any of that capacity. We're talking a figure that blows most every other airport out of the water. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Sep 2, 2014 |
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Sep 2, 2014 21:44
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Pissingintowind posted:3. You are being forced to share hotel rooms with a coworker (seek a new employer) What's everyone else's company policy on this? Every place I've worked at, they definitely don't require room sharing for anything they could charge to a customer. Neither for teams or small groups traveling on nonbillable business. Basically 98% of the travel you'd do. However, for big meetings where they fly in a bunch of employees from all over god's green earth, then they've required that you share rooms or else you buy out half the room rate. I generally end up attending such a meeting maybe once every two years and have one coming up next month. While I don't really care to share a room, $300-400 of my own money is more than I'm willing to part with in order to make a principled stand on the matter.
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Sep 3, 2014 14:46
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Speaking of Uber, I didn't realize you can set up Uber to send receipts straight to Concur. This looks handy.
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Sep 17, 2014 06:23
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Delta stranded me and my wife in Detroit a couple years ago thanks to a mechanical delay making us miss a connection. Having status didn't stop them from booking me into a fleabag Comfort Inn where they had a $30/night negotiated rate, and handing us some meal vouchers. The hotel had a late night bar though and they accepted our Deltabucks for booze and appetizers, so there was at least that.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:28
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canoshiz posted:If you guys use Concur their mobile app lets you take a picture of the receipt and enter it as an expense directly from there. Concur also has the ExpenseIt app, which will automatically fill in all the expense item info (or try to) given a receipt image. I think your company may need to have a separate license for this app over and above what you already have for Concur expense tracking. Considering that sometimes it comes back in minutes and other times overnight, I feel like they most likely are just using Mechanical Turk to have an actual human copy the details off the receipts. It seems to do a decent enough job though on simple stuff like taxi and meal receipts.
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Nov 8, 2014 06:21
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Midjack posted:I think they're also doing it to renormalize boarding because too many people are too high status. Just about every flight I've been on that originates in the US has at least half the plane in the first two boarding groups. The worst was a 737 where all but 10 people were group 1. Like The Incredibles, "when everybody is special, nobody's special" and this is a way to partially undo that status inflation. I would bet a lot of that is also because they've started offering group 1 boarding benefits to airline affinity credit card holders. Which is tough for the airlines to walk back from, because they're so addicted to the revenue from the banks that issue those cards. American got a huge cash injection in 2009, when they struck a deal with Citibank to sell them a billion dollars worth of miles up front. This wound up making Citibank a major claimant in the BK case later on, and Citibank used that as leverage to make sure they remained the card issuer post-merger.
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Nov 15, 2014 18:20
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Up until now at airports I've been with precheck, the line was nonexistent (STL, SFO, LAS, DEN). Show my boarding card, enjoy the time warp to 9/10, done in 30 seconds. I went through MCO though and I now see why people hate the policy of randomly shunting people into the precheck line. They had to basically have one TSA person stationed there whose only job was to shout "sir, you don't have to do that" at people who went grabbing sixteen bins for their shoes, cost, and laptop.
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Nov 16, 2014 16:50
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P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:Chiming in to say that this was a big help for me. On layovers, I now try to walk laps of the airport. Before they walled off the disused former TWA concourse here in STL in like 2009, they put a big sign up advertising it as a walking path. Walk to one end and back, you've got a mile. It was a depressing mile, though. When AA pulled up their stakes in 2003 the airport never did anything else with the place, not even taking down ad billboards, so you'd pass a lit-up ad for Expedia pushing it as "top rated travel site for 2002."
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Dec 5, 2014 16:38
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sellouts posted:My wife and I took less than 5 days each and that was through lax interview center which was booked 3 months solid at one point. Same for Nexus too, at least in terms of watching the cancellations. I waited a few weeks for my Nexus background check to clear. When I got the conditional approval they were booked quite a ways in advance, but I checked every morning and managed to snipe a cancellation. Also remember that if you have Nexus you get Global Entry for free. I can't remember if you have to fill anything out, or your info is automatically good at the GE kiosks, ask at your interview.
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Dec 13, 2014 17:53
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