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For those of you like the OP, have you ever considered utilizing alternate airports or nearby locations to force your corporate booking engines to place you on your preferred airline? If you're flying 150K BIS each year and are not top tier somewhere, there's a major issue. It may not be for everyone as there is a given level of extra effort required (longer drives once there, etc) but, for example, when I have to fly to CLT, my corporate booking engine pushes me to AA or DL and I have elite status with UA. So I book one of the surrounding airports (AVL, GSO, GSP, or CAE) and fly UA. Sure, it takes me an hour's worth of driving to actually get to Charlotte, but I get PQMs on UA.
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Dec 4, 2012 20:35
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:The other thing is, I find it pretty dumb to do two segments versus one to just increase time, inconvenience and whatnot for status. It's certainly a value proposition that must be evaluated by each person participating in the program. For me (and many other travel nerds), more segments is more miles that hold significant value in the future depending on how they're applied. But if you're not interested in the value that those extra miles and perks can bestow, then yeah, it's probably not your bag.
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Dec 5, 2012 06:08
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Uncle Jam posted:I would never intentionally extend my trip for status because the chance of a missed meeting costs more than any benefits status provides. If your company is giving you poo poo for bag fees but asking you to travel, they are being idiots. If you extend your flight, doesnt that defeat the purpose of queue jumping to save time? Plus the queues for checkin and security are not so bad, only one time having priority really saved me. To be fair, check in and security queues are often terrible at some airports, so that comment is not universal. There are many times where an elite line (or now Precheck) has made the process not only simpler, but much less time intensive. But it depends where you're flying out of, what time of day, what day, season, etc. Lots of factors affect that. But yeah, like I said, it's up to the individual to make a judgement as to the value proposition offered by elite status at a given level.
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Dec 5, 2012 17:04
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i like Ham posted:Also gently caress the new Delta website, I have no earthly idea what they were thinking. United has a new site design coming in 2013 too. I hope they do things well. 
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Dec 6, 2012 17:40
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Mitsuo posted:Welp, bookmarking this thread ASAP. I'm starting a data center engineering job in January which will involve up to 75% travel, based out of Austin. Not sure which airlines I'll be using most just yet, but I have a feeling that as I get into it I'll be referring back to this thread pretty often. I live in Austin as well and it is a great airport for a city this size. Where you're going and what flexibility you have in picking airlines will determine what works best for you. Southwest is the largest carrier at AUS, but AA offers good connections to DFW and ORD for domestic stuff. United has great frequencies to Houston and can get you to the west coast (SFO or LAX) fairly easily as well. East coast stuff is a toss up between United and Delta, with Delta offering a few larger aircraft to ATL. But then you have to connect in ATL, and that's not my favorite personally. Lots of regional aircraft to MSP (and fewer to MEM as they start to de-hub).
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Dec 7, 2012 17:58
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Belldandy posted:That is awesome considering the impending merger I am facing! It is nice. Now if only US birds had power or, fancy the thought, some form of IFE. Though IFE is less important with Internet access and power. UA is rolling it out on the A319 fleet right now and I'm hoping they hurry the hell up with the rest of the mainline birds. It does make it so much nicer on the rare occasions I have to travel for work.
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Apr 30, 2013 22:19
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Shbobdb posted:I just want to vent about my travel agency. It isn't just that they are so very, very bad at what they do but they are also incredibly rude over the phone. I'm in sales. I'm a cheery, happy guy. I'm also super relaxed. So when I ask you to do your loving job like changing a reservation I want you to treat it not like I am asking for Moon-Men from Mars. Furthermore, I may be in a radically different timezone than you are. If I am living in a different day than you are, that doesn't mean that I am crazy. I'm sure there are good travel agents out there; I've just never met one.
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May 21, 2013 16:27
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CaptainPsyko posted:I don't fly enough to justify the hassle; 90% of my travel is overland. But I'm looking for a new bag for laptops and such anyway, so I figured I'd try to get one that makes flying easier too. Uh, you'd rather take all your stuff out and use five bins than have to take nothing out at all? PreCheck is the best thing to happen to America since beer and it is worth whatever effort you have to go through to get it.
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Jun 11, 2013 18:20
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sellouts posted:Probably just anecdotal but when I got it via status I would get denied. Once I got it via trusted traveler number from global entry I am like 24 of 25. Corroborating but still highly anecdotal, I've yet to miss using my trusted traveler number from Global Entry.
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Jun 15, 2013 13:20
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United announced spend requirements to achieve status today. Thankfully it's for the 2014 qualifying year.UA posted:Starting in January 2014, Premier qualification for members living in the United States will include a minimum annual spending level. We will track this new requirement with Premier qualifying dollars (PQD) – dollars spent on most United tickets, including partner flights, and Economy Plus purchases. The changes will not affect Premier qualifying miles (PQM) or Premier qualifying segments (PQS). The new criteria will look like this: http://www.mileageplusupdates.com/ has all the details and FAQs.
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Jun 18, 2013 14:23
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Thoguh posted:Hertz question. A couple of years ago I rented a car from Hertz at Rosenheim (first decent-sized town on the way back from Salzburg) and drove down to Fussen, returning the car to MUC that evening. I had a $50USD discount coupon to apply to the reservation thanks to an issue I had domestically prior to that trip. The Hertz desk agent in Rosenheim assured me he applied it, but he did not, so I had to go to the desk in MUC when I returned the car. It took the agent several minutes and some help from the supervisor (I don't speak German but I believe the discussion was over the valuation of $50USD in Euros) but they adjusted it and all was well. I have a feeling that if you have a print out from the Hertz site of your reservation (or perhaps the e-mail they sent when you originally made it) that shows the lower rate, they'll honor it. You could also try booking a second identical rate to see if you can make it happen again without the odd change. What you may be seeing is the authorization amount they'll put on your card after it's converted from Euros to US Dollars, but it's tough to say.
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Jun 18, 2013 15:18
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kitten smoothie posted: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. Count on it. In the next five years, miles aren't going to count at all. Everything is going revenue-based.
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Jun 19, 2013 14:53
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Belldandy posted:ConciergeKey (AA) and Global Services (United) are already revenue based. It's kind of logical, the more you spend the better you get treated. Agreed, what it weeds out is those folks who were doing mileage runs and whatnot on really cheap fares to get 1K. Sucking up lots of benefits for very little revenue in return. This will kill that, more or less. Hell, I have Gold status on UA and would not likely hit the $5,000 in spend required for the 2014 qualification year. Thankfully, I have the old Presidential Plus card that makes me exempt from the requirements. But I have a feeling that will change after 2014, causing me to seriously evaluate the money I spend on a couple of extra trips to make Gold (E+ is a requirement for me being 6'8") and buying the E+ subscription for my wife and I.
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Jun 19, 2013 16:56
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Gail Wynand posted:Don't forget, taxes don't count for your PQD's so your actual PQD's earned will be 10-15% below what you pay. They had a Presidential Platinum spend tracker on the old CO website (which is now the new UA website) so the infrastructure likely already exists for doing this. I imagine we'll see that roll out in early 2014.
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Jun 19, 2013 19:33
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Small White Dragon posted:Doug Parker has a known strong dislike of frequent fliers and FF programs, so whatever "enhancements" his guys come up with certainly won't be in your favor. I've only heard him speak once, but I walked away with the impression that he was mostly indifferent about loyalty programs. Where he had issues was with programs (and customers) who weren't profitable for the airline, as a good CEO should. He's runs his business fairly well, and the service and operations of US have improved dramatically over the last couple of years. But the merger with AA is going to be nuts, just like everyone else's mergers were. Delta was dogshit for about four or five years during the merger with Northwest, but they have a pretty good operation now; United has been dogshit operationally for the last year and a half or so and will continue to struggle for a bit longer as they get stuff worked out. American is going to be dogshit for the next four or five years as they get stuff worked out. It's cyclical.
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Jun 20, 2013 18:26
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Thoguh posted:I think the problem is that a frequent flyer program isn't something that is immediately profitable, and in the short run might even cost them money. For example, I generally fly Delta. In the short term they don't really gain any money from me being a frequent flyer. But by keeping me captive (because I don't want to have to start over to get status elsewhere) they will probably easily get over $1,000,000 in sales over the course of my working career, including more than a few last minute full Y or first class tickets. Skymiles makes it so they get all that money, rather than it being spread out among them and their competitors. Now if they would only make SkyPesos actually usable, they'd have a winner. But yeah, I've occasionally and secretly wondered what life would be like if Delta joined the Star Alliance instead of Continental. Hopefully my earlier thoughts about United come to fruition and they're able to turn things around.
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Jun 20, 2013 20:20
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Thoguh posted:Feeling kind of smug right now. I was stuck in the middle seat on a Delta MSP-SNA flight. The flight was delayed so they gave me some free rebooking options. One of the options was the flight I was already on, but the only seats available were in first. I selected that and it rebooked me into first. I even went and had an agent reprint my boarding pass to make sure it actually worked. That is most certainly a win. Free opup.
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Jul 15, 2013 22:11
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I'm booked to requal for UA Gold (thanks $450 trip to Rio de Janeiro) and am two stays away from requal for SPG Platinum. But it looks like I've got a couple of trips to Beijing coming my way next year, so hopefully I can do Platinum. I have the Presidential Plus credit card so I'm exempt from the spend requirements. 
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Sep 10, 2013 02:57
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air- posted:Need some help, I could use a recommendation on portable power bars and universal power adapters! Anyone have one in particular you like? I've got this one and then I carry a small four port multistrip. Fits in my laptop bag easily and all of my chargers for various devices will handle any voltage (100-240v). Not much needed past that.
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Sep 24, 2013 21:35
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I just scored a work trip to China in paid J. Hello Platinum. 
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Oct 8, 2013 03:12
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UA just issued a pretty massive devaluation to MileagePlus in the form of increased (in some cases, dramatically so) award prices, especially for partner metal. Earn 'em and burn em', folks.
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Nov 1, 2013 19:40
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TheLizard posted:Hahah the guys on Flyertalk are making GBS threads bricks right now. I'm glad I booked my trip to Hawaii early! Aye, they do that a lot which is why I stopped posting in the UA forum a while back. MilePoint tends to be a little more stable.
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Nov 2, 2013 03:20
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Nifty posted:I had an award reservation with United. A couple weeks after it was ticketed, I noticed the final return flight was not listed on my Reservation Summary anymore. This was a flight with their partner Asian Airlines. I got around to calling United, and apparently there was a "scheduling change" on this Asiana flight. I checked and there was what looked like the same flight, with same departure and arrival time. While the first UA agent you spoke with was clearly not helpful, they are often at the mercy of partner carriers for space when you have bookings across metal like that. And Asiana is well known for making changes and dropping segments and then simply not telling anyone. I had two Asiana segments this last weekend and I watched them like a hawk in the weeks leading up to the trip. Chances are high that Asiana dropped the flight and either had no replacement or had no fares in the original fare bucket you booked. The second agent you got did the right thing: find other options, checking their metal first.
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Nov 13, 2013 22:05
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Uncle Jam posted:Why the hell is DTW -> BOS on Delta so goddamn expensive? Or any surrounding airports? I'm told its usually this bad... http://www.skiplagged.com/ may help with that.
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Nov 25, 2013 15:09
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Cocoa Crispies posted:American Airlines is going to stop giving AAdmiral's Club privileges to American Express Platinum cardholders next year D: With the AX lounges going in at many AA gateways (like DFW), I don't know that this is a really terrible downgrade.
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Dec 5, 2013 13:53
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Uncle Jam posted:How are those lounges compared to Delta? AX lounges are better than any airline's domestic US lounge. The DTW lounge used to be NW's lounge so there's that. I haven't been there so I can't offer comment. Fun perk of living abroad and doing lots of business with US-based airlines. Star Gold is similar. Not all Asian lounges are great. Yeah, I'm looking at you Shanghai Airlines Lounge in PVG. What a dump.
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Dec 6, 2013 04:44
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Belldandy posted:Agreed 100%. First is nice but generally never worth the premium over biz, which can sometimes be 4-5x more. This is especially true for anyone flying AA on their new 777-300s. I have to disagree and echo sellout's thoughts: it depends entirely on the carrier and the equipment used. Cathay's first is awesome and a marked upgrade in both service and seat quality over business. Lufthansa offers those things and a little better catering as well, and if you can get F on the 744, you get a completely separate bed in addition to the seat. Singapore does something similar with their suites. Showers on Emirates. The list goes on. Now, I will never turn my nose up at a seat in business, and I agree with you that I would never pay the price premium for international first. But on an award, in some cases when the delta between business and first isn't very large, or you have SWUs, it's a really nice way to travel.
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Dec 22, 2013 19:22
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All balances reset to zero. My precious...
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Jan 2, 2014 15:35
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Belldandy posted:And I have no flights booked, aaahhhh! Thankfully I'm booked to 54,363 PQM through May at the moment, healthy mix of work and leisure. Starting the year off right with a visit to BRU and VNO in a couple of weeks. The paid J trip to CAN doesn't hurt, for sure. For those of you trying to stick to a particular airline for status but have to book all over, I humbly submit that Alaska Airlines has an excellent program. You can earn on Delta, American (soon to be US Airways as well) and Alaska flights, and they have a pretty spiffy partner redemption system. For hotels, I'm in SPG's camp at the moment. I used to have top tier with Marriott but 75 nights a year is a bitch to maintain when you're not doing it for work. If you are, Marriott isn't bad and they have properties everywhere. Hilton sucks thanks to their devaluations and I don't know that Hyatt has the market cornered like they used to, all though they have some very nice places, much like SPG does. It's really about where you see value, and it is entirely possible that hotel status may not make any sense at all depending on what you're looking for.
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Jan 3, 2014 04:50
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Pissingintowind posted:Anyone have airline alliance suggestions for someone living in Moscow, Russia? I'll probably be making 2-3 round trips to the US per year and then an additional "fun" trip (Brazil this year), and maybe some additional travel to Singapore and the Ukraine. If your MileagePlus account address is waived, the PQD requirement is waived as well. If you don't mind connecting in Europe, United is not a terrible place to have status, other issues notwithstanding. The only down side is having to watch any intra-Europe LH fares you buy as most of the LH cheap fare buckets don't earn miles in MileagePlus.
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Jan 7, 2014 19:52
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mim posted:Anyone get stuck anywhere this week? Things are starting to roll again so I dunno about that. I had to call the elite desk at UA and get a friend moved to a flight one day later earlier this week, but everything else has been mostly ok, and she was routing through ORD.
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Jan 9, 2014 22:33
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Thoguh posted:Flyertalk is the worst because it is generally a bunch of smug rich people bragging to each other and their moderation policy of only being allowed to say nice things turns it into a self reinforcing circle jerk most of the time. It is a great place to find out info but I always feel like most of the posters there need to get punched in the face more often. I stop in to read it every once in a while but I very rarely post there because of how ridiculous the threads are. I've been on FT for years and this is generally the reason I use MilePoint now. I will say that it greatly depends on the forum/thread that you're dealing with as some of them are great (like the Alaska Air forum) and some of them are horrid dogshit (AA, UA, and to some degree WN forums). There is still no better place on the Internet to find details about SPG hotels than FT, though. taco show posted:I'm on FT only because many members are super spergy so they have awesome, intricate spreadsheets and good tips and discount codes once you wade through the BS. I once, out of curiosity, went to a meetup and the members are just as insufferable in real life. I put on an event once a year for frequent travelers and, thankfully, the douche quotient is very low. I have been to other events where that is an issue, and holy poo poo the drama of trying to get people to pay their fair share of a check. If you want to give it another try, come party with us next year. 
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Feb 4, 2014 15:02
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Small White Dragon posted:AA does not give you fewer or extra miles for certain fare buckets. For most people, the points (fare) system is just an alternative elite qualification system that you can ignore. Indeed. Generally speaking, if upgrades are your primary concern, AA is a great program (for now). If you really like the ability to change your flight within 24 hours and use miles on Star Alliance carriers (though that just got a fuckload more expensive in premium cabins), United is the place to be. If you want to get there, pretty much on time, and don't care about the rest of it, Delta looks awfully nice these days.
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Feb 4, 2014 15:04
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Ynglaur posted:I'm ashamed to call myself a frequent traveller at this point. Heh, it happens. Showers are harder to come by in the US for sure; only the sCO United Clubs have them at IAH and EWR, and some AA and DL clubs as noted above, but that's about it. It makes the Senator Lounge at IAD quite the paradise.
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Feb 11, 2014 02:49
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sellouts posted:The EXP match is all but impossible. There were some reports of them doing it last year for the first time but I'm not sure of the requirements. It's maybe worth a call. If you've got paid J or F I would make sure to mention that. My understanding is that they did them specifically for UA 1K and even then only in certain markets. I agree that the likelihood is pretty remote.
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Feb 11, 2014 20:26
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Pissingintowind posted:Upper or lower deck of a LH 744 in J? Upper, always upper (except on the 748 where the footwells are smaller). I just got home yesterday from doing this: Wish I could go back to bed now. :P Edit: Pissingintowind posted:poo poo I just checked the flight, it's on UA metal The upper deck is definitely the place to be in J on the UA 744. I like row 14 or 15 because it's equidistant from the crappers and from the rear galley. Beef Of Ages fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Mar 18, 2014 |
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Mar 18, 2014 13:24
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i81icu812 posted:Huh. Details please! It was actually two trips that got melded together because I'm a The original trip was a vacation with my wife and I, my sister, and my parents. We were flying IAH-IAD-LHR//DUB-IAD-IAH on UA over the water and we had intra-Europe segments on BA for LHR-VIE and SZG-LGW-EDI and EI for EDI-DUB. My sister (the trip was her Master's program graduation gift) and my wife are huge Harry Potter nerds so we had to go to London so they could go see all that stuff (I went to the pub). We then hopped over to Vienna for a couple of days and made a day trip down to Bratislava so I could check another country off my list. As it turns out, Bratislava is badass and I'd love to go back for a few days. We had a train over to Salzburg for an overnight because I cannot pass up the opportunity to visit the Augustiner whenever I'm in that part of the world. Then over to Edinburgh for Stirling Castle (more Harry Potter poo poo, another pub for me) and a quick stop by the Falkirk Wheel because I'm a power nerd that way. Finally a hop over to Dublin for an overnight to avoid the UK departure tax. We were to leave March 6 and come back on March 16. Until I got a phone call from an exec at work asking me to be in CAN (Guangzhou, China) the week of March 3-7. The only other dates I had available at the time were in the middle of Chinese New Year so that was a non-starter. I decided that I'd take the trip to China and show up a day late to my vacation. After all, work pays for J and that's a whole shitload of miles. However, this presented a problem: I already had airfare booked for the vacation, and while joining my family a day late wasn't a big deal, I needed to fly the outbound sectors of that vacation ticket so that the return portion was valid. Given that, I developed the following plan: Change my vacation ticket that was departing March 6 out of IAH to depart February 28 out of AUS (where I actually live). Work agreed to pay the change fee. I had secured upgrades for everyone on the outbound portion of the vacation ticket, and was able to find AUS-IAH, IAH-IAD, and IAD-LHR that had R space (UA's upgrade bucket) so now I could leave from AUS and remained in a premium cabin the whole way. I then bought a work-paid ticket from LHR to CAN. This consisted of two tickets, LHR-FRA-HKG//HKG-MUC-LHR on LH and HKG-CAN//CAN-HKG on CZ. For those playing the home game, that's three separate tickets on three different airlines (creating three unprotected connections) across almost two and a half weeks. All told, I flew: AUS-IAH-IAD-LHR(UA)//LHR-FRA-HKG(LH)//HKG-CAN(CZ)//CAN-HKG(CZ)//HKG-MUC-LHR(LH)//LHR-VIE(BA)//SZG-LGW-EDI(BA)//EDI-DUB(EI)//DUB-IAD-IAH(UA) I am exceedingly fortunate that, as a charter member of the Tall-rear end Dudes Brigade™ at 6'8", all of the flights (except the intra-Europe segments where I had exit rows) were in premium cabins thanks to upgrade certificates that I acquired from generous friends and/or buy-ups, and work pays for J on international trips. Because I had a full J fare on FRA-HKG, I was able to use a paper SWU given to me by a friend to upgrade to F on the LH 747-8. That didn't suck. The only real issue I had was on the way back from CAN when I arrived in HKG five and a half hours before my flight to MUC left and the LH ticket desk didn't open until two hours prior to departure. I was stuck in the transit area at HKG for three hours, living as Tom Hanks in that terrible movie The Terminal. All in all, though, it was a great trip and I got all sorts of fun dots, lines, and new aircraft types for my FlightMemory.
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Mar 19, 2014 13:45
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oxsnard posted:People who recline without asking the person behind them are horrible monsters. Truer words have never been spoken.
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Mar 19, 2014 14:06
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Thoguh posted:Did it work over the ocean? Or just over landmass? I'm asking more as an engineer than a frequent traveler but I'm wondering if it was cell based like Gogo or a satellite connection. For that price and those speeds I'm assuming it was cell based and only worked over land. UA's option on all of their aircraft except the 752 p.s. birds (which use Gogo) are satellite based. China has not issued approval for other countries to use unfiltered Internet access while in Chinese airspace, so it cuts out over China (and other countries with similar restrictions). I used Lufthansa's solution over Russia and I don't believe they have any specific prohibition for United or other carriers, but I could be wrong about that. It was $17.99 last year when I flew HKG-SFO so I do find the price decrease interesting given the razor-sharp focus on increasing revenue at UA these days.
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Apr 1, 2014 03:38
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Are you out of BOS? Do you know what they're doing with the Terminal B setup to support the merger? I just toured the new UA facility in Terminal B that opens at the end of the month. The conversations I had with the Massport guys indicates that they're going to continue to use both sides of B as they do today, and then B6 will take over the rest of C that sUA is vacating and completely redo it so it sucks a lot less. The upside of this is that with the new UA wing opening in Terminal B, all of B will be connected airside. It will be a bit of a walk around the horseshoe to get from US B to AA B, but you can do it without clearing security again.
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Apr 3, 2014 15:02
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