Back to travel posts. This was written Monday June 25th:
As I compose this post Mel and I are flying back to South Lake Tahoe from Norfolk, VA where we participated in our friend Lisa’s wedding. We didn’t make our air reservations till late and ended up booking an award on American Airlines. We are both frequent flyers with American. Mel is the most elite class, an ‘Executive Platinum’ and I am a mid-level ‘Platinum’. We were able to book ‘anytime’ award tickets from Sacramento to Norfolk without any problem. We had limited choice of seats as the flights were very full. We did the best we could on full flights. We flew out (and back) on MD-80s. These aircraft have a 2-3 seat configuration in coach class, with 2 seats on the left hand side of the aisle and three on the right. We flew out in coach bulkhead on the two-seat side one leg and in the exit row, also on the two seat side, on the last leg. This was a red-eye and not too bad overall.
Monday we had the same, two-seat side exit row seats for our first leg from Norfolk to Dallas-Fort Worth. While we were waiting to board the gate agents announced the flight was overbooked and that they were offering $250 travel vouchers to those who would accept a later flight that day. (Our advice: too low! Hold out for at least $400!).
When we went to board the plane (in the first group after first class boarding, another perk of being an elite status frequent flyer with American), our boarding passes with the assigned exit row seats were rejected at the gate agent’s scanning machine. Mel turned to me and said, “you’re lucky you’re flying with an Exec. Platimum!” The agent went to the counter and returned with our boarding passes and said “much better!” – we were assigned to first class seating! This is called and ‘Op-up’ or ‘Operational Upgrade’ in American Airlines lingo. Because the flight was so overbooked they freed coach class seats by giving any first class seats that were available to their elite passengers. Of course first up were any Exec Platinums (and their companions) and that just happened to be us.
Some of the benefits we get as American frequent flyers include:
- Preferred check in (we can use the fist-class line to check in even when flying coach)
- Upgrades on an as-available basis in exchange for ‘coupons’, which are good for 500-mile segments. You earn coupons as you accumulate flown miles and/or you can purchase them for $35 each.
- A dedicated toll-free number to call for help with reservations, etc. These phone centers are staffed with the highest quality of customer service agents.
- Reduced cost for Admirals Club memberships (these memberships are a good thing! Look into them.)
- Ability to reserve certain coach class seats – the more forward and exit row seats are not available for advance seat selection to non-elite flyers. They also feature power ports for your laptops, DVD players, etc.
- Preffered list for stand-by seating. This means that elites are given any available stand-by seats before any other passengers. If your flight is cancelled, this can be extremely valuable.
- Exec Platiumum members are awarded 8 ‘E-VIP’ upgrades. These can be used to upgrade one class of service on any flight (including international). We have used these on our flights to Europe and, trust me, once you fly business class across the pond you just don’t want to fly coach again.
A good source of further information is a site named flyertalk which is a forum at which you can sit at the knees of the masters. These people know everything.
The moral of the story: choose an airline, join their frequent flyer program, and remain loyal to them, racking up as many miles per year as you can. Get a credit card that awards miles to the same frequent flyer program. Get with the program! In this day and age you just do not want to be one of the unwashed masses when the going gets tough.