Tagged: United Airlines

Teddy Ruxpin Prefers the Aisle Seat

Last year, United followed Delta’s lead to require flyers seeking elite status to qualify with at least 25,000 miles flown and at least $2,500 spent. In exchange for all those miles and cash, United hasn’t announced any great new offerings for its elite flyers. Meanwhile, Delta offers Wi-Fi on most every flight, first-class on regional jets, and a pretty compelling airport lounge (with free olives).

And they also made this 1980s-themed in-flight safety video.

My favorite part of the video is when you see the couple hear about Wi-Fi and shrug in ignorance, “I don’t know what that is.” The one 1980s artifact in this video that I had completely forgotten was Teddy Ruxpin, which you see with seat belt fastened. And, yes, Alf need help securing his oxygen mask.

Although the video is a bit long, it makes me wonder, “why can’t United do something like that?”

(Via Jaunted.)

My Last Apollo Flight

Last United Apollo Flight

For the fifty-ninth time, I flew between JFK and LAX, which I did for my nephew Alex’s second birthday.

Of those fifty-eight flights, all but four have been on United Airlines, and Thursday’s flight was the last I would fly through United’s now-retired reservation system Apollo. As of March 3, the new United switched to SHARES, Continental’s legacy system. Since I have a fascination with deprecated technology, it is interesting to see a long standing technology platform go by the wayside. But unlike most technologies, which either fail or fade into obscurity because they stop working, Apollo is being retired because of a corporate merger, and a merged airline needs only one reservations system.

The end of Apollo won’t mean the end of anything for my flying or anyone else’s, other than the backend computer system that processes flight reservations and other passenger services. However, it’s hard not to feel a bit nostalgic as it marks the end of an era.

Five States in One Day

It was supposed to be a pretty straightforward trip to Paducah, Kentucky, originating in Newark with a long connection in Chicago.

We started the day in New York as we do every day, but we had to cross the Hudson River, into New Jersey, for our flight departing Newark. A classic “I-95” rainstorm, running up the entire eastern seaboard, delayed the incoming aircraft by over two hours. That, in turn, delayed our Continental Airlines flight to Chicago and our long two-hour-plus layover turned into a very risky connection. Although we ran from our arriving gate to the Paducah gate, we missed our United Express flight. We were automatically rebooked on the last flight of the following day, which would put us into Kentucky a full day after than we had planned.

Sarah insisted that we not lose the entire day so we asked if we could be rerouted on a United flight to Nashville, and Sarah’s family would pick us up and drive to Kentucky. The agent promptly rebooked us and issued boarding passes for a flight to Nashville.

The new flight required an overnight stay so we asked if we could get vouchers for a hotel. Since it was the Continental flight that caused the misconnect, we had to ask them for accommodation. Continental doesn’t have much of a presence at O’Hare so it was a bit of a challenge to find someone, but we eventually found someone at the baggage claim office. The Continental agent obliged us and handed us complimentary hotel and meal vouchers. Thanks!

My experience with weather delays and missed connections is pretty limited. It only happened once before, when I flew on a different airline, and I was offered a discounted room, which is an airline’s standard practice. I am fairly certain that because our Newark-Chicago flight was late due to weather, we were not entitled to the hotel and meal vouchers, but I suspect that elite status might have helped in this case.

In either case, Sarah and I made the best of it. We used our meal vouchers for the Tortas Frontera at the B terminal at O’Hare and had one of the best breakfast tortas east of the Colorado River. (Note, if you have one of these $12 vouchers, get a breakfast torta and a coffee.) It also worked out because while we were at O’Hare, a reasonable one-way fare from Chicago to Los Angeles became available. Since I was using some travel credit certificates I received in September for giving up my seat, I had to redeem them in person at the airport. It would have been very difficult to redeem had we not been at O’Hare.

Although it was unfortunate that our plans turned out a bit different from we had originally planned, it helped to keep our cool and ask politely for help. I hope everyone remembers that this holiday season before screaming at an agent.

My Strategy for Finding Mileage Run (or a Cheap Fare)

With the end of the year is a mere ten weeks away, I’m sure that many potential travelers are looking for airfares to either reach or maintain elite status with an airline or to just get a decent fare for the holidays. Finding a good airfare isn’t as easy as simply going to a travel booking site and sorting by price. That might work sometimes, but if you are flexible with your travel dates and times, as are most people doing mileage runs or booking leisure travel, you can really score a good fare with a bit of work.

What is the Lowest Published Fare?

Update: At the moment, the Fare Compare mileage run tool is not available. I’m leaving the instructions in case the tool returns, but until it does, the site is completely useless and full of SEO tricks to generate page views. Gross!

Throughout the day, I go to the FlyerTalk Fares at to find the lowest published fares for my region.You have to do this frequently because the best airfares are sometimes available for only a few hours, and airline sales have been notoriously bad deals. Also, don’t get lost looking at the rest of this site. The FlyerTalk Fares and the Custom Fare Alerts are the only useful parts of this site. The rest of the site stinks of link baiting and SEO gaming.

To find my fares, I use both “NYC” and “EWR” since those fares are listed separately. I rarely fly to international destinations so I stick with North America as my zone. The default list sorting is by Price Per Mile, but I change that to Sort by Total Fare. Then I look for places to go. If I want a mileage run, then I look for fares with low PPM, but if I want to go a specific place, then I look for fares. If I don’t like the prices, then I stop looking and go back to my life.

If I do like it, I then note the fare bucket (the first letter of the fare class) and the airline. Then I look for the fare rules.

What are the Fare Rules?

There are a number of sites that can help you find fare rules. The two sites I’ve used with great success are ExpertFlyer, which is a premium site with very powerful tools, and Wandering Aramean’s Travel Planning Tools. In either case, you want to pore over the fare rules. You should pay attention to:

is the fare one-way or round-trip?
if it’s a round-trip fare, what is the minimum or maximum stay?
what is the advance purchase requirement?
is the fare valid only on certain days of the week?
when does the fare expire?
are there blackout dates?
does the fare require nonstop travel or are transfers allowed?

If you feel you can live with the restrictions, which the cheapest fares almost always have, then look for flights that meet these requirements.

What Flights Can I Take?

One of the most valuable tools for frequent fliers is ITA Software’s Matrix. The company was recently acquired by Google, and we’re all hoping that they do not get rid of the Matrix because their new Google Flights is almost useless.

You have to use the advanced options to find flights that meet the conditions of the fare.

Note that the “Departing from” and “Destination” fields are pretty straightforward, but the codes below each city/airport need explanation. I used “UA+” to one or more flights on United, but you should use the two-digit code for your airline. The “/F” means to search for flights that meet the following fare conditions. The “BC=G” tells the Matrix to search for flights that are listed with the booking code “G”, but you should use the code that you found with Fare Compare.

Change the dates to what works for you, and begin your search.

It’s possible that the Matrix doesn’t find flights that meet your criteria. If that’s the case, then you should change your dates and search again. It’s also possible that despite the fact that there’s a fare published for your origin and destination (“city pairs”, as they’re called) but flights do not have any seats available in that fare bucket. This is how airlines manage their pricing: they published specific fares, the impose restrictions on those fares, they make available in or withhold seats from certain fare buckets.

Once you find flights that work for you, go to that airline’s site and buy the tickets there. There are lots of advantages to doing that, not the least of which is that the airlines can control the reservation should something go wrong. It’s probably not something you’ll need, but it’ll make things easier should your plans go awry.

Works for Me

I discovered this method about a year ago, while scouring the FlyerTalk message boards and finding a ton of valuable information that travelers have posted on online fora, countless blogs, and a couple of wikis. The “commons” have been a valuable resource for strategies on finding good airfares. Using this method, I was able to book some very inexpensive flights to the Pacific Northwest, including a pure mileage run to Seattle. There’s nothing more satisfying than learning to do something yourself and seeing it actually work.

But if you prefer to skip the research for learning the system, Nicholas Kralev wrote a nice concise explanation to Decoding Air Travel. I probably knew 80% of what was already written here, but had I read this a year ago, I would have saved a lot of time and spared my eyesight some. But I’m a scholar so I am not supposed to fear doing research.

Update: If you’re ready to delve further into The Matrix and use the advanced codes, check out Google’s support page and this explainer on how to use those codes.

The above link to Amazon is an affiliate link. If you buy something that link, I will earn a commission fee.

Our First Mileage Run

Perhaps it is a bad sign that Sarah and I didn’t get to ride our bikes to Montauk this year, but we are taking our first mileage run this weekend. We will be going to Seattle, by way of Los Angeles, leaving at 7:00 AM on Saturday morning and landing at JFK just 24 hours later.

I upgraded our seats to business class on the westbound JFK-LAX segment so we will have a very comfortable place to sleep and a little breakfast once airborne. Unfortunately, we won’t have the sundae bar, which is one of my favorite parts of flying United’s JFK-LAX/SFO business class service, but we will have an almost lie-flat bed. We have a long layover in Los Angeles on the outbound portion and will be having breakfast with my dad at Pann’s Restaurant near LAX. On the turnaround in Seattle, which begins about three hours after we land in Seattle, we will be having dinner with Sarah’s friend Grace at Thirteen Coins, what Sarah calls an old man restaurant near the Seattle Airport.

The inbound portion of the run will be pretty streamlined with no long connections so there won’t be much time for any more visiting. At best, we will have time to hang out at the club, get a nightcap, board our flight, and get some sleep after a long day and almost 6,900 butt-in-seat miles.

Second Annual Labor Day Weekend VDB

A funny thing happened on the way back from a Labor Day-weekend trip from Los Angeles.

I was scheduled to go from Burbank to Newark, via a connection in San Francisco. The flight from Burbank went as smooth as a flight could go, except for spilling club soda on myself, but what can you do? The other flight however was oversold, and they were looking for volunteers. This happened to me last year, and I was so pleased with the compensation that I always try to volunteer whenever possible. It’s what it’s known as Volunteer Denied Boarding, or VDB.

It turns out that they needed my seat, and about a dozen others, and I stayed behind, for a little compensation, of course.

Travel Credits

United’s policy is to offer $400 in travel credits, in $100 increments, and these are useful to have throughout the year. The best part is that, unlike the old free trip vouchers, these actually accrue mileage.

Hotel Voucher

Since I am an out-of-towner in San Francisco, the airline provided me a free hotel voucher. It was at the Holiday Inn Express in Burlingame, a relatively dingy property compared to the other Holiday Inn Express properties I’ve stayed. I did manage to get a full night’s sleep and a shower so that’s all I really need.

Amenities Kit

A few years ago I learned that if your bag leaves without you and you are stranded overnight, the airline will provide you with an amenities kit with your standard toiletries. To get one, simply go to the airline’s baggage claim office, present your baggage claim check, and you’ll get your kit.

Upgrade to Business Class

Instead of being rebooked on the first flight out of Newark, I was offered a business class seat to JFK. Last year, I got a double upgrade to First Class but Business class will do just fine.

Meal Voucher

I’m not exactly sure why I got one of these, but I received a dinner voucher. Since everything was closed by the time I got all my compensation coupons, I used it for lunch at Yankee Pier. The voucher didn’t cover my entire bill, but it was nice to have subsidized seafood at an airport. Much better than your usual airport offerings.

I’m about to board my flight to JFK so almost all the goodies have been used up. All that’s left is to figure out where to go with those travel credits.

Where Should I Go… for Free?

A few weeks ago, I won two free round-trip tickets on United-Continental to anywhere they fly in the following territories:

United States (48 state + Alaska)
Canada
Mexico
Central America
Caribbean

It’s a cool prize, except that finding availability is a little challenging. Also, the seats are in economy class, and sadly, the tickets are not upgradable (elite upgrades don’t apply nor can you upgrade with miles.)

But I am simply unsure where to go. Any suggestions?

Summer Cocktail: Inflight Madras

Cross Country Madras

En route to LA at the moment, and it’s been a while since I’ve had the inflight cocktail off the business class menu on United. I was a big fan of the Sunrise Sunset cocktail that was around last year, and I even made it a few times at home. Although the Delta version with bourbon was much better.

The current cocktail on the JFK-LAX route is the Cross Country Madras, which is a tweaked version of a madras. (A madras is basically vodka, and equal parts cranberry and orange juice.) The inflight version replaces the vodka with dark rum, and has a bit of a kick. Let’s just say that I slept pretty soundly once airborne, which was great given that I was on the 6:30 AM flight and barely got four hours of sleep the night before.

Portland via Philadelphia, Houston…and Seattle for Good Measure

phl-iah-pdx-sea-iah-phl

This was my first mileage run–cum–long weekend vacation with Sarah. Sure it took almost 12 hours to get from one place to another, but it netted us over 6,000 miles for about $215. The only bummer was that it required a train trip to Philadelphia and a bus ride back to New York.

We found an even better deal to Portland in June, from LaGuardia to Portland, via Houston again, for $170. Wow! Too bad I couldn’t route through LA and had a chance to see my parents for a few hours. Oh well.

Four Flight Miles Short!

Four Miles to Premier

The birth of my nephew has given me a pretty big reason to see my family more often than ever before. It’s not like I’m going out there every week (or even every month), but it’s more than my customary once a year trip. Those transcontinental flights to LA have added up, and I found myself creeping close towards United basic elite (“Premier”) status.

After this past weekend’s jaunt, I ended up with 24,996 miles flown this year. That’s right, just four miles short of Premier status! That’s fewer than the six miles I live from JFK!

There’s some solace because I have two more round-trips coming up, one in November to Kentucky on US Airways, and one more to LA in December. Those will clearly put me over the 25,000 mile mark (even above 30,000) but still nowhere close to the next (50,000 mile) level. Unless I do some clever mileage runs, but I don’t know if I want to spend 40 hours on a plane in the next two months.

Juan Monroy