Anyone Have A Preference.....

[Mountie]

Come on Denise, you're just a little too cranky on the subject of frequent flier miles.

Lighten up and set down in your cramped coach seat and pay attention the safety instructions.

[jsattapr2]

I've been inspired to consider a pre-Christmas visit with some friends in London. I spent some time this morning investigation United's Mileage Plus site, since I too had a fair number of Continental OnePass miles rolled over. I was initially excited when I found Business Class award seats available during my desired travel window. Then I looked at the additional fees. It would only cost me $5.00 plus the miles to fly to London. However, on the return, the fee rocketed up to $287.

What? I mean what is this all about? Why the huge jump?

[kyshel]

LHR, I assume. They have the HIGHEST taxes and fee of ALL European airports. Even when we fly "free", our cost is $140. We don't have to pay all the tax you do because of value of your ticket.
Sadly, that's the way it is. LGW has slightly lower costs. Maybe take the chunnel for the difference and fly back via CDG?

[[email protected]]

JS - that is what I am talking about with the United/Continental usage of FF miles - the fees to use them are totally out of wack.

Mountie - my hubby says that if I did'nt have something or someone to rant about, then I would'nt be happy. I find it keeps my old brain working......

Anymore it is hard to pay attention to the safety instructions since they are usually taped now and the last few flights that I flew in coach.....the monitors did'nt work ;-)

[LL_Travelfan]

We just flew JFK - LHW - MUC after our flight JFK - MAD was cancelled. AA rerouted us through LHW and miraculously did not charge us the horrendous fees applied to LHW. In February, when we also flew via LHW to MUC, our so called "free" FF tickets showed a total of $420 per person of various fees. The fees at LHW are outrages, and BA is the worst offender. I will not fly through London if I can avoid it. I do have a bunch of BA Avios points, but they are basically useless if you want to fly to Europe or within Europe, because all BA flights must go through London and thus cannot avoid the LHW unreasonably high fees.

[bonniejoy03]

LL.....I agree with you about those yucky AVIOS points. I did find a good use for them though. They can be used on LAN for domestic flights in Argentina and Chile. I played around with some options and they have extemely low avios point requirements. I also looked at using some for hotels in Maryland and received some nice options.

[copahc]

jmbklj...r/t 50K, plus $49.20 vs 100K normally. The ATP Portugal res agent was especially helpful in directing me to best travel dates and I booked on-line through United.com.

Would you mind letting me know how you found such an award? I didn't know they existed!

[copahc]

I'm really confused, because united saver awards are 50k one way in biz, not RT.

[omegaet]

Would you mind letting me know how you found such an award? I didn't know they existed!

copahc....you are right....these awards don't exist!

I deserve a hand slap for the misinformation(honest mistake).

The ATP Portugal award through United Airlines - Airline Tickets, Vacations Packages, Travel Deals, and Company Information on united.com was actually 50K each way or a total of 100K r/t plus $49.20.

The ATP Portugal agent's assistance came in the form of working through her entire inventory of available BIZ seats for a specific travel window, while I searched the award site. Without her assistance, the process would have taken much, much more time.

Once again, sorry for the confusion and thanks for pointing it.

[LL_Travelfan]

O,
I thought the 50K Biz award was for o/w. 50K r/t would have been too good to be true. AA has similar o/w 50K Biz awards to Europe and we are using one of them to return MAD - MIA in October. Unfortunately, these saver awards are only applicable for shoulder- and off-season. In peak season, these awards jump up to 100K o/w. We too had excellent help from the AA agent at the FF desk.