Why Is It So Hard To Use Frequent Flier Miles?

by Willy Volk on

Last year, I needed to fly to Alabama for a funeral. On the phone with the customer disservice representative, I learned I had two choices:
1.) I could fork over nearly $1000 for the round-trip (non-stop) flight.
2.) I could surrender roughly 70,000 frequent flier miles I had saved up.

Ultimately, I chose to give up the FF miles, because I was afraid Delta would confiscate them anyway during their restructuring.

Over on the Huffington Post, frustrated traveler Jason Bartholomew tells a ridiculous and shameful story (for the airlines) about trying to cash in some of his miles for a flight from JFK to Orlando. Ordering the tickets 7 months in advance, he’s told there are no frequent flier seats left for the legs he wants. Then, he’s told it’ll cost him 100,000 miles to make the flight work. Later, he learns that the airline wants to charge him to correct their error and change reservations he didn’t even make! His experience is at turns hilarious and irritating, but the screwball comedy of Kafka-esque proportions has a (somewhat) satisfying ending.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Jason, and take comfort in this: according to Consumer Affairs, the availability of seats for frequent fliers will increase throughout 2007. If you’re looking for some other tips about how to negotiate the messed-up world of frequent flier miles check out these tips:

Passport Rules Eased Temporarily

by Erik Olsen on

Neil pointed out just the other day how the state department and the passport process are in a HUGE mess over new rules requiring everyone who leaves the country now to have a passport. In all honesty, it’s probably a good thing that more Americans will have passports. That might up the impetus, if even just a little, for more Americans to travel, something that is sorely needed if we are to continue to project our power and influence around the world. But dealing with the passport agency is a lot like the Post Office or the DMV: slow and painful. And as Neil wrote, the snafu on getting passports on time has wreaked much havoc around the country.

Well, there is a bit of a reprieve in sight. Not much, but a little.

Until the end of September, travelers will be allowed to fly without passports if they present printed out State Department receipts showing they had applied for passports and government-issued identification, like a driver’s license. But what about people who haven’t already applied for a passport? It doesn’t seem to say. Which is lame. They ought to just put things back the way they were for a few months until they get the whole mess sorted out. Oh, and the rule and the suspension do not affect Americans crossing into Canada or Mexico or taking cruises.

The suspension should allow the State Department to catch up with a massive surge in applications that has overwhelmed passport centers since the rule took effect this year, but then again, who knows. It’s the State Department, after all.

JetBlue Adding Real-Time Google Maps In-Flight

by Justin Glow on

Low-cost American airline JetBlue announced yesterday they have struck a deal with search giant Google to provide the familiar Google Maps software on the seat-back screens to map the flight’s route in real-time. Family and friends will also be able to pull up JetBlue.com and track any flight via the same Google Maps interface.

In celebration of the deal, JetBlue is running a contest called “JetBlue Point of View.” All you have to do to enter is take a picture from the window of any JetBlue flight between June 4th and September 3rd and email it to jetbluecommunity@gmail.com. Winners will be selected based on “aesthetic presentation, creativity, design, and audience appeal” on September 10th, and the top ten photos selected will earn their taker two free round-trip tickets to and from anywhere JetBlue flies.

Google Maps Skyview anyone?

Flights Getting Longer

by Iva Skoch on

The Wall Street Journal recently had a scary article. We all know about the congestion at airports, often firsthand. What’s crazy is that this increasing air traffic is leading airlines to increase their scheduled flying times, in order for flights to appear to be on time.

For example, United has added 33 minutes to its regular Philadelphia to San Francisco flight, compared with ten years ago. Delta added over 20 minutes to its New York to Fort Lauderdale route in the last 10 years. American has added 25 minutes to its N.Y. to L.A. route in the last 10 years. Most New York to D.C. flights are now blocked out at around 2 hours, even though the actual flying time is about 35 minutes, and this constitutes approximately a 50 percent increase over the scheduled time from 10 years ago.

A rough review of a couple dozen flights revealed that there is around 10 percent more time allotted to common flight routes, as compared with 1997. This schedule-padding allows airlines to trumpet “on time” flying, even though, according to the story, there’s 30 minutes or more of delay built right into that schedule.

Airline Seats: Feel Cramped? That’s Normal.

by Jamie Rhein on

Once, when my husband and I were flying (before kids), I had a window seat and he had the middle. The man next to him in the aisle seat was as broad shouldered as my husband is. My husband wondered sweetly if I would mind switching with him. “Yes, yes I would,” I said. There was no way I wanted to be sandwiched in by shoulders. With the window curving out slightly, I had some room for one of my elbows.

According to the latest travel complaints, a small seat is becoming the number one cause for people’s unhappiness while they wing from one place to another.

Here’s what comfortable seats would look like:

  • A seat wide enough so you aren’t rubbing shoulders with the person next to you. 19-20 inches is adequate.
  • Lap-level workspace
  • A seat pitch that’s 35 to 36 inches. (The pitch is what gives you leg room and is determined by the front-to-back placement of seats.)

The reality:

  • Most airline seats are 17 to 18 inches.
  • Most seat pitch is 31 inches.

If you want wide seats, try Midwest Airlines.
The seat best pitch is on JetBlue airplanes.

For more details about where to find seat comfort, check Ed Perkin’s article, “Finding the Least Worst Coach Seats” at Tribune Media Services. Along with mentioning particular airlines, he tells which models are the most and least roomy. Also, at Skytrax you can view regions of the world, the airlines that fly to them and check out the pitches of the airplanes.