May 25th, 2013 at 1:00PM: TheeErin via Flickr (Creative Commons)
It was not yet 6 a.m., but I had a bad feeling about how the day was going to go. The stone faced desk clerk had no interest in checking me in here in Vienna, not to mention through to my final destination, Seattle.
"No. Different booking."
"But it's with the same airlines..."
"Different booking. No."
"So I'll have to..."
"You'll need to ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
frequentflyer posts
Follies And Fixes In Long-Haul Travel
May 25th, 2013 at 1:00PM: TheeErin via Flickr (Creative Commons)
It was not yet 6 a.m., but I had a bad feeling about how the day was going to go. The stone faced desk clerk had no interest in checking me in here in Vienna, not to mention through to my final destination, Seattle.
"No. Different booking."
"But it's with the same airlines..."
"Different booking. No."
"So I'll have to..."
"You'll need to ...Save With Frequent Flier Miles Using The Right Tools, Attitude
Mar 4th, 2013 at 1:00PM: Accumulating frequent flier miles seems to be the easy part of the deal. We fly. We get miles. They add up. However, when we look a bit closer we find there are rules, and that all miles are not equal. Once we get tens of thousands of miles on a given airline or alliance, however, the focus shifts to using them. And that's when life as a frequent flier can get difficult.
A good first step is to ...United Passenger Flies A Million Miles In One Year
Dec 16th, 2012 at 2:00PM:
A United Airlines passenger who takes the term "frequent flyer" very seriously has racked up a million miles in the sky during 2012.
Tom Stuker, an automotive sales consultant who lives in both suburban Chicago and New Jersey, reached the record-breaking number earlier this month on a flight between London and Chicago, United announced in a press release.
This is just the latest ...Babies and first class: why is this an issue?
Mar 12th, 2012 at 3:00PM: Earlier this week, I saw a story about babies and first class air travel posted on Facebook. The Facebook poster asked our own Heather Poole (flight attendant, mother, and new book author!) for her thoughts on the story, and she replied, "I'm fine with babies in first class. Usually they just sleep." Columnist Brett Snyder is a frequent flier and new dad wondering if he should use miles to upgrade ...'Mile Runners' are in it for the long haul
Oct 16th, 2011 at 11:00AM:
A group of frequent flier hustlers is so obsessed with wracking up miles they are willing to do absurd acts such as flying around the world in 48 hours or going through Detroit five times on a single trip just to earn freebies.
For $320, Randy Petersen accrued a marathon of 35,000 miles for the following flight sequence: ...Traxo: all-in-one mileage, points and status tracker
Nov 15th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
Last week, we took a look at ten ways to prevent your hard earned miles and points from expiring. From that article, we received a tip to check out another new online mileage tracker - Traxo.
Traxo describes itself as "an automatic, intelligent new system for organizing, managing and sharing all of your trip details". What this means to us travelers, is that the site automatically monitors ...Ten ways to prevent your frequent flier miles from disappearing
Nov 8th, 2010 at 9:30AM: After reading the story of Scott Kelby, you may be interested in some tips that can help keep your airline mileage account alive. Thankfully, not everything that earns miles has to involve taking a flight.
Mileage expiration dates vary from airline to airline - some provide a relatively generous 18 months between activity, others only give you six months.
So, here are ten tips that will ...Five United Airlines non-answers about the frequent-flier future
Nov 5th, 2010 at 12:00PM: United Airlines decided to dive into the weeds. Executives from the airline met with close to 200 members of the online forum FlyerTalkers to discuss some of the major issues they see with the carrier, according to USA Today. This may not seem like a bold move, but to put the company's top dogs out in front of some of the highest-value customers comes with plenty of risk, especially for an airline ...Frequent flier classes help you learn (and game?) the system
Jun 12th, 2010 at 12:00PM: Who knew a seminar could turn you into Gadling top dog Grant Martin? That isn't the explicit promise of Grant-caliber savvy – nobody would be so bold – but two courses developed by Nicholas Kraley can bring you a little closer to maximizing your miles and taking that all important mileage run in December.
Kraley is something of an expert, having picked up more than 1.5 million miles ...Christopher Elliott on the reality of frequent flier programs
May 17th, 2010 at 11:00AM: Few people know the airline industry as well as Chris Elliott - he's a regular contributor on MSNBC, The Washington Post (and Gadling) - so when I came across one of his columns on frequent flier programs, I paid close attention to what he had to say.
In his article, Elliott makes a very valid point that airline loyalty really only works one way. Millions of people work hard to earn airline ...United Airlines finds $64 million lying around - thanks to your expiring miles
Apr 29th, 2010 at 3:30PM: Hands up if you have checked your mileage account, only to notice that you forgot to have any activity, and all your miles are gone.
Well, thanks to you, United Airlines just managed to make an extra $64 million.
The bonus bucks were earned thanks to a new accounting method and a huge stash of previously undiscovered expiring miles.
So, yes - air miles are big, big business. So big in ...Fly first-class on a A340, A380 or 747 for the price of coach - Airplane tip
Feb 18th, 2010 at 9:06PM: If you want to fly in comfort on an international flight, but don't care for the frills of first-class (or don't want to pay for them), purchase four coach seats in a row.
A row of 4 seats is long enough to lay across and is just as comfortable as a flat first-class bed. You also get to carry four times the luggage (while saving as much as 50% off the price of a first-class seat), and you can ...On the road with a Gadling mileage runner
Dec 21st, 2009 at 11:00AM: Whether you ethically believe in the mileage runs or not, they play a serious, vital role in many frequent flyer's lives. The concept, in case you're unfamiliar, has to do with flying around willy-nilly at year's end solely to reach a certain number of earned-miles. In turn, rewards are given to loyal passengers who fly these high volumes, often so great that it's actually worth the cost of ...Are you planning a mileage run? Four reasons to rush to the airport
Dec 5th, 2009 at 12:30PM: There are only a few weeks left in 2009, and frequent travelers across the country are staring more intently at their mileage statements than Santa does at the naughty/nice list. The stakes are high: miss the elite cutoff, and a year of upgrades, accelerated check-in and other perks disappear. For passengers who see gold or platinum status levels within reach, year-end "mileage runs" can make a ...Airline elite status - does it still have any value left?
Oct 19th, 2009 at 2:30PM: When I started my frequent flying back in 1998, obtaining elite status on an airline was not really high on my list of achievements. Then, when I started to pay attention to the people around me, I realized I was wrong. Back then, elite status on an airline was the one thing that helped make flying even more enjoyable. Forget good food or a snack at the airport - getting preferential treatment ...Top off that United frequent flyer account with Award Accelerator
Aug 7th, 2008 at 1:00PM: United Airlines just fired up a tool on their website called Award Accelerator, a tool that essentially lets you pay to double or triple earned miles on any of your flights. Basically, you pay a sliding fee on check-in that effectively equates to three cents per mile, then at the end of your flight the airline dumps the bonus into your account. So say you're flying 500 miles from Detroit to New ...Gadling's guide to mileage running -- Elite status and frequent flyer tiers page 2
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Dec 17th, 2007 at 12:00PM: You can also earn elite status by flying a certain number of segments. In another example, if you have frequent business between Minneapolis, MN and Saint Louis, MO, each flight on United Airlines earns you two segments: MSP-ORD and ORD-STL. After taking that flight a few weeks in a row, you'll start to accumulate some serious segments. Usually these tiers are at multiples of 25 segments, but ...Gadling's guide to getting better seats
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Nov 19th, 2007 at 11:00AM: Face it. Riding in airplanes sucks. Even if you've got the best seat in the fleet you're still trapped in a stuffy aluminum tube at 30,000 feet among a herd of diseased, seat-crowding, distraught, unruly passengers and you're still going to be uncomfortable. And if you're really unlucky, you'll be in the back of the plane next to the bathroom with one guy sleeping on your shoulder and one another ...To Upgrade or to Break-up
Sep 1st, 2006 at 5:00AM: I recently witnessed such an interesting airport dilemma that I could add a travel-related chapter to the bestselling self-help book "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus."
Two of my friends-a couple-were flying from a vacation in the U.S. back to Europe together. He was a frequent flyer gold card holder and got upgraded to business class for free. They don't always upgrade, especially on ...
