"Frequent-flier miles are becoming the Zimbabwean dollars of business travel—increasingly worthless."
Just like with everything else regarding air travel in the US, the frequent flier programs offered by most airlines have degraded in quality over the past few years. I've been a member of United Airline's Mileage Plus plan for close to a decade and have noticed that the amount of points I need to redeem for free flights have gone up. While United offers free tickets starting at 25,000 miles, I rarely am able to find desirable flights at that level. A free domestic ticket will more likely require at least 50,000 miles. And as the Portfolio article mentions, a "free ticket" isn't really free with ridiculous fees tagged on every which way. If you need to cancel or change your flight, expect to pay a fee of up to $100.
Even worse, the airlines are so desperate for cash that they're trying to get passengers to pay for miles. On a recent trip, I was asked if I wanted to "earn" a bonus 1000 miles for $30. I guess they figure their customers are retard since at that rate, it would cost $750 for 25,000 miles or $1500 for 50,000 miles. You can purchase most domestic tickets for less.
More often than not, I'll use my miles to upgrade myself to First Class since, as I was reminded yesterday as I flew back from Boston, traveling on coach is really like taking a godamn bus in Tijuana. Read the rest of the article at portfolio.com.
1 comment:
Great information!
For more information I use http://www.CompareAirlineFees.com and their Airline Fee Comparison Tool to compare airlinefees & flight prices to find the 'true' best ticket price.
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