Reviewing some fare information recently caused me to wonder how much more people are willing to spend on a flight with their favorite mileage earning airline than with the competition.

For purposes of this discussion, let's assume US domestic travel only, you are paying your own way (i.e., your business is not picking up the tab or reimbursing you), the competing airline flys a similar route (direct or same number of connections such that overall travel time is similar) and flights are at about the same times of day. Would you spend $25 more to stay with your favorite airline? $100 more? More?

My rule is +/-20% for both personal and business flights. It also depends on the routing, distance of flight, purpose of trip. I may come out of pocket a little more if it's from SFO-JFK vs. SFO-LAX or if the choice is coach on an airline I do not use much or FC on my favorite airline.

The other thing that I do to combat this is to get comped status on other airlines. For example, I sent a copy of my UA 100k card to Delta and got comped their 50k Gold level - even though I had never taken a DL flight in my life. However in February I need to travel ATL-LAX and they had the best non-stop as well as the best fare by over $200, so I flew DL and used 3 of the 4 upgrade points they had deposited into my account. I've done the same on US Air as well.

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Ken in Sacramento

Here's a fairly recent true analysis:

IAD-RDU-IAD on UA: $350
BWI-RDU-BWI on US: $150

Ok, that's $200 difference. But using the mileage calculations provided by my company, I am reimbursed $34 for the drive to BWI. By policy, I am not reimbursed for driving to IAD. Also, when I park at bwi, it costs $9 more per day for a day trip. So its really more of a $160 difference.

Well, I've done it both ways. And I would say that for sake of convenience and sticking with UA, IAD is worth the $160 (1 hour each way to bwi WITHOUT traffic). And it's my travel budget so that's the bottom line...

[This message has been edited by kokonutz (edited 07-23-2001).]

I need to go from Chicago to Columbus, OH in a couple of weekends. The fare from MDW is $105 or so on WN. The fare from ORD on UA (my preferred airline) is $187.

This one's a no-brainer, but I thought I'd just point out that perhaps one way to look at this is to determine the incremental cost of the miles that would go into your preferred program; in this case we're looking at an extra ~$80 for a total of 3,000 miles (500 each way; 500 bonus each way; 1,000 online booking bonus). Cost: 2.6c per mile.

Plus I'll avoid all the hassles with WN, including cattle call boarding and dealing with Midway.

Mike

I think there are at least 2-3 issues:

1. How important are your flights towards status requalification? If you are a few flights away (based on expected travel thru end of year) from requalifing (same level or moving up), obviously those are pretty important flights, ones that it's not worth $25-$100 to take on another carrier.

2. Expiring miles? - If you have miles about to expire on another carrier, it might be worth it to take the flight on them (they are cheaper than your primary carrier) than to have them expire.

3. Orphan miles - althought Southwest often has great prices, I'm not likely to fly them enough to earn enought for a free trip. Thus, any miles (credits for them) I earn on them (and other similar carriers) would be almost immediately orphaned.
However, there are a couple of non-primary carriers I flight on where I do have a significant number of FF miles, so flights on them would still be useful.

Jeff

kokonutz, if you've got time to kill could you always book via BWI on UA, fly the UX hop to IAD. 1,000 extra miles and two extra segments each time you do it. I had a quick look at the flight times, and if you pick the right flights you can still keep the flights relatively short.

Fly Baltimore, MD to Raleigh/Durham, NC

United 7273 Dep BWI 3:40 PM Arr IAD 4:20 PM
United 7655 Dep IAD 5:35 PM Arr RDU 6:50 PM

Fly Raleigh/Durham, NC to Baltimore, MD
United 7328 Dep RDU 4:20 PM Arr IAD 5:32 PM
United 7276 Dep IAD 6:00 PM Arr BWI 6:43 PM

Added bonus is that flight routings via BWI are far less expensive due to competition. I've often used this when flying from New Orleans. MSY-IAD = $900, MSY-IAD-BWI = $140

It all depends.... I would spend up to 100.00 or perhaps a little more to stay with my current carrier of choice. In fact, I go out of my way to stay on them, rescheduling meetings to place/cities that they fly to, to continue to retain my tier status. But i've also gone out of my way to stay on them as well....

Example: I need to go to OKC. Well USAir does not fly in to OKC..so what do I do? I can't resched my meeting, and I must go there. I fly: Nash-Chlt-Kansas City-Witch - then get my rental car and drive the rest of the way to OKC. It was not a really pleasant experience, but 6000 round trip and 3000 in tier and i'm off to Chairmans.

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"We are dimming the cabin lights to enhance the beauty of our flight crew" - Actual Quote from USAirways F/A: CLT-BNA.

Chairmans: USAir, Gold: NWA, Diners, HH, Gold: Marriott

During the last WN-initiated "fare war," UA was asking $50 more than all other majors for travel from the S.F. Bay Area to east coast and New England cities.

I wouldn't pay a 25% premium just to fly United.

TRAVELMANKEN

I have thought about requesting comped status for exactly the reason you mentioned but I have been wondering, if you get comped so you can take the odd flight with a much cheaper fare or more direct routing and during that year you don't earn status, do they comp you again the next year? For example if I am AA Plat and I get comped to bottom level elite with someone else just so I can take one or two flights with that carrier in that year, what are the chances they would be willing to do it again the next year? I know there is no rule but have you had any experience with this kind of scenario?