tyberius

To be honest, there are two windows for buying tickets:

1. The Obsessive Compulsive Window

Way out in advance, where only really strange people (like myself) or retirees can consistently make travel plans and lock them down.

2. The Desperate Airline Window

Pretty close to the day of flight, even the day before a flight. Airline has no chance of selling off its seats so releases inventory hoping some bottom feeder has been looking to pick one up.

In both of those windows you can often get something decent.

Problem is that most people have a window probably 2 weeks to 2 months in advance where they are going to plan their trip. So, most of the Obsessive Compulsives have already bagged the low hanging fruit and these people get shut out. It does not help that they all will be pretty much looking for tickets at about the same time. Then once they give up and book revenue tickets, the unsold inventory begins its migration to the Desperate Airline window, and then those with flexible travel plans or who have opportunistic layers (latitude ticket in hand, ready for cancellation should something better come up, etc) can pick them off before it's too late.

I don't see how else it can really be done. I am obsessive compulsive enough and flexible enough that I can usually get on flights I am happy with but I am really up there in the 9-10 month window.

I've been able to use the Desperation window to get F tickets on an already booked F award that had no availability prior to the day before the flight. And shared the cabin with 2 other people.

AA_EXP09

but it is very easy to get that for cheap on some hidden city tickets...

ProudEdmontonian

3. Intelligent Window

Left errorplan years ago and never have to worry about it anymore.

tyberius

Used right there is incredible value in the program still. Just have to be prepared to use it right.

I am RTW three times per year sustainably with AP and enough to throw in a family member's ticket from time to time. Not going to give that up and start paying $12k for business class to asia and so on!

Just that people who fit my profile who can max what is there in the nearly bare tree are few.

why fly

Well stick with AC then, someone has to prop them up! Your employer has lots of cash And enjoy your aeroplan scam-charges.
Ask a few of your friends about the perks of GS.

canadiancow

I don't have any GS friends.

And since you're still unwilling to list one actual benefit of GS, I'm going to assume there are none.

rankourabu

Yup, there are none. Not worth it. GS is garbage.


Keep living in the AC dreamworld at $102 a pop to change your award ticket, and $150 domestic taxes where only $50 should be charged.

At least you have distinction with real benefits.

agjil

Two things I hate most about AE:

1) The website doesn't allow more than three city pairs when it comes to multi-city bookings, so I usually end up calling AE to book an award trip that involves several cities.
This means I always have to pay the $30 phone booking fee.
AE won't waive the booking fee even though the technical limit of AE's booking website is the reason I have to call in.
I can't stop thinking that AE made such a poor online booking tool on purpose to collect the booking fees.

2) The well-known ridiculous scamcharges.
There has been a lot of fierce debates about the scamcharges and who actually benefits from them (AC vs AE vs operating carriers of the award flights), but anyhow, the scamcharges are totally crazy.
I am OK with paying some fee for award travel, but the actual amount the scamcharges come to is just ridiculous.

flybit

LOL, so well said. Some people are blindly following AC.

Jasper2009

Well, why don't you educate the people living in AC dreamworld about the GS perks?

I'm no UA expert, but afaik the main perks of UA GS status are:

- ability to waitlist for an award seat and if revenue management agrees you can an award seat even if there's no regular inventory - basic on what I've been told this works best for Y awards, but not particularly well for int'l J and F awards
- agents will often actively monitor your flights and rebook you / provide assistance during irrops - similar to what AC concierges do for SEs

I'd be curious to know what other benefits there are.

canadiancow

Your first point is basically a worse version of IKK (I can actually book any seat in Y right now. I don't need to waitlist.), and as you mentioned, the second point is what concierges do.

And once again, I've been attacked for blindly following AC because no one has listed any GS benefits that SEs don't also have.

acysb87

Nope, UA is not worth it for me . My 1st change at AE is free.^.(still dislike the scam charges)

I guess we can again agree to disagree

Build it and they will come :-)

YOWie

At the risk of clouding this discussion with a couple of facts I note that FT's own 2014 awards rank AC as #3 in the Americas.

http://www.flyertalk.com/awards/2014/fullresults.html

Rank Airline Score
1 American Airlines AAdvantage 7.51
2 United Airlines Mileage Plus 6.58
3 Air Canada Aeroplan 6.31
4 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan 6.07
5 JetBlue TrueBlue 6.05
6 Delta Air Lines SkyMiles 5.88
7 Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards 5.18
8 Virgin America Elevate 5.11
9 US Airways Dividend Miles 4.9

Whose opinion counts more here? FT or frequent business traveler? Many here are critical of the validity of a skytrax award when AC does well but when skytrax rates Rouge poorly the results are suddenly valid.

I'm not happy with many aspects of the program and the continuing devaluation of benefits and status but it all needs to be put in perspective. If you and a buddy encounter a bear in the woods, you don't need to run faster than the bear, you only need to run faster than your buddy.

tyberius

One thing that may add to the divergence in opinions is that Aeroplan and AC's Frequent Flier plan are now different things.

AC's Frequent Flier plan is Altitude + Aeroplan

I am not a member of that and I don't participate. I will buy AC if I am forced to buy something and it is the best value proposition.

I am an extensive user of Aeroplan though.

Now, I fall through a funny crack. Though I am very happy with paid Air Canada service, and I am fairly pleased with Aeroplan, enough to make it the center of my miles life, the combination of the two is such a turnoff that they lost me as a customer.

So maybe the business travelers are looking at it like that, AC's FF program is being constantly downgraded and less useful to them so they are less happy with it. They use it in a straight forward way. Here are your upgrades, bang. What they see are benefits eroding, thresholds increasing, upgrades harder to get.

Flyertalkers use Aeroplan in a little bit more sophisticated way, we are using the points for booking RTWs and hobby flying and various things in addition to the straight forward cost/benefit relationship of the business traveler.

So depending on how you would ask me the question, I would be giving a different grade. I say B+ basically for my use of Aeroplan. I don't like the scamcharges, I can get around them about 70% of the time though, I am able to put together some nice tickets and I am happy with my ability to get points, and turn them into tickets. Paid flying on Air Canada, provided I don't get on an HD or Rouge, I am going to give an A to. But the combo for me, is an F and I went from SE to E to P to no status over four years because of that.

AA_EXP09

UDU clearance at 120 hours (5 days out) instead of 100 for 1K.