US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - US Airways Offers Special Fares For Professional Football Championship Playoffs

http://www.usairways.com/about/press/nw_04_0112b.htm

US AIRWAYS OFFERS SPECIAL FARES FOR PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP PLAYOFFS

ARLINGTON, Va., January 12, 2004 -- US Airways is offering fans traveling to next weekend’s professional football championship playoffs between Carolina and Philadelphia and Indianapolis and New England a special roundtrip fare of $550*.

Under this special promotion, travel is valid between Charlotte, N.C., and Philadelphia or between Indianapolis and Boston. Passengers may depart Saturday, Jan. 17 or Sunday, Jan. 18 and return Sunday, Jan. 18 through noon Monday, Jan. 19, 2004. Tickets must be purchased within 24 hours of making the reservation.

"As the carrier offering the most convenient nonstop service between these cities,
US Airways is pleased to offer football fans in Charlotte and Indianapolis the opportunity to make affordable last-minute travel plans to see their teams compete for their conference titles," said B. Ben Baldanza, US Airways senior vice president of marketing and planning.

For Indianapolis-Boston, all or part of the service may be on regional aircraft operated by US Airways Express carriers Chautauqua or Mesa Airlines and some or all flight segments may be operated by United Airlines®.

*Fares are based on required roundtrip Coach travel and do not include a federal excise tax of $3.10, which will be imposed on each flight segment of the itinerary. A flight segment is defined as a takeoff and a landing. Fares do not include the September 11 Security Fee of up to $5 per itinerary or up to $9 in airport passenger facility charges where applicable. Seats are limited and could be sold out on certain flights and at select times. Fares are valid on nonstop flights only.

Tickets are non-transferable. After the initial reservation, cancellations or changes are permitted for up to 24 hours; after 24 hours, tickets become nonrefundable. If the entire reservation is canceled on or before the scheduled date of travel, the ticket will retain its value and can be used toward another nonrefundable ticket less a $100 US Airways administrative fee, up to one year after its original issue date. New travel must originate within one year from the date of issue. Any subsequent changes to the exchanged tickets will incur at minimum an additional $100 fee. If the reservation is not canceled on or before the original travel date, the entire ticket will have no further value. Other conditions may apply. For full terms and conditions, visit usairways.com.

US Airways is the nation’s seventh-largest airline, serving nearly 200 communities in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. US Airways, US Airways Shuttle and the
US Airways Express partner carriers operate over 3,300 flights per day. For more information on US Airways flight schedules and fares, contact US Airways online at usairways.com, or call US Airways Reservations at 1-800-428-4322.

$500+ seems high, perhaps one could do better on Priceline. Somewhere around $250-$350 would be more like it, and might actually fill up the plane. Maybe $500 range for F class.

It does seem high, but you have to remember that there's less than 7 days advance purchase.

I searched expedia, and here's what I came up with:

US nonstop CLT-PHL-CLT, departing Sunday morning, returning Monday, $570. The next cheapest fare that will get you there in time for the game is NW CLT-DTW-PHL-DTW-CLT for $949. Or leave Saturday, return Monday, NW is $677, CLT-DTW-PHL-EWR-CLT, or you can get it down to $460 if you want to fly CLT-DTW-PHL-DTW-BNA-CLT on NW/US, plus there's an extra night in a hotel.

US IND-LGA-BOS-IND is $481, departing Sunday, returning Monday. That's the only thing that'll reliably get you to the game if you leave Sunday. Leaving Saturday, the cheapest fare is US IND-PIT-LGA-BOS-LGA-IND for $362. For $383, you can do IND-LGA-BOS-LGA-IND on DL/US. The US nonstops IND-BOS-IND cost $573. Again, leaving Saturday involves an extra hotel night.

So overall, while $550 sounds like a lot, it's not bad if you're booking this late. In the CLT-PHL market, it's really cheap, and you get nonstops both ways. In the IND-BOS market, it's the only option if you want to get there on Sunday. It's a bit expensive for Saturday travel if you don't mind connecting in LGA, due to TZ's presence on IND-LGA and the cheap weekend shuttle fares LGA-BOS. But it's actually about a wash when you consider the extra night in the hotel room, the waste of the day on Saturday, and the hassle of switching terminals at LGA.

That being said, $550 sounds like a lot of money to someone who doesn't think it through, so I don't know that they'll get a whole lot of takers.

Or you could fly Delta for $128 plus taxes round-trip on a Fan Fare (http://www.delta.com/travel/sp_offers/fan_fares/index.jsp) ...

Agreed that $550 is a pretty high fare to be 'advertising' like this.

Especially when hotwire/priceline will get you $330 for Sat/Sun and $400 for Sat/Mon.

I dont know why they bother advertising.

Actually, it's interesting looking at DL's Fan Fares, they were obviously set on Friday at the latest, there are Fan Fares for every possible NFL match-up that could have been before the games were played ...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
Or you could fly Delta for $128 plus taxes round-trip on a Fan Fare (http://www.delta.com/travel/sp_offers/fan_fares/index.jsp) ...</font>

Do better than that -- $89 weekend NetSAAver on AA. I laughed when I saw this press release on the website.

I was looking at Superbowl availability. Since they will have a hub team in it (CLT or PHL) the availibility looks slim with almost no F left. Could of this could be blocks of seats that are being held?

With all of the cutbacks, do they have extra plans to offer as charters or to add to the schedule? I was once on a charter over a weekend and they used a shuttle plane but that was in 1997.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by mileshound:
I was looking at Superbowl availability. Since they will have a hub team in it (CLT or PHL) the availibility looks slim with almost no F left. Could of this could be blocks of seats that are being held?

With all of the cutbacks, do they have extra plans to offer as charters or to add to the schedule? I was once on a charter over a weekend and they used a shuttle plane but that was in 1997.</font>

What I recall they've done in the past for service to a Super Bowl city (I'm thinking 2 years back to New Orleans - and I think cutbacsk were already in effect then) - they put larger aircraft on the hub to Super Bowl city flights. For example, CLT-MSY might normally be a 737 - for the Super Bowl, it became 757s and 321s. They've probably already planned to do this to Houston regardless of who is in (since there's probably a lot of folks who planned to go already (since each NFL team has a block of tickets it can give out - for example, the Panthers usually make 2 available for each suite holder here)).

Of course, they might decide to do something dimwitted, so who knows.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
Actually, it's interesting looking at DL's Fan Fares, they were obviously set on Friday at the latest, there are Fan Fares for every possible NFL match-up that could have been before the games were played ...</font>

That's because Delta actually has a route system which spans the country. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I wonder, are there that many people from Charlotte that are able to get tickets to the game in Phila (and Indy people to the NE game), such that realistically they even need to offer special fares? It seems like more of a marketing gimmic.

Regular season is different (supposedly there were 10000 (with reports of up to 15000) Eagles fans in Miami for the Monday night game a month ago). I guess I could see for the already out of playoff Dolphins, that that many seats could be available.

Jeff

US left open last minute loophole. Esaver
CLT-NWK $198 + fees + 80 mile Amtrak ride
much less than the 'special playoff fare'.

You couldn't pay me enough to risk my life to go cheer on the Panthers in Philly, even if the game isn't at the Vet anymore.

**** Packers couldn't do the job right so the game would have been in Charlotte ...