US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - USAirways Miles - Burn Now?

Our corporate travel department has issued a bunch of new advisories regarding USAir. Among the advisories is guidance to use USAir miles "as soon as possible" and to use them on code share or alliance flights. I have about 25K miles and don't fly USAir very often (I tend to use Delta, NW, or Continental). A couple of questions:

How many miles are required for a domestic First/Business class ticket?
How far in the future can you book reward travel?
Are there any problems with changing reward travel dates/destinations before the trip has begun?


Thanks!

Our corporate travel department has issued a bunch of new advisories regarding USAir. Among the advisories is guidance to use USAir miles "as soon as possible" and to use them on code share or alliance flights. I have about 25K miles and don't fly USAir very often (I tend to use Delta, NW, or Continental). A couple of questions:

How many miles are required for a domestic First/Business class ticket?
How far in the future can you book reward travel?
Are there any problems with changing reward travel dates/destinations before the trip has begun?


Thanks!

With 25,000 miles, you can't get a first/business class award. You can find a domestic coach round trip award for 25,000 miles. I haven't looked if the Star Alliance chart was changed--but that should still cost 25,000 miles. I think US has a coach rt award for 20,000 miles that you can get if you book it online

The booking window for awards can vary, but generally it is about 330 days out. Alliance carriers can put their own restrictions on that window for award tickets. For instance, UA ff members are allowd to book out 90 days max on LH.

There is no guarantee that booking an award ticket on another airline will guanantee acceptance of the award ticket if US folds. That issue has not been addressed by any airline in a public statement, AFAIK.

..

Tim Winship who writes for the Smarter Living newsletter recommends that you use your US Airways DivMiles ASAP.

Changing a ticket is easy. About 3 weeks ago, I cashed in my remaining miles for a free trip on United. A few days later, a better flight opened up and I was able to re-book the new itinerary through US Air without any problems or additional fees. I don't think you will incur any fees so long as you are only changing the dates/times, but flying the same routing.

...I think US has a coach rt award for 20,000 miles that you can get if you book it online ...
That's their off-peak award. In effect now, until sometime near the end of March. Also, off-peak First (domestic) is 40,000 IIRC.

Hello:

My wife and I only fly once a year for a vacation. No businesss travel. We always use USair. We now each have 25,000 miles.

In May, we want to go to Hawaii for vacation. I know USairways does not fly to Hawaii.

We live in the Philly area. Is there a way we can use the 25K to our advantage for the Hawaii trip?

Or, would you suggest a getaway NOW, before they are gone?

Thanks for any info for this infrequent flyer.

greg

Hello:

My wife and I only fly once a year for a vacation. No businesss travel. We always use USair. We now each have 25,000 miles.

In May, we want to go to Hawaii for vacation. I know USairways does not fly to Hawaii.

We live in the Philly area. Is there a way we can use the 25K to our advantage for the Hawaii trip?

Or, would you suggest a getaway NOW, before they are gone?

Thanks for any info for this infrequent flyer.

greg

A free ticket to Hawaii (coach) will cost you 35K miles in just about every program. With US Air, you would have to redeem on United, since US doesn't fly to Hawaii. And Hawaii award tickets are tough to come by. Unless you can come up with the extra 10K miles each very quickly (perhaps thru applying for the US Air VISA card, but that would cost you the annual fee), I recommend spending your miles on domestic coach tickets and go elsewhere.

You could always use 25k to get to the West Coast and pick up a cheap fare on some other airline from there...

NBC national news tonight did a story and focused on a US2 that burned miles for F to FCO because he was worried about the viability of the program. Randy Petersen was interviewed as well.

NBC national news tonight did a story and focused on a US2 that burned miles for F to FCO because he was worried about the viability of the program. Randy Petersen was interviewed as well.

Anyone have more details on the story? There was a sticky from Randy a few days back asking for people for NBC to interview... just wondering if any of our regulars were actually interviewed.

Update: The story is online at msnbc.com on their front page, as the time of my posting.

I took my DM balance from over 250,000 to 15,000. I was lucky that I had the vacation time to do it. Work will also pay me the coach value of a ticket if I book it with miles. So my miles were put to good use and not wasted.

I continue to fly US religiously, and sincerely hope they emerge as a viable entity. However, this may involve Vegas odds. My miles were hard earned and had value (both for vacation and cash) and I am was not willing to gamble them at this point.

I'm all in favor of a low DM balance...why let 'em accumulate.

But don't forget that Corporate Travel types know less than we do. They are mostly a bunch of low-level drones who have no particular pipeline to information.

I'm all in favor of a low DM balance...why let 'em accumulate.

Good advice for any FF program at any time!

But don't forget that Corporate Travel types know less than we do. They are mostly a bunch of low-level drones who have no particular pipeline to information.

That's for sure! They can't even find a reasonable fare most of the time...

Business Week had their annual travel piece a couple of weeks ago. One of the interesting McStats (giving CPRich a nod of sorts...) was that companies save 15% on travel costs by letting employees book their own flights. Apparently that's primarily because we're all a bunch of cheapskates compared to corporate travel offices.

NBC national news tonight did a story and focused on a US2 that burned miles for F to FCO because he was worried about the viability of the program. Randy Petersen was interviewed as well.

I was the one interviewed by NBC. I'm taking a middle ground. My wife and I talked about taking a trip to Rome and with all the industry and US problems, we decided it was better to do it sooner rather than later. So we are off next month with an envoy e-tickets--not as reported paper tickets in non-existent First Class. They didn't report I still am accumately miles and by the end of the year should be back over 100,000 miles. Not exactly burining them all, but just being prudent. We'd like to take another trip to London in the spring so saving we will go.

It was nice to see a US jet at the end of the piece flying off to Rome. Actually not a bad commercial to let people know US flies to Rome.

... My wife and I talked about taking a trip to Rome and with all the industry and US problems, we decided it was better to do it sooner rather than later. So we are off next month...
So...when are you going? We're going to be in Rome December 19th through 23rd, flying on LH *A award tix. Had no problem booking them in June (duhhh) but they canceled First Class on the outbound leg. Oh well, I suppose we'll just have to suffer through Business Class. :)

I was the one interviewed by NBC. I'm taking a middle ground. My wife and I talked about taking a trip to Rome and with all the industry and US problems, we decided it was better to do it sooner rather than later. So we are off next month with an envoy e-tickets--not as reported paper tickets in non-existent First Class. They didn't report I still am accumately miles and by the end of the year should be back over 100,000 miles. Not exactly burining them all, but just being prudent. We'd like to take another trip to London in the spring so saving we will go.

It was nice to see a US jet at the end of the piece flying off to Rome. Actually not a bad commercial to let people know US flies to Rome.

Glad to see one of us was the one interviewed. Sounds like you'll have a good trip.

So, did the reporter slant anything you said? We've not exactly had good luck with the media lately. <sigh>

The interview was somewhat different than any I have ever had before. I have tv news crews from local stations interview me before and you talk to the reporter as the cameraman videotapes. Not this time. They had a cameraman in my office setting up lights for an hour (although no makeup for me :cool: ) and then had about four minute call over my speakerphone with the reporter with me looking at a hand next to the camera and the speakerphone off to my left. It was a bit unnatural and surreal.

Am I burning miles to go to Rome? Yes, but it was somewhere we were planning to go anyway--just sooner rather than later. The question of whether I am still accumulating miles and plan to do so, never was asked during the interview, although the producer the day before asked and was told I haven't completely abandoned ship, but just wanted to get my miles to the placce that if I lose them I can afford to lose them.

The interview was somewhat different than any I have ever had before. I have tv news crews from local stations interview me before and you talk to the reporter as the cameraman videotapes. Not this time. They had a cameraman in my office setting up lights for an hour (although no makeup for me :cool: ) and then had about four minute call over my speakerphone with the reporter with me looking at a hand next to the camera and the speakerphone off to my left. It was a bit unnatural and surreal.

Am I burning miles to go to Rome? Yes, but it was somewhere we were planning to go anyway--just sooner rather than later. The question of whether I am still accumulating miles and plan to do so, never was asked during the interview, although the producer the day before asked and was told I haven't completely abandoned ship, but just wanted to get my miles to the placce that if I lose them I can afford to lose them.

In the words of Paul Harvey... "Now you know the rest of the story."

Thanks abeflyer for sharing.

I'm sitting on about 270K. I want to go to Paris someday... someday isn't tomorrow however, so I'm going to sit on enough for 2 envoy seats over there. If I lose them, I lose them. I'm keeping on earning miles though, as I won't abandon ship either.

I wouldn't say we are actually burning miles in my household, but we have increased our usage. We've used them for things we would typically have paid for in the past.

We've used about 450K miles this year. Of course, we've also earned about 400K miles. What can you do?