MilesBuzz! - Best Leisure Flight Airline??

I have been flying UA for many years, usually as a 1P. Never made it to 1K (although United Gold was pretty good before the 1K days); have always regarded UA as sort of a "business" oriented airline with an emphasis on 1K and full-fare pax which didn't really care much about families or leisure flyers. This was just fine with me. I didn't miss the lack of kids, could upgrade reasonably, and wasn't paying for most of my tickets. But now I am retired, paying my own fares, and, and looking for an airline that is oriented towards leisure travelers. I can fly on Saturdays or mid-week, but much of the time would prefer Friday or Monday. Most United flights charge extra for Friday or Sunday flights, even with a Saturday night stay.

Most of my flights will be domestic, out of SEA, to California, New England or Florida, one international a year to Scandinavia.

Any suggestions for a good leisure travel airline.

Thanks,

Bruce

WN probably has the lowest fares and is definitely a family airline. I never seen so many kids as i do on a WN flight.

have you thought about JetBlue for your trips to FL? you'll have to connect via JFK for all of them...

their fares are very good, new planes, all leather seats and 24 channels of live DirecTV in your seat...

www.jetblue.com (http://www.jetblue.com)

cons: going to JFK every time... no frequent flyer program... no way to get you to CA... flight schedules for transcon tend to be red-eyes...

I fly on business and chose the CO/NW/HP alliance, but I am based near EWR so it was a pretty easy choice for me...

but I have flown on JetBlue twice on last-mintue trips and found it to be quite nice.

not nice enough to give up my Elite perks, but I would have no qualms recommending them to anyone...

Scandinavian Airlines flies SEA-CPH direct daily.

I, of course, am biased but we, at Alaska Airlines, would love your business. We have many nonstops to all of the major California cities and some medium size cities in CA as well. We currently fly to 2 airports in Washington, D.C. and will be flying to Boston beginning in April. I don't think we have a frequent flyer agreement with SAS, I'm not real sure on that one. At any rate - we offer the same fares as WN and many great online sales. We offer frequent flyer miles whenever you fly on American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines, KLM, British Airways and Qantas. There are several others as well, refer to Alaska's website for more info.

In my experience, grouchy people are the exception and not the rule at AS (which is another good reason to fly them.) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by brucemcal:
I have been flying UA for many years, usually as a 1P. Never made it to 1K (although United Gold was pretty good before the 1K days); have always regarded UA as sort of a "business" oriented airline with an emphasis on 1K and full-fare pax which didn't really care much about families or leisure flyers. This was just fine with me. I didn't miss the lack of kids, could upgrade reasonably, and wasn't paying for most of my tickets. But now I am retired, paying my own fares, and, and looking for an airline that is oriented towards leisure travelers. I can fly on Saturdays or mid-week, but much of the time would prefer Friday or Monday. Most United flights charge extra for Friday or Sunday flights, even with a Saturday night stay.

Most of my flights will be domestic, out of SEA, to California, New England or Florida, one international a year to Scandinavia.

Any suggestions for a good leisure travel airline.

Thanks,

Bruce</font>

If you're retired, why would you want to fly on Monday or Friday?

I'd go with AS. Excellent route system up and down the West Coast. Improving service toward the East, supplemented by the domestic parters of NW, AA, and CO. Partnership with KLM will help you earn and redeem miles for that European trip. So what if you have to connect in AMS?

When it's your own dime, I think it's hard to beat AA's More Room in Coach.

AS might not have any agreements with SAS but they DO have agreements with BA. While SAS have a direct flight SEA-CPH, BA's SEA-LHR-CPH isn't a bad way to get there. In fact, AS allows for mileage redemption on BA/AA/CO and NW. All in all it seems like a great program.

[This message has been edited by kanebear (edited 02-16-2002).]