danielb

Hey,

I'm from Sweden and will travel to the US in July. Someone recommended that I look into buying a VUSA pass from my Swedish travel agent, that would enable me to go on an unlimited number of domestic flights within the US during the course of 30 days for a set price. However, my travel agent hasn't heard of VUSA.

Is this VUSA thing still operational, and do you know of any companies that offer it?

Thanks in advance!

Daniel

party_boy

I've never heard of VUSA, but I do know that they do have North American flight passes available. I always thought they were like a coupon book where you only got a set number of flights.

The Flying Scotsman

Daniel, you need to find a new Travel Agent!

VUSA (For Visit United States of America) fares certainly do exist. They can only be purchased outside the United States and are only valid if you have an International ticket to the US.

I think that if you across the Atlantic on a US carrier, there may be restrictions on using VUSA fares with another - for example, if you fly transatlantic with United, you may find that you can't purchase a VUSA fare from American. The best way to get round that restriction is to either fly transatlantic with a European carrier, or do your internal flights on a US carrier that doesn't fly to Europe.

You'll probably need to contact the airlines for specific fares - here's the link to the America West website giving an overview of what they offer.

http://www.americawest.com/awa/conte...rams/vusa.aspx

(Just noticed that the webpage is for fares valid until 31 March 2006, but if you contact America West or a TA, they should be able to advise for April)

This link is probably better - gives more of an overview

http://www.statravel.ch/airpasses/ai...m#NorthAmerica

danielb

Thanks for the suggestions. However, I called Delta here in Sweden and they no longer had the deal when you can go on an unlimited number of flights during 30 days. Instead, one could buy 3 coupons for 509 USD, where 1 flight route within the US is 509/3. This price was when booking the transatlantic flight, Sweden to NYC, through Delta. And I think I can find better prices on transatlantic flights through other companies than Delta. Plus, why buy these coupons when ata.com flies NYC-LA single for 119 USD?

Let me know what you think!

MADflyer

Delta took over the PA (Pan Am) route ARN-JFK in the early '90 and for several years marketed a stand-by travel pass in Sweden. I seem to remember needing to visit an agency or airline rep called Discover the World travel on Kungsgatan in Stockholm when I bought my last one. DL stoped selling them several years before droping the ARN route in Sept. 2001.

They were available in 30 or 60 day passes and included stand-by travel on any DL flight in the continental 48 states, but suplements were available to be added to Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

They were a fantastic product and did require a DL transatlantic flight at the begining and end of validity period. Remember that TA flights from ARN are dramatically less expensive today than they were 15 years ago.

I had the 60 day pass one time and having family and friends scattered all over the USA was able to get really good use of it. I was not the typical user planning a few stops along the way.

I parked my car at BUR near Hollywood once and flew the 45 miles to SNA Orange County, used red-eyes as hotels and seem to remember that they were unrestricted but always on a seat available stand-by at gate basis similar to what airline employees have on occasion. The amazing thing that often they would just give me an F seat.

The downside was that they did not accumulate DL Skymiles.

MADflyer

I think the advantage of the passes is that they are changeable allowing greater flexability.

Almost all USA carriers sell competitive one-way tickets now especially in markets were you have LCCs. The LCCs like Southwest and ATA and Jetblue and Spirit are alternatives but I prefer often earning SK EB miles on UA and US. US markets themselves as a LCC now.

Southwest has a hub at BWI where Icelandair usually has offers to from Sweden. UA has their LCC Ted from ORD if you get a good SK deal. Another alternative is to book an open jaw where allowed and fly to the east coast and then home from west coast. LH and BA or VirginAtlantic work well for this.

Well, the alternatives are many.

danielb

Thanks for the replies MadFlyer. How much can one expect to pay for a transatlantic flight from either of the options you mentioned?

MADflyer

The best deal from sweden right now seems to be the new US flight from ARN but not just to the PHL hub as the fare conecting to NYC or DCA seems to be lower than booking just the TA flight alone. MH Malaysian has deals on their JFK flight all the time. I do not live in Sweden any longer so do not follow things too closely though.

It seems fares are up from last month and I bet fares are going to go very high during this summer so early booking seems to be the key. That said, US has been offering low fares from MAD that are bookable up to day of departure. So in the air fare jungle anything is posible.

Another thing I used to do from Sweden during the summer is book a cheap flight to LON or PAR and then book the TA flight from there. Could usualy save a few hundred $ in the past, but fares from ARN are much better than they used to be.

danielb

Thanks again Madflyer for replying. Not sure I follow you on all those abbreviations though. Care to elaborate? Thanks!

EmailKid

We all use abbreviations. If you look at the top of the page on the right you will see Help. When you move your mouse over it you will see several dropdown options, including Airport Code Lookup and Glossary. Click them, and your questions will be answered.

We also encourage new members to read Guidelines & Rules as well as New Users Guide

And in case no one posted it yet, Welcome to FT

EmailKid

MADflyer

Yes, welcome to flyertalk. I didnt really look at your number of posts before but you will quickly get used to abreviations on this site.

All Airlines have a 2 letter code which precedes the flight numbers but may be on another companies plane if it is a codeshare. SK=SAS, AY=Finnair, US=USair, UA=United, LH=Lufthansa) I stated only Malasian MH as it wouldnt typically come to mind for a flight from ARN (Arlanda) to JFK one of the three airports that come up with the airport code NYC. US starts flying in june to PHL or Philadelphia but I stated that you get better fares if you actually do not stop there but transfer on to another city like DCA which is one of three airports in WAS or Washington DC.

The posibilities are really endless and if you do not post an actual date for travel it is not easy to discuss actual fares. That is what the web is great for. If you search around here you will find many sites people use to assist them such as www.itasoftware.com where they have a nice airfare search engine.

humanoid94

Aitran has a standby program for college age students. Its called X-fares and might be worth checking out.

http://www.xfares.com/xfares_standby_program.aspx

mou chatterjee

Hello,
We're travelling to us from kolkata,india,on 21.3.12. We plan to go to new york on the 2nd of April from San Francisco.from n.york to buffalo on 5.4.12 and back to s.francisco on 7.4.12. What do we need to do and what would be the cost? thanks in advance.

YVR Cockroach

Welcome. Your itinerary looks like it is customized for JetBlue. Do check all the airlines (these days, United, US Air, Delta and American) as well as Southwest however.

labeach

kayak or jetblue..
also except for BUF, try Virgin america