Weekly Commuting by Air
Jun 10, 2017, 2:01 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2017
Posts: 4
Weekly Commuting by Air
Hello, I'm new to Flyertalk. I'm wondering if there is anyone who commutes weekly or once every 2 weeks to their place of work. I live in the Greater Palm Springs area with my family and I'm interviewing for a job in Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay area. I will maintain my permanent home that we own in Palm Springs and stay/rent in the SF Bay area. What is the most cost saving way to purchase airline tickets for a regular commuting route? Can I buy them in bulk? 10-20 or so round-trip tickets? My airline choices from PSP to SFO will be Alaska Air, Virgin Atlantic and United. I would leave PSP on a Sunday evening and return to PSP on a Friday after work. Any tips would be helpful from air commuters? Thank you
Jun 10, 2017, 2:15 pm
#3
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: LAX/FAO
Posts: 355
My husband commuted from our home in LA to his job in Manhattan for years and more recently had a long term project in Las Vegas.
His job in NYC required a lot of travel so he didn't book flights too far out to avoid having to cancel. But he'd try to book when fares were fairly low (~$300 for that route is generally as good as it gets, especially for high-demand Friday night and Sunday night flights). Having to cancel and eat most of a non-refundable fare once in a while is still less expensive than booking last minute fares. He had lots of options on that route but out of personal preference he almost exclusively flew UA and DL to reach top status on both.
If your schedule is consistent I'd buy a bunch every time I saw a sale on your route. Life does get easier with status and the miles start adding up with elite bonuses, so I'd probably pick one to do most of the flying. You'll become an expert after doing this for a few months!
His job in NYC required a lot of travel so he didn't book flights too far out to avoid having to cancel. But he'd try to book when fares were fairly low (~$300 for that route is generally as good as it gets, especially for high-demand Friday night and Sunday night flights). Having to cancel and eat most of a non-refundable fare once in a while is still less expensive than booking last minute fares. He had lots of options on that route but out of personal preference he almost exclusively flew UA and DL to reach top status on both.
If your schedule is consistent I'd buy a bunch every time I saw a sale on your route. Life does get easier with status and the miles start adding up with elite bonuses, so I'd probably pick one to do most of the flying. You'll become an expert after doing this for a few months!
Jun 10, 2017, 2:37 pm
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2017
Posts: 4
Typo, yes Virgin America (for the US Group of Virgin)
Thank you!
Thank you Princeville. This is good information.
My husband commuted from our home in LA to his job in Manhattan for years and more recently had a long term project in Las Vegas.
His job in NYC required a lot of travel so he didn't book flights too far out to avoid having to cancel. But he'd try to book when fares were fairly low (~$300 for that route is generally as good as it gets, especially for high-demand Friday night and Sunday night flights). Having to cancel and eat most of a non-refundable fare once in a while is still less expensive than booking last minute fares. He had lots of options on that route but out of personal preference he almost exclusively flew UA and DL to reach top status on both.
If your schedule is consistent I'd buy a bunch every time I saw a sale on your route. Life does get easier with status and the miles start adding up with elite bonuses, so I'd probably pick one to do most of the flying. You'll become an expert after doing this for a few months!
His job in NYC required a lot of travel so he didn't book flights too far out to avoid having to cancel. But he'd try to book when fares were fairly low (~$300 for that route is generally as good as it gets, especially for high-demand Friday night and Sunday night flights). Having to cancel and eat most of a non-refundable fare once in a while is still less expensive than booking last minute fares. He had lots of options on that route but out of personal preference he almost exclusively flew UA and DL to reach top status on both.
If your schedule is consistent I'd buy a bunch every time I saw a sale on your route. Life does get easier with status and the miles start adding up with elite bonuses, so I'd probably pick one to do most of the flying. You'll become an expert after doing this for a few months!
Last edited by beckoa; Jun 12, 2017 at 1:07 am Reason: merged consecutive posts
Jun 10, 2017, 5:08 pm
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: MEL CHC
Posts: 21,018
Virgin America have been bought out by Alaska and over time are expected merge into 1 airline (Alaska).
1000's of people regularly commute by air, at the same times as you (Sunday afternoon - Friday evening). Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay area is a popular commute. As above watch prices, and buy when the price/ticket conditions are acceptable to you. At times you are likely to have cancel or buy a walk up fare. Cheap tickets may not be able to be changed ->100% loss if you do not fly.
1000's of people regularly commute by air, at the same times as you (Sunday afternoon - Friday evening). Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay area is a popular commute. As above watch prices, and buy when the price/ticket conditions are acceptable to you. At times you are likely to have cancel or buy a walk up fare. Cheap tickets may not be able to be changed ->100% loss if you do not fly.
Jun 10, 2017, 5:12 pm
#7
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Not here; there!
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold
Posts: 29,584
Hello, I'm new to Flyertalk. I'm wondering if there is anyone who commutes weekly or once every 2 weeks to their place of work. I live in the Greater Palm Springs area with my family and I'm interviewing for a job in Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay area. I will maintain my permanent home that we own in Palm Springs and stay/rent in the SF Bay area. What is the most cost saving way to purchase airline tickets for a regular commuting route? Can I buy them in bulk? 10-20 or so round-trip tickets? My airline choices from PSP to SFO will be Alaska Air, Virgin Atlantic and United. I would leave PSP on a Sunday evening and return to PSP on a Friday after work. Any tips would be helpful from air commuters? Thank you
Also, if you decide to primarily fly a single carrier on that route, then you'll need to decide which frequent-flyer program to credit your flights to. If, for example, you were to primarily fly AS, you might credit your miles to AS. But you might also decide that you'd be better off crediting your flights to AA. You'd have to decide what you value in an FFP, and which program is better for what you value.
Jun 11, 2017, 8:04 am
#9
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 182
Virgin America and Alaska are in the midst of merging operations. You earn Alaska FF miles on either and both airline fights are available for purchase on the Alaska site. They sell one way tickets at the same price they would sell that leg of a RT flight.
Jun 11, 2017, 10:34 am
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2017
Posts: 4
I'm aware of the Alaska/Virgin America merge coming up very soon. As both airlines currently fly PSP to SFO, I hope there will still be available scheduled flights on Sunday evening departing PSP and Friday evening departing SFO. Thank you all for your responses!
Jun 11, 2017, 1:17 pm
#11
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Not here; there!
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Jun 11, 2017, 3:04 pm
#12
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: SFO
Programs: UA 1.050MM, PersonalCar 0.275MM
Posts: 1,718
Perhaps consider driving to/from Ontario Airport and flying Southwest. Especially if your work commute schedule might eventually drop down to not every single week but unpredictably.
Choosing Southwest would allow you to book every single week long in advance (establishing a ceiling for how much you'd have to pay) and over time keep an eye on sales when you can rebook existing tickets at the lower sale price with no change fee. You do have to manually keep track of the record locators that have excess TTF [ticketless travel funds] to apply the saved monies toward future bookings. And if there's a week when you don't have to travel to the home office at all, just cancel the corresponding ticket(s) and use the entire TTF toward future bookings. (Note you're pretty consistently better off on Southwest to book your travel as two one way tickets instead of a single round trip ticket.) This cancellation need might come up for business travel to other locations: if a NYC business trip comes up for you then you won't need your tickets from SoCal to NorCal that week.
Choosing Southwest would allow you to book every single week long in advance (establishing a ceiling for how much you'd have to pay) and over time keep an eye on sales when you can rebook existing tickets at the lower sale price with no change fee. You do have to manually keep track of the record locators that have excess TTF [ticketless travel funds] to apply the saved monies toward future bookings. And if there's a week when you don't have to travel to the home office at all, just cancel the corresponding ticket(s) and use the entire TTF toward future bookings. (Note you're pretty consistently better off on Southwest to book your travel as two one way tickets instead of a single round trip ticket.) This cancellation need might come up for business travel to other locations: if a NYC business trip comes up for you then you won't need your tickets from SoCal to NorCal that week.
Jun 11, 2017, 5:39 pm
#13
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2017
Posts: 4
Perhaps consider driving to/from Ontario Airport and flying Southwest. Especially if your work commute schedule might eventually drop down to not every single week but unpredictably.
Choosing Southwest would allow you to book every single week long in advance (establishing a ceiling for how much you'd have to pay) and over time keep an eye on sales when you can rebook existing tickets at the lower sale price with no change fee. You do have to manually keep track of the record locators that have excess TTF [ticketless travel funds] to apply the saved monies toward future bookings. And if there's a week when you don't have to travel to the home office at all, just cancel the corresponding ticket(s) and use the entire TTF toward future bookings. (Note you're pretty consistently better off on Southwest to book your travel as two one way tickets instead of a single round trip ticket.) This cancellation need might come up for business travel to other locations: if a NYC business trip comes up for you then you won't need your tickets from SoCal to NorCal that week.
Choosing Southwest would allow you to book every single week long in advance (establishing a ceiling for how much you'd have to pay) and over time keep an eye on sales when you can rebook existing tickets at the lower sale price with no change fee. You do have to manually keep track of the record locators that have excess TTF [ticketless travel funds] to apply the saved monies toward future bookings. And if there's a week when you don't have to travel to the home office at all, just cancel the corresponding ticket(s) and use the entire TTF toward future bookings. (Note you're pretty consistently better off on Southwest to book your travel as two one way tickets instead of a single round trip ticket.) This cancellation need might come up for business travel to other locations: if a NYC business trip comes up for you then you won't need your tickets from SoCal to NorCal that week.
Jun 19, 2017, 1:29 pm
#14
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 4,187
I knew a highly educated, otherwise intelligent, fool who taught concurrently in Boston and Vienna. He made two RT TATL crossings each and every week. Until he was taken to the ER. He stopped not wanting to go in the ground. Seriously.
Jun 19, 2017, 6:33 pm
#15
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,933
Choosing Southwest would allow you to book every single week long in advance (establishing a ceiling for how much you'd have to pay) and over time keep an eye on sales when you can rebook existing tickets at the lower sale price with no change fee. You do have to manually keep track of the record locators that have excess TTF [ticketless travel funds] to apply the saved monies toward future bookings.
Whether that works on Virgin America flights (during the gap between when AS ends its own service to PSP and when the VX brand is completely replaced by the AS brand), that I don't know.