Originally Posted by
Buccaneeratheart
... the imagined benefit of non-stop flights.
Imagined????
Is having half the chance that your flight will be canceled imagined? (Two flights means twice the chance of a problem versus one flight, doesn't it?)
Is the time saved not having to land, disembark, wait for your next flight, and get back in the air not real? Silly me, thinking that getting home at 9:00 pm versus getting home at 11:30 pm wasn't tangible.
Is the chance of missing a connection versus not having to worry about the flight getting in late because it's my destination not real? Considering all the people I constantly hear on planes worrying about tight connections, it's hard to believe that benefit is imagined.
If I weren't flying a couple hundred flights a year, I might understand looking at non-direct the same as direct, but given my reality, direct has definite benefit.
To answer the OP's question - $100 for loyalty, and $100 per segment for direct versus non-direct. It's in our corporate travel policies. If AAA-BBB is more than $100 less on a specific airline, I need to fly that airline. If AAA-BBB-CCC is $200 less than AAA-CCC on another airline, the connecting flights win. Luckily, usually the connecting flights originate earlier than I'm done for the day in AAA. By documenting this, I can take the more expensive, direct flight without violating our travel policies.