Originally Posted by
AMflier
My extended family is flying to ABQ over Presidents Week: 7 NYC to ABQ and 2 BOS to ABQ. As a B6 fanboy I tried many combinations but couldn't find a reasonable itinerary.
The problems were:
1) The return on a red eye.
Several family members won't do a red eye unless a passport is involved.
2) Price.
I first looked into booking these back in August. The one way JFK ->ABQ on 2/14 never dropped below $330 even though the plane was empty.
3) No way back to JFK.
If we used B6 for the outbound, the return flights to JFK on other airlines were either badly timed, very expensive, or both. We're skiing, lots of checked bags, so we really need to return to our departure airport.
So,
The New Yorkers are flying WN from EWR. The Bostonians are on UA
If you have AA miles, and a Citi AA card, ABQ is on the list of destinations with reduced mile awards. I've used it before and it's a pretty painless process as long as you know the exact flights you want to book.
ABQ flight times are terrible going east, no matter what airline. I personally hate EWR since the cab fare back to my house is over $100, as opposed to $45-50 from LGA. The last WN flight to NYC is at 2pm, with a stopover in HOU. The timing for someone on business, is awful. I may hate the red eye, but at least I don't lose a day of work (not that it doesn't take a day to recover from sleeping on a sub 4 hour "red eye" flight). My eyes are close to bloodshot when I stumble off the flight at 5:45am (and into the Airspace lounge for a coffee and shower
)