Originally Posted by
Hartmann
Most of my travel is to NYC with some trips to Asia and Europe. My NYC travel may change next year and really the only options out of PDX are DL, UA, or AS. I have thought about status matching to AS MVPG75K but their options to the east coast are expensive and not that frequent. AS is also relatively expensive along the west coast.
My year has just been abysmal with UA when it comes to irrops and customer service.
Re: AS, really? I've been getting smokin' deals on West Coast ops on Alaska...sure, they pop you close in (3 days), but even up till then, I've been getting pretty good fares - as low as $40 SFO-PDX and $90 SFO-SEA one way. Maybe they're making their money on the transcons? You're right in that they don't have a lot of lift that way, but there's not much you can do with a 739...
Maybe pledge to DL? You'd get the benefits of AS locally and the frequencies of DL that you need. But then you're stuck with SkyTeam if alliances matter to you. I'm loosely married to OneWorld now, but I mostly buy on price and schedule these days.