Originally Posted by
tusphotog
I see our resident troll has begun to chime in with outdated WN information again. Underserved airports? Short flights?
The $99 companion fare AS has is ok if you fly once a year (and AS doesn't end all their routes!), but it's definitely not the most cost effective thing if you're flying places more than once a year. Having the WN CP where someone comes along for $10 r/t is an incredible deal. Only thing better is employee travel (and non rev really sucks these days unless you can get a jumpseat).
No single FF program fits everyone. I travel significantly more than once a year; all for leisure. I pay for domestic (we will include Canada here as I am from BC) and fly business or first internationally on awards. I happen to love the annual companion certificate and easily utilize the 5 I get each year. I can extract a lot of value out of them, sometimes in excess of $1000.00. Last October we did an 11 day 15K+ mileage run / mini vacation from YLW-SEA-ANC-LAX-SJO-LAX-SEA-PVR-LAX-SEA-YLW which as MVPG at the time added 31K+ RDM each to our accounts. I used GGU's requiring only one each for ANC-LAX-SJO and one each for SJO-LAX-SEA-PVR. The PVR-LAX segment was a complimentary upgrade for both of us and we were in Premium for the LAX-SEA segment. All 10 segments for $99.00 and taxes with upgrades to F on 6 of the 8 mainline flights was nice while saving well over $1K. We both reached 75K. Along with that 8 more GGU's and 50K RDM bonus each. I used my 50K bonus to book CX J YVR-HKG//HKG-DPS for my brother to meet us in Bali. We are on the final leg of an 8-week around the world vacation that started January 1st. We used our Mileage Plan miles to book business and First on EK (SFO-DXB/26 days/DXB-JNB in J), CX (JNB-HKG/3 days/HKG-BOS in J&F) and QF SYD-DRW domestic J), AA miles for EY F apartment AUH-SYD & SPG for SQ SIN-DXB. A companion certificate got us from YLW-SEA-SFO and BOS-SEA-PHX-SEA-YLW on immediate upgrades to the front of the plane. If you fly primarily domestic economy, perhaps the WN Companion Pass works well for you. AS suits us very well.