bse118

I live in Denver. DIA to Vail is two hours in perfect traffic and perfect weather (both rather unlikely in ski season). There is no reasonable alternative route to I-70.

And that's before you take into account how long it takes to get checked bags at DEN (can be slow). And then there's the horrendous rental car experience at DEN - wait for the shuttle, drive to the remote rental car facilities, wait in line.

Adding up the times, you are not going to convince me there is a significant difference between the extra hassle and drive time at DEN; and taking a connection.

And that's before I-70 is closed. Or is stop and go all the way to the Tunnel.

rufflesinc

Then you have to add the drive time from EGE to Vail.

The traffic you know real time, the weather you can see forecasts for. All of these can be taken into account. IRROPS , much harder.
All of those are more or less fixed times. And if you want to talk about bags, then you have to consider losing them on a connection. Not something I want to happen to my equipment.

reeg2

30 minutes of beautiful scenery, compared to slogging uphill through crap weather and truck traffic?

In your scenarios, what sort of transit time are you expecting for a connection? EGE is a dream airport, everything is simple and easy. DEN is not. If you were going to ski Beaver Creek or Vail, it's crazy to pick MIA-DEN when MIA-DFW-EGE is available.

Add: Ah, just saw your signature line "The journey is more important than the destination." Makes sense you'd prefer DEN now.

rufflesinc

Well if you started at MIA, you'd pick the MIA-EGE n/s

It's not the transit time I'm concerned about. It's IRROPs , losing bags, the extra cost, and the fact that a connecting flight means I'm not going to be able to fly in the evening after a full day at work and fly back late night after a full day skiing.

For AUS, there are 5ish and 7ish n/s to DEN. To get to EGE, the latest flight is 4:30, so maybe if you cut out early from work.

CPRich

I've been skiing for 40+ years. I've flown to Denver to ski Vail, Beaver, Steamboat, and others at least two dozen times. I've never been stuck in heavy traffic getting out of the airport, so it's not ALL THE TIME.

Yes, I can be on the road 10 minutes after landing at EGE. Which is 2-3 hours after I landed at DEN. If it gets there - at least 30% of the time I've seen flights to EGE cancelled when I land in Denver.

Full size at Avis - $283/week all in, corporate rate, all the time.

OP. Your bag was overweight - weigh it before going to the airport. MX happens - you'd prefer to fly with a defective cargo hold? Prefer to fly without fuel? ATC delay - AA doesn't run ATC.

If these rather ordinary "stuff happens" events overshadow 13 years of "generous & flexible assistance" and "very supportive of me as someone in the military", I'd say you've been extraordinarily lucky not to have run into similar situations in 13 years and you're not going to be happy elsewhere.

Getting 11 people on multiple flights, multiple airlines, into a small, mountainous airport in the middle of winter - you should feel very fortunate that everyone actually arrived on the same day, IMHO.

flyerguy1975

Very well said. Complaining just to complain- I ain't got time for that......

Last week I waited over 2 hours to see my doctor, that I had an appointment booked 6 months ago........ I got an apology, not compensation for my time off work. The grocery store items rang up wrong and damn it I bought that salsa last week and it's on sale this week- I want my money back!

Grass is not always greener folks.

LovePrunes

Westbound on I-70 from Pena to I-25 is ALWAYS red on google maps except perhaps at midnight on a Sunday night. OK that's exaggerating. It is however VERY VERY VERY slow and you know it.

Any EGE flights you see posted as cancelled in Denver on their flight monitors are UA flights, NOT AA flights, which I assume is what we're discussing here since it's not the United forum. It's rare that an AA flight will be cancelled from DFW or MIA or JFK or LAX or PHX into EGE but not DEN. I've experienced the opposite last Christmas when our JFK to EGE flight operated while JFK to DEN was cancelled due to Denver's airport closing for the first time in 10 yrs, closed for I believe about a day and a half? Your saying you see cancelled Vail flights in Denver is irrelevant to this discussion.

You will be connecting on your inbound AA flights for your Colorado ski trip to Denver or Vail unless starting in one of AA's hub cities. Your bags may get lost either way. Or 99% (or 95% or whatevr) chance they won't. And the app shows you where they are.


I don't think you're following this: You fly on AA to Colorado, you connect most likely, not a onestop/nonstop either way. See what I posted above. Denver has AA flights without a connection to what, 10 cities? EGE has AA to maybe 5? If you are recommending the OP use a different airline than AA then you should make that argument, but then he or she wouldn't be using their Barclay's companion certificates etc.

I will say I can't imagine flying to Denver on United or anyone else and waiting to connect to a flight on United Express from Denver to Vail or Denver to Aspen or Denver to Steamboat. Unless perhaps I was a foreigner unaccustomed to driving mtns/ice/US. You could definitely be well on your way to your resort by the time your flight boards, if you're not stuck on 70, and even then, you're on your way.

869

I'm glad that you have access to a guaranteed corporate rate for a DEN rent car at anytime but that's not reality for most people choosing whether to fly to EGE or fly to DEN and then drive.

Ha. I don't think many people looking at the lineup of 757s on the tarmac would call EGE a small, mountainous airport. I've used it as an alternative to DEN many times during closures there. ASE, on the other hand, is about as brutal as it gets for winter weather related cancellations. Spent many Christmas Eve's @ DEN.

rufflesinc

Yes sorry I ignored OP's companion certs. I guess if you have something like that and are stuck with one airline.

Kamalaasaa

Or not.

On a recent trip out of Boston, I put my winter coat into my to-be-checked bag before getting in line. The bag ended up weighing 51 pounds.

I offered to take the coat out and just carry it with me, but the agent waved me off and said it was no big deal.

Col Ronson

Exceptions to rules should not be counted on or taken as a privileged benefit.

During IRROPS, i would imagine its a major pain in the ... to find specific bags in a sea of baggage when someone gets rebooked on a different airline. So many moving pieces its not perfect. UA has left my bag behind many times during IRROPS rebooking so this problem you described for AA is not an inherent AA-exclusive only problem.

While i sympathize with the "rant" because vacation plans that go wrong are never fun, its winter so IRROPs are more likely than not (especially when flying to snowy places). Maintenance issues i never complain about because safety first. Planes have gone down and crashed due to problems in the "cargo hold" so its not a problem to be taken lightly.

bse118

EGE to Vail is 30 minutes. You are lucky if you've made it to a rental car shuttle (if you have checked bags, as most people going on a ski trip will) in 30 minutes at DEN.

Sure you know it real-time. But what good does that real-time knowledge do for you, sitting at DEN looking at a traffic notice telling you I-70 is closed is at the Eisenhower Tunnel? It's not like there's an easy alternate route.

The AA app will give me somewhat real-time info on IROPS and delays. But I am as powerless do anything about it as I am when CDOT has closed the highway. At least in IROPs the airline is responsible for getting you there, and there are alternate flights and airlines (in theory).

UAPremierGuy

Glad you made it! And I'd agree, I-70 between DEN and Vail has been a disaster this week, so flying into EGE, especially via other places than DEN on UA can alleviate a lot of headaches. These things, including the rude agents are par for the course on virtually all domestic airlines these days. While some of noted better operational reliability (i.e. Delta), these things happen. Hope your trip back is smoother!

zski1

Actually, that is incorrect.

From the policy posted at: https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/...and-sports.jsp under "Military Baggage"


If you are active U.S. military personnel* traveling on orders, present your military ID and orders at the check-in counter and you can check:

Up to 5 complimentary bags
Bags up to 100lbs and 126 inches (width + length + height)

When traveling on personal business or pleasure you can check:

Up to 3 complimentary bags
Bags up to 50 lbs and 62 inches (width + length + height)

I was travelling with two non-status passengers on my PNR. I nearly always fly solo and didn't have time to research whether my platinum status or barclaycard benefits would allow them to check their bags without a charge. Therefore I presented my mil ID to minimize bag fees. Since we're getting into it, I've actually had more than one AA check in agent tell me "always show your military ID at check-in".

Anyway, the issue I had with bag re-packing was more from a customer relations perspective, and I agree the mil ID is less relevant, however, if I were on the other side of the counter I would have

1) Looked up the passenger's PNR first, to determine whether they were in the first class cabin instead of (in a relatively accusatory tone) "Are you first class?"

2) Would have probably overlooked the one pound overage instead of making the passenger take a sweater out of one bag and put it in another. I did weigh my bags at home, apparently inaccurately, because I came up with 49, not 51.

zski1

Thanks for the advice. I don't feel the need to defend my choices, however, since you can't understand why anyone would do what I did:

1) there are 11 of us
2) I paid for ALL the airfare myself as a gift to my nieces & nephews
3) I research the car service option every year and it has never been cost effective for us.
4) I have done the drive from DEN-Breck many times. It is usually a breeze and sometimes a nightmare. Knowing that we were going further into the mountains this time, I didn't want to worry about Vail Pass and I wanted an easier time once we landed.
5) As mentioned above, I paid $ my ticket, used a Barclaycard $99 companion certificate for 2 people traveling with me, used Aadvantage miles for all but one of the rest of the tickets. I used some orphan UA miles for one ticket. This is one time where I thought booking domestic award tickets was cost effective, considering paying cash for all the tickets would have cost around $8000. To avoid booking AAnytime tickets, 3 people had to route via LAX due to award availability, hence the backtracking.

I would suggest that in the future if you don't understand why another person would make the choices they make, it might be because you don't have all the facts.