Best way to fly the Southeast US
 

Hello all, I just recently started a new career as a sales engineer in the southeast USA. I'm based out of Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL) and I travel primarily to Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, including florida, depending on the trip. Oh I'll probably be flying into Montreal,QC 4-5 times a year as well.

It looks like Delta is King of the Southeast, with their hub being in Atlanta, but there IS US air out of Charlotte as their hub. I've been building my Dividend miles for the past few years with my old company, but Delta seems to have much better amenities, and US looks looks like it's easier to build miles and use them for personal leisure. It looks like US has more partners too.

Do you have any input that could help a young, green flyer?

many thanks

Welcome to FT. I'm sure you'll get some good help here.

many thanks, just to give an idea of the amount of travel i'm doing, i've been onboard with my company 2 weeks, and I've been to atlanta,ga columbia,sc, and montreal already.

What do you want to do with your miles?

ATL is more centrally located for SE travel and DL probably has more frequencies out of ATL to other SE destinations than does CLT. Not sure how your travel will play out, but for example FLL-CLT-BHM seems like a routing that would add a lot of travel time to a trip. And FLL-MEM should be a DL non-stop if west TN is in your travel plans. Of course, ATL has its problems, but on the whole given the type of traveling you may be doing, I think it's better than a CLT connection.

As for which FF program suits your needs better, I cannot say.

Thank you for that insight. As for my purpose, joejones, for free upgrades and flights of course. I already have an ff account for both us and delta, but I'm trying to see which will better serve me both for business and pleasure.

They don't call Delta Sky Miles "Sky Pesos" for nothing. Redemption on Delta is usually much more difficult than on US Airways and you'll normally have much more success redeming miles with * Alliance than with Sky Miles. Just my personal opinion.

Will your travels be simple out and back trips or will you be bouncing to multiple destinations before returning to FLL?

I am not sure there is a clear cut answer between the 2 for your situation. I am guessing half of your flights will be on RJs either way. Is AA out of MIA an option?

With that much travel, you might want to spread it around a little.

Once Southwest integrates Airtran, there are some possibilities there, especially if you can use a Companion Pass (free travel for up to 2 years for a Companion whenever you fly).

Other advantages like all-737 fleet, no change/cancellation fees, etc.

Good point. I keep forgetting to speculate what a WN presence in ATL with the integrated FL might look like. But still, DL will serve markets in NC, SC, TN, AL, and GA that WN won't.

My solution to a similar situation is to fly US, UA, CO as much as possible and credit everything to Asiana. After you hit 40,000 miles in 2 years you will be *G and have access to all *A lounges and will board early in the process so you can get a place for your rollaboard. You won't get upgrades, but I don't need them because 90% of the flights I take are on RJs without first class. Also get the Aisana amex from B of A which gets you 2 miles per $ of spend.

Upgrades and flights to where?

Please be careful about investing with DL. Their award availability is horrendous. They were ranked second last in a WSJ survey:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...ilability.html

Do a search in the DL forum, and you will see how bad it is. If you do have the misfortune of flying DL, at least credit the miles to AS. AS is a partner of AA and you can redeem on AA.

Do not believe the negativity of US per the WSJ. US is a Star member and is a partner with UA, CO, AC and many others. You can redeem on these partners which have been highly ranked by WSJ.

Us airways mile redemption can be just as difficult on their own metal. They often price award tickets to lax as medium to high, places like aus as well. They don't call it USless airways for no reason.

Redeem US miles on its several partners.