The "game" pre Flyertalk
 

This thread got me thinking about the fact that many of us started traveling before the internet really took off, and many of the loopholes during those days were much better than current deals, though a far cry the stuff we mined/discussed here between 2000 and 2010 (e.g. Valumags may well have been a peak that mankind will never ascend again). Because there was no FT equivalent, these things tended to stick around a lot longer (i.e. until the end of the quarter, at the earliest).

I'm starting this conversation because I'm curious about how people approached the "game" before: 1. we shared information on the internet; and 2. airline IT systems all but nonexistent.

I have to admit that my business travel career started about 6 months before I joined FT, so my own knowledge isn't of much use, but I think I have enough to get the ball rolling:

1. AA miles were extremely valuable because the original marketing people mispriced the premium awards
2. DL miles were easy to accrue if you connected in DFW on transcon itineraries
3. Overbooking (bump voucher) situations were always on offer for those that cared
4. Buying one way tickets from the newspaper classifieds (e.g. BOS-LAX, 8/23, 5p, male, $75), AND getting miles in your own name
5. Booking a dummy seat in F in order to ensure your upgrade cleared (I only did this once, and still feel guilty to this day)

Have it, guys/gals!

In the mid-1980's, there were not an ID checks so one could use someone else's ticket, even if their first name was typically that of a different gender than the traveling passenger. For example, John Smith could use the ticket of Jane Brown.

In 1985 we started flying to Europe from SFO frequently. TWA was the choice back then as they had one of the all time best awards: "Anytime," as long as seats were available, 40k for a RT FC UPG on any fare PLUS a free RT FC ticket to Europe. And frequently did 3x miles promos, so each trip to Europe resulted in close to enough for another freebie. Plus, my 2 month old son could earn miles at the full rate even on his FC infant fare, 10% of full fare. He had top elite status at the age of 1.

I knew a "ticket broker" in Newport Beach who (claims he) had beaten TW in a court case regarding barter and trade of miles awards. I didn't need to buy (or sell as the 40k awards were so valuable,) but just a data point re pre-internet and Coupon Connection.

Yes, see my point #4 in post #1 .

Back then, F500 travelers were locked into the straight and narrow, but business models rapidly evolved to capture the middle ground between $0 and $500.

In the 1980's, mileage crediting was not so reliable. Sometimes, one did not get credit for flights taken. Once in a while, one did not get miles subtracted for an award, for example when redeeming a United award and also a small award consisting of a short flight on British Midland, it's possible that the agent would get confused and only subtract the larger UA award. Usually, it balanced out.

I used to pay people to fly in my name. Anywhere from $30-50 and I accrued a fair bit of mileage.

I remember when 100000 miles would get you not one but two First Class roundtrip awards between the US and Australia on United

Early on, if you logged 5000 miles on Alaska, you'd earn enough miles for a free confirmed space one way upgrade regardless of segments

Before people started running their mouths all over the internet, there were some fantastic routings out there. I remember buying DEN to RSW flights on AA with an AS codeshare between DEN-SEA_SFO and routing DEN-SEA-SFO-LAX-MIA-RSW.

I remember $105.00 SEA-TPA-SEA all in after 9-11.

I remember more, but that'll do for now...

speaking of TW and accruing miles when other people flew ... ~1982 I gave my sister some TW stickers for her DCA-JFK-MXP trip; she misconnected on the outbound due to a weather delay, got an Op-Up on the next day's flight to MXP, and my account got credited for her flights in F

The upgrade and ticket were anywhere in the system, not just to Europe. And that was only half of the benefits. It also included one week of car rental and one week of hotel. By the time I was able to take advantage of this award, it had increased to 50K miles, but still the best travel bargain I ever got.

I bought Eggo waffles by the car load for the 100AA miles per box when on sale, homeless shelter appreciated the rotation. I learned of pudding guy only after starting my churn. It has been a decade plus since packaged food came with miles.

That has still happened recently (well into the age of FlyerTalk) in the case of at least one hotel program:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/best...-deducted.html

I was far too caught up in a traveling job to really understand or play the game, but did notice a thing with Delta. If I was fortunate enough to get an upgrade, I then got the miles associated with the upgrade fare class.:) And that made my miles grow even faster.:D

Delta has long since corrected that loophole.

Dependable loopholes may have closed, but mistakes still happen. Last year I had an award flight in business on AA to Europe with a transcon connection in PHL, and the day of the flight my transcon connection was so delayed so much that I would have missed the connection to my flight to Europe. I called up AA and they rebooked me on BA the whole way. Well, some time after returning from the trip I looked at my AA account and noticed they'd credited me as if I paid for that BA flight in business, I guess because of the way that it was re-booked by the AA agent.

Yup - I've had this several times, including once recently for four of us. We were already on BA, using AA miles (yes, with the fuel surcharges) and weather caused problems. AA rebooked it all, and we all got miles as if we paid for BA biz.

Early 90s - AA had so many easy partnership opportunities with fixed bonuses, it was easy to pile up miles without even trying. I was also flying a bunch of TW and they'd always have crazy stackable promotions - route bonuses, Amex bonuses, threshold bonuses, etc. The free tickets earned with their promotions were often valid to the continental U.S. plus Caribbean, so we'd typically use them for an island getaway.

The VDB game was super-predictable. My regular Friday afternoon trips home were a reliable $1000-1500 double-bump during peak travel weeks. They'd allow a 727 to be oversold by 40 people, issue 15-20 actual vouchers, and put everybody on the next 727 that, with all of the bumpees, was now also oversold by 30-40 people. Then they'd bump another 5 or 10 off of that flight and put everybody on the 10PM flight that was mostly empty, so upgrades were easy. When I was 24 and single, sitting at an ORD sportsbar drinking beer on the airline's dime was okay with me. VDBs funded pretty much all of my vacations (and that for much of my family) for the better part of a decade.

About 1982, Holiday Inn had their program going. 1 stay equals 1 point. During one or two months 1 stay equals 2 points. 60 points and receive 2 air tickets and one week at a Holiday Inn anywhere in the world. We flew to JNB, a week at very nice hotel in Sandton. Drove up to Sun City for a few days and capped the trip with two nights at Mala Mala. Haven't stayed at a Holiday Inn since 1984.

About 1992, Chart House Restaurants ran a promo. Visit all 60 restaurants and receive two round the world air tickets. Partners in Chart House thought one or two might do it. I was number eleven, but the first that actually dined in all 60. Others had cheated.....mostly lawyers.....using partnerships. Imagine such a scheme surviving more than one hour today. Haven't been to a Chart House since 1994.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...65b75837a2.jpg
Marriott had some sweet spots in their chart. This is from the 1989 chart.

Q8 - 140K Marriott points
8 night stay at any Marriott hotel worldwide (they had 170 at the time)
2 RT coach tickets anywhere in the world (I've noted a caveat of no coach on their partner Northwest)
Free 7 day rental car, full size
The award certs did not need to be used on the same itinerary.

Marriott owned two cruise ships for a time that were based in Greece. We used points for a free cruise of the Greek Islands.

The TWA reward chart was ridiculous. It kept me flying thru St Louis til the end. I remember an early promo: fly 5 flights and 5000 miles. Receive an award ticket in F for anywhere in the USA. We figured out a 5 segment routing from San Diego to NYC that came in at about 5030 miles for little over $200. We had a great weekend in NY with friends. They gave their two award tickets to her parents to fly to Alaska in F. We used ours to fly to Hawaii in F. The TWA awards also included free nights at Hilton International, a vastly superior chain to the domestic Hilton. We had some remarkable stays at hotels around the world.

I remember the Wendy's AirTran coupons on the drink cups. This was 2005. On a windy day the tossed away cups would accumulate in the back of the parking lot and I got a couple of free flights out of it. 34 cup coupons for a free one-way (or close to it).

In the very first days of Coke Rewards you could get Hilton points, no limit. Scored a bunch, asked friends to save their caps/codes. Limits on rewards/redemptions soon followed.

Back when SkyWest was operating as the Delta Connection in California with Metro III and Brasilia turboprops, it was easy to earn DL miles on short trips within the state. For example, a round trip flight between San Luis Obispo and San Diego via a connection both ways at LAX would earn 4000 miles or 1000 miles per segment SBP-LAX-SAN r/t.

As for redeeming miles, I remember when for a mere 100,000 CO OnePass miles one could fly round trip between Houston and Paris via Continental on the domestic legs and Air France on the transatlantic legs. And the AF legs were round trip on the Concorde.

Just a deal....
 

We flew UA Paris<-->Athens round trip 5K miles round trip each in 1994! And bumped into one of our pilots at dinner!

Also, in the 90s, it was crazy fast to accrue miles and status as an Alaska MVP.
Using Alaska miles, we learned the hard way that "direct" is not the same as non-stop. Direct from SEA to Cabo included a stop at PDX!

Ha!! I lived in the UK in the early 1990s and knew people who participated in that. Even knew a couple people who actually got to take the free flights to New York, plus some others who got screwed. (Apparently tens of thousands of people got hosed and never saw their free flights.)

I read in a marketing industry magazine many years later how this one promotion vastly changed the perception of Hoover as a brand and altered the trajectory of the entire vacuum industry even beyond the UK. In the 80's, Hoover was practically a monopoly. By the 90's, there was serious visceral hate for this company and several new entrants ripping substantial market share away from them. (Dyson being one.)

I also saw a more-lighthearted piece about how secondhand stores and rummage sales were awash in cheap Hoover vacuums for years afterward. People bought hundreds of thousands of them just for this promo and a year later they were everywhere for 20 quid.

A lot of this kind of *Best* was also before the advent of the two-edged sword loyalty programs that rationalized, codified and mostly limited the favors by a "cultivated" CSR.

As part of this discussion, I want to add a blanket shout out to the United Concierges, followed by the 1K Room, followed by United's Room 3333 (shhhh!). Miracle workers, all. "Yes. No problem!" Chasing you down the corridor unlimited times with upgrades for no instruments, hotels for Wx, and the most miraculous - knitting together separate PNRs when one trip ran into the next and you were at the other end of the world. And concluding with: "...Thank you for flying with us!"

Those were the days. AA had their "AAngels" that could do just about anything and often did.

Nowadays, they still say "Thank you for flying with us" but it comes out more like "Thank us for flying you."

I don’t remember the exact year (late 80’s), in my late twenties I was upgraded to business from LGA to CLE because I had on a suit and tie.
she said, it’s nice to have someone young and well dressed in our business cabin

I'm gonna say that wouldn't be worth wearing a suit and tie to me.

Jay Leno had a great bit about 20 years ago regarding Delta slogans.

First, it was "Delta Is Ready When You Are". That's an airline I can get behind.
Then, "Delta, the Airline Run by Professionals". OK, I like.
Then, it was "We love to fly and it shows". Ah, this sounds like a nice airline.
Finally, "Delta gets you there". So that's all they're committing to now.

I redeemed a similar award in 1991 with IIRC two 3-night hotel certificates. It was an open jaw SFO to ATH and return from CAI with stopovers in Rome and Paris. Those were the days.

The best deal ever was the Continental Freedom Passport. Travel once per week for a year for less than $2000. You had to be 65. I met a guy who bought two of these so he could fly round trip each week. In 1988 he collected triple miles for all his trips.Jackpot!

The two best ones that I remember:

At one point the Pan Am shuttle (BOS-LGA-DCA) had a promo in 1988 that was something like this.........

2500 miles per segment
Get a 5000 mile bonus for a same day round trip
5000 miles per segment if one flew more than 10 segments in the month
A 20000 mile bonus if one flew 20 segments in the period.

Now while shuttle tickets ran something like $200 per segment back then, they also had a "student book" which cost something like $379 for ten tickets, but they were standby, but that was immaterial. I know people that bought two books, for less than $800 and spent a couple of weekends just flying back and forth and up and earned something like 120,000 miles at the time one could get two tickets in F to GIG or EZE for that mileage, and the face value of such tickets was perhaps $16,000.

Another one that some foreign friends of mine did: Several of the major airlines had standby student airpasses for foreign students, they cost something like $599 for a month and allowed for unlimited standby travel anywhere in the United States. they were NOT supposed to earn miles..............but they did..........and earned whatever bonuses were around as well. That sort of thing died out by 1991 though.....

1984 United was the first and only airline to fly mainline to all 50 states. They had a promo that if you could fly into or out of all 50 within 50 days, you would get unlimited first class for a year.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...-a68060fa8130/


i was only 14 at the time, but I used my timetable to map out my route!

DL actually has a loophole that's sorta similar to this that's still functional, although I'm not going to say anymore...

Marriott had some kind of promo circa 1994 with DL where I got 5K miles for one night's stay in Dayton. That was back when DL segment runs were much more rewarding.

If I had put all those hours spent on easySABRE back in the 90s with command lines into something else like post-grad education, I'd be a PhD. Not sure if that'd be a good thing or a bad thing, but doing mile-heavy trips on sale fares used to be a lot more labor-intensive, even though the programs were more rewarding.

In 1983 Republic Airlines had a buy one ticket, get one free offer. Didn't matter where you flew. So we took a quick weekend trip from SMF to Vegas in F (which was incredibly cheap) and got our two free tix and flew to Washington DC in F for our honeymoon. Being young and stupid (and my first long trip in F) I could not believe that the FA would continue to bring those little liquor bottles to me as long as I continued to ask for them. My head still aches remembering that...

Reminds me of America West back when they first began flying. Their B737-200 aircraft were in all coach configuration but the cocktails were complimentary. I had a quite a few on my flight from Los Angeles to Colorado Springs via stops at Phoenix and Pueblo.

BTW, nice handle you have there. My very first car was a used 1969 British Racing Green Triumph Spitfire...and my latest vehicle (a BMW M4) is definitely not a lemon! :cool:

I remember PSA having an award for 50,000 miles; which was a TWA F ticket, worldwide.