[QUOTE]Originally posted by JerryFF:
1)..and it would be extraordinarily complicated to award miles at the time of purchase to one kind of ticket but not to others.

A: well, since the airlines already have millions of rules....

2) You could always go to the airport and check-in for your outbound flights and at least get those miles.

A: really? didnt know that.. they do not take out the miles after finding out that the passenger did not board?

3) If you just want to buy your miles, that can be done in other ways for (typically) 2 cents/mile. For your roundtrip ATL/LAX/ATL (which is actually about 4000 miles), you could just purchase those miles for about $80, less than half of the $198 fare you quoted.

A: that is different, BASE miles for status was my original intention...but, just curious, where and how does one go purchase 2cents/mile?

thanks to all for the responses, thought it would be nice if the airlines would come out with some rules like that, imagine, las month, one could have purchased DL BOS-LAX-BOS RT U fare for $109.00, surrendered the tkt, got the double bonus miles (12,000?)without having to fly at all... result: with a completely sold out but almost empty flight, there would be less traffic at the airport, less work for the ground crew, less air rage, less stress for the FAs, less payload for the plane(saves gas)...etc.

airline gets the money, passengers who dont fly still get the miles, those who do fly dont have to sit in the middle seats, everyone is happy....

[This message has been edited by belle3388 (edited 07-09-2000).]

Well, it costs the airlines to give you those miles. Right now they aren't doing it. Why would they start?

well quietlion, they key is the tkt is already paid for, since they will not give the passenger a refund, or do not allow change to a later date, or let credit apply to next tkt, it is only FAIR that the airlines give the passenger the miles he/she PAID for and deserve to have...
just IMHO....

They are frequent flyer miles, not frequent buyer miles.

Your idea makes allot of sense Belle. If you fly, the airline still has to give you the miles but has the added marginal cost of you travelling. In fact, if the airlines were smart (well we can hope ) about it they could generate substantial revenue this way. Given the number of people who fly simply to requalify for FF. status, I think that the interest would be there. Now, if only BA would sell you all the miles you wanted for two cents a mile I would be in FF. heaven.

To the grammar and spelling police: There are many after-school programs that would welcome your pedantic type of help (though you might have to brush up on some social skills first ). I am not particularly interested in getting lectured about these subjects on FT (where many of us just bash out a quick response in-between things) and anyway, language is in a constant state of flux and is not a static medium. It is not Ye olde FT, it is FT for goodness sakes.



[This message has been edited by Mvic (edited 07-09-2000).]

A couple of years ago I took a trip on America West near the end of the year to meet my Continental Elite requirements. It was a day trip TUS-PHX-SAN and return. The PHX-SAN flight was overbooked, and they were offering $400 to wait 3 hours for a later flight.

I considered the offer, and since the 3 hours would take up a good part of the time I had planned for sightseeing, I asked if they could just send me back to TUS, but credit me for milage for the entire trip.

The answer was no, and I stayed on the plane.
Stupid, yes, but rules are rules!

Anybody who has kids knows that for some "Why...?" questions the only answer is "because".

That said, a friend of mine HAS checked in for a flight not flown, just to get the miles (he also had a plausible excuse why he hadn't flown), and this worked. International would be different, of course. Apparently they rarely check seats against tickets, and even then there's a small leeway before they go to further trouble dealing with it.

In fact, Old Gold, he has checked in for both legs of a same-day round-trip and gotten back in his car; the miles (and the all-important bonus that was the reason for this lunacy) posted just fine. So he would have pocketed the $400 and gone sightseeing in Phoenix. Or bought a one-way back to Tucson. But changing the existing return to Tucson wouldn't have been an option - it would have alerted the airlines to the subterfuge.

Basically, the mileage programs are a game: they make the rules, and we play the game to win. But we have to stay within their rules.

As for the grammar issues here, I'll grant that I don't like people using u and r instead of typing out all those extra letters, but there are more important things to get upset about such as people who insist on wearing white before easter.

thanks mvic, for your comment about grammar... abbreviation is not grammatically incorrect, starting a sentence with AND and BUT is...

surprisingly, no one has yet to get on my case with the dot dot dot....

Another good reason for the airlines not to give frequent flier miles to people who buy a ticket and don't fly on it is that there are people like myself who are less crazily addicted than others on this board. I would at least consider paying $109 to collect 12,000 miles on the Delta LAX-BOS-LAX fare (worth $240 at the oft-quoted 2 cents per mile) without actually flying it, but I would never consider it if I had to actually fly it, since (a) I would have to add a SFO-LAX round trip, which would chew up most of the $240(value)-$109(cost) differential; (b) I don't have the time to spare to sit on a plane for 10+ hours without spending some worthwhile time at the destination. If I value my time at a low $10/hr, that's about $150 in my time (15 hours would include the time to get to and from and park at the departure airport and the layover time at Boston's Logan Airport; that's not even counting the additional time the SFO-LAX round trip would add).

Also, allowing customers to pay $109 solely to get 12,000 miles would negate the point of Delta offering this special promotional fare, which is to get travelers who really are traveling between the LA and Boston markets to at least think of Delta when planning future travel between the two cities.

Old Gold: I definitely would have taken the $400 for 3 hour delay if I had been in your shoes. But to each their own.

[This message has been edited by belle3388 (edited 07-11-2000).]

[This message has been edited by belle3388 (edited 07-11-2000).]