To understand anyone's use of a word really requires an understanding of their corporate culture. Here's our story.

The girls i was referring to was not even a term that i invented for them, it actually came from themselves. That group has been together for nearly seven years without turnover. Pretty hard to do these days but one of the factors for that is that as a small company - less than 50 employees, they bond, have fun on the job and enjoy a personal approach toward their work. As for the company, we've always enjoyed a rather casual work environment that fostered the idea we're all equal. Equal? Well, I help take out the trash. I clean toilet bowls in the men's room and even the ladies room from time to time. I change light bulbs and even vacuum areas that aren't my office. As well, I even take my turn to clean the kitchen. They do similar things and we're really a one level company which probably contributes greatly to the extreme low turnover we have.

Now the term "girls." I didn't invent it, they taught me the term. It came from the the girls themselves as they were joking years ago about being the "Vanna's Girls" when they were helping with the Freddie Awards (ala Vanna White). So among themselves the term "girls" sort of stuck and then i used it to refer to something they were doing with the Freddies. It stuck as well to refer to that group since again, they have been together for some time.

As well, the layout of the building contributed to it. For some reason (and i did not do the hiring, a female did) one half of the building ended up all female employees and the other half ended up all male. Kitchen, laundry room, conference room and reception separating the two halves. That as well probably contributed to the idea of the girls half and the boys half of the building.

So that's the story of the "girls." Fun in a way, not threatening and if anything representing that this is a fun, enjoyable and easy to work for company without any pretense.

Hope this helps dispel any notion that I was sexist.

[QUOTE=belleNY]

[QUOTE=Randy Petersen]To understand anyone's use of a word really requires an understanding of their corporate culture. Here's our story.

Thanks for the background -- fascinating. I'm sorry that this type of thing warrants a multi paragraph response.

I am looking forward to using awardplanner now that FT has helped me accrue a lot of miles over the past year. Thanks!

Yvonne did a wonderful job for me on an international trip involving a stopover, an open jaw, and two hotel awards. I basically said "Here are my UA, AA, Marriott, and Hilton numbers, here are the dates I want to travel, I want biz class, don't care too much whether it's *A or OW, let me know the options."

She emailed me back about a day later with the whole itinerary. :) It was very much worth the $40 or whatever the fee was at the time. (This was when the annual fee was much lower but there was no per-trip option.)

Ordinarily, I'm like some of you in that I like looking for my own awards when they are available online. But I hate it when I physically have to call airlines on the phone - I mean I dread it worse that just about anything. This one involved some Asian partner airlines - not something that I could just query and book on AA.com or United.com. At least not in 2002.

Only reason I don't join them annually is because I haven't done a complicated multi-country / partner award lately. But if I ever have another one of these trips that requires manual intervention, I won't hesitate to call these guys...errr...girls and have them do the legwork.

I suggest you read posts # 36 and 37. @:-)

The "no refunds" policy is fair, because it protects the company from freeloaders. (Not that I'm suggesting that YOU are a freeloader, but.... :D )

Agreed. I am giving HP one shot to book my LAS-LJU trip (on NWA metal) for the DO out there. If they can't get it right, this will be the best $ I could ever consider spending.

This sounds like a great service if you enter it with the right expectations. It is just like signing up for a FFP - or isn't that what got us in this mess in the first place. ;)

Not to throw water on this fire but my experiences with award planner have not been that great. I signed up for a 1 year membership as the endorsement here on FT was amazing (99% positive or a forum... when does that happen :p ).

I tried two bookings with them, both to europe, last year and both times they came up with not being able to find anything. Both times, my dates were not flexible but I had miles in 5 different programs spanning all three major alliances and I was looking for a business or first ticket so there was some flexibility.

While i most certainly found the person i was working with to be quite knowledgeable about airlines/partners etc. I found that two things were missing. 1) i had to go on this trip or else I was flying coach (12 hrs overnight) and going straight to work. In other words, in the end, they just could not be as motivated to make it work as I could
2) They were not as creative to find things as I was, and still lacked a full breath of understanding of the possibilities of partners etc. Specifically, using my KLM miles as an example, if I want to leave from the New York area and nothing is available out of New York, then PHL, BOS, DTW, ORD, YYZ all may be possibilities (with a cheap ticket from NY RT or as an open jaw back to NY). Often, I've found people within the airlines themselves who are willing and passionate to make this type of stuff work. Most recently at AA EXP desk, i found someone who spent 1 hr. with me on the phone hammering out an award ticket for my wife to Europe that was an open jaw from YUL connecting in LHR on BA and return to NY with a cheap 1 way to YUL from EWR.

In the end, for both of these trips, I found routings myself and even found a direct EWR-AMS-xx flight for the exact times I wanted. This opened up miraculously. When awardplanner got back to me saying they could not find anything I thought all is lost. Just as an exercise in futility, thinking that it might be fun to bang my head on the wall for a while, I call both BA and KLM myself again to see if I could get them to open up a seat (no status on either airline…. Had status but expired). BOTH airlines had possibilities with KLM having the direct flights I mentions. Just left me with the feeling that they just did not try often/hard enough.

Still, i have yearly membership so I will definitely give them a shot again.

I'd give them a shot for a reasonable fee, but not prepaying a year.Too bad that there are no other options. If even pay the year if it was partially refundable on a strike out.

Nicki at AwardPlanner scored a complex YVR-HKG-SYD itinerary in CX J for me and my family using BAEC miles.

She organized a conference call with me and the BAEC agent to double-check that the flights and dates were acceptable. When the dopey agent misspelled my name on the itinerary (and I had a minor heart attack because I know BAEC treats awards as absolutely unalterable after booking, and I find their agents to be very unskilled communicators), Nicki got back on with BAEC and straightened it out. A couple of months after making the booking she got the CX seat assignments we wanted and set up Australian visas for the family. And she got me a Hilton award in SYD that I couldn't shake loose on the website.

All for $39.95 -- which is what Randy was charging for a one-trip consult last year. As I told Nicki sincerely, they could've charged $399, not $39, and I would still have found it reasonable.

$100 for a year's worth of consults is a huge bargain, I think, even if you only have one big trip annually.

Not sure why people freak so much over these words. At a previous job us females decided to term ourselves "the chicks" (in a very male based field). So you had the marketing chicks, the IT chick, the phone chicks. And we were very proud of our titles, despite it scaring the guys calling us chicks in the beginning for fear of being attacked for using the phrase.

Lehava, it has to be initiated by the women. I live in a town/culture where using the term "girls" to refer to female employees can literally lead to legal action against the man who said it. It all depends on the attitude of the women; there's no predicting it, and no rulebook. That's why men, at least, freak out. I am very cautious about calling women co-workers anything except "my colleague," even those I've known for years and consider myself on good terms with!

Yes, Dan! New Zealand!
 

That does sound really good. Thanks to FT I have enough miles, plenty in fact. Just need a destination.

When people get up tight about the usage of words like "girls", it seems that some people go about looking to be offended. If no offense is intended, then no offense should be taken. I think the term "girls" is used commonly as the opposite word for "guys" because the word "gals" has gone out of common usage in many areas of the country.

On the contrary, in many places South America, they refer to each other with nicknames in the workplace that explicitly describe physical attributes such as sex, race, color, weight, etc. and there is no offense taken. In fact, it is usually considered friendly.

If all people are equal, as they should be considered, why take offense when no offense is intended?

Well I gave them another try. one ticket EWR(NYC) to ATH. Again, response from the awardplanner team that no availibility for my dates and that best they could do was one day off my desired dates. I call myself, on my second phone call, using my AA miles I'm able to get the exact dates and times I wanted out of the most convenient airport for me. In addition, the EXP agent offered me three separate unique alterante (more convoluted... like EWR-ORD-LHR-ATH) routings that were available.

YMMV

You'd better get LaDonna another phone line
 

From a letter in Wendy Perrin's column in the April 2006 Conde Nast Traveler:

".....I turned to LaDonna Epler at awardplanner.com ($100 for a one year membership). Using her secret strategies, she has promptly found award seats for me and my family on convenient flights to Venice, Miami, and Rome. Next month, do your readers a favor: instead of an exotic location, put LaDonna Epler on the cover."

Problems with awardplanner.com
 

I just signed up with awardplanner.com last week based on the rave reviews from this forum. I called them and request an award (on Tuesday, I believe) - I then sent them an e-mail updating my request on Wednesday, and I haven't hear back anything from them at all. I will call them on Monday, but I just am disappointed that they didn't give me any updates or anything. I will try to remember to update this thread if they get their act together, but I just wanted to share this with anyone who was thinking of signing up with them.