Hello,

I am happy to find myself here, as this site was exactly what I have been looking for. I have lurked for a while and am ready to ask for advice.

I am now working a job where I have travel and would like some advice on what programs to shoot for from some the old hands here.

My travel: I travel around the US (mostly) and occasionally ineternationally/Hawaii to install software. My company lets me fly business class on flights over four hours, which is essentially very little in the continental US. I can pretty much fly any airline I want, as long as it originates in AUS. I am motivated to keep costs down, though, as my bonus is tied to being under budget. I fly quite a bit, especially in the summer, as I have flown about 20,000 actual miles since the beginning of May. I usually get booked in the cheapo class (for the aforementioned reasons).

I also pretty much have my choice of hotels, but again, I try to keep the cost down for my bonus considerations.

My goal for miles: I focus on getting free tickets to allow my wife and daughters to travel with me. Upgrades are nice, but I will not spend miles to get them. I'm not worried about international upgrades, as I will only make 2-4 int/HNL flights per year and I get Business class anyway.

I want the elite perks mainly for getting bonus miles for free airline tickets. 50%+ of my trips are to Florida and Southern CA, so I would appreciate decent award availability to these areas, as well as to where my family lives (TVC & GRR).

Non-stop flights from AUS to major destinations would be nice, but I know better than to hold my breath.

As for hotels, I am wide open to suggestions.

For autos, I am required to rent from Hertz, which does a decent job.

One other thing: I hate Southwest. Assigned seats are important to me.

Thanks for any advice you are willing to give.

Welcome to the board installer.

There some guys on the board who might give you more/better advise.

I start with:

AA - They have a hub "near" you in Dallas with very good connections all over US. Many flights to/from MIA.
Hilton - join HHonors now, change your data twice and again after 07/01 and you have 5,000 points to start. Get a Citi Hilton card and another 10,000 points; no fee.
Starwood - get an Amexco Starwood Card; first year free, then $35. 1 $ = 1 "mile",
20,000 "miles" = 25,000 airline miles.
However, I mostly keep the Starwood-Points.
Get a Hertz 1# ClubGold card, should be free, no charge.
Book "all" reservations on the internet and get bonus miles/points for online booking.

[This message has been edited by USAFAN (edited 06-13-2002).]

Since most of your flights are to the left coast, you may want to consider Alaska Airlines or America West.

I believe in the last issue of InsideFlyer, they reviewed Alaska's plan and gave it a good rating. You should check it out. http://mileageplan.alaskaair.com/AboutMP.asp

Whatever you do: stay away from Continental.

Call Hilton and sign up for their current promo CNTU for 50,000 points for 4 stays in 90 days. Then sign up your wife for 50,000 points. If you can get 4 stays in 90 days and you can get 4 stays for your wife in 90 days, then you are more than half way to a Hilton 100,000 point 6 night GLON award in two accounts. You could always combine the two accounts into one family account, but Hilton runs enough promos that you might want to consider keeping two accounts for you and your wife.

A six night GLON award is good for six nights anywhere in the world or a Hawaii award. Some premium properties require 150,000 points for six nights.

Thanks for the replies:

I signed up for the Hilton promotion, and rebooked a couple of future stays. How do I sign my wife up and stay in her name? Will they give me any problems during check-in if she's not with me?

I already have Hertz Gold, it's a huge time saver.

I want to concentrate on one program, which kind of limits me to the majors, although I too have heard that Alaska Air has a great program.

A couple questions I have is: what's so bad about Continental? I have about 20k miles with them the last few months. I have about 10k with AA. Should I hit 25k with COntinental and then ask American to comp me?

As to the credit card offers, I'm avoiding them, as I'll be buying a new house in 1 year and do not want to open new lines of credit. My corporate AMEX is fine.

Thanks again for all the input.

1. Make sure you do the Hilton "profile update". You can get 1000 miles each time and this can be done twice. After 7/1/02 you can do it again for another 2K miles. Grand total 4K miles for doing nothing.

2. Just because Alaska isn't one of the majors doesn't mean you shouldn't consider them. Dont forget that as an Alaska member you can EARN and REDEEM miles on many airlines: AA, Qantas, BA, CO (for a limited time), etc. Check the alaska link above for more details and to verify the nature of the partnerships.

3. CO is a good domestic airline but for travel to the left coast, its horrendous. You will end up connecting in IAH for every trip. CO also has a huge chip on its shoulder lately with customer service last on its list of priorities. Gordon Bethune routinely lies to its best customers (elite members). Finally to top it off, the international upgrades on CO are pathetic. Almost impossible to get an upgrade to biz class without paying full fare. Virtually impossible to use miles to upgrade, and even less chance of getting upgrade seats when available. To top it off, CO employees (non-revs) can get biz class seats VERY easily due to this stupid CO international upgrade policy. For a good laugh, goto the CO board and do a search on "Hokey, BendForward, 72 Hour rule, 30 day rule, EUA" and you'll see what I mean.....stay far, far away from CO.

In my opinion, nothing. CO has been great for reconciling problems, they have given me bonus miles when they made mistakes (not crediting miles properly) and have had good offers (I once got a EWR-SCL flight for 25k instead of their usual 35k - others charge 50k for the same flight). I like them - even the food was better (though all airline food is not very good). In my experience, United is the worst. Most people I know personally who have flown substantially seem to agree. I have never flown them without incident and they have been rude/unaccomodating to fix THEIR errors in my account (not crediting miles). So I avoid them but I do have a good choice of airlines being within 1.5 hours of NY and Philly.

I suggest you use your own experience to decide who is good/bad and look at the award charts/routes to see what works for you. Some airlies will have more options or better mileage requirements for what you want. You can comb through these boards and find someone that loves or hates every airline.

Consensus on board is Hilton for hotels. I agree, because of range of hotels: Book at Hilton for business meeting, Hilton Garden for some trips, or even Hampton if you are pushing the budget. Plus the double dip is great.

But which airline to be your lead. From AUS, plenty of flights on CO through IAH or AA through DFW. MHO: Go with CO.
- Unlimited domestic upgrade opportunities on paid flights.
- Plenty of flights through IAH.
- With your milage, you should make Plat Elite, which has priorty for those free domestic upgrades and on reward seats. It has discounted capacity-free rewards and many bonus miles per flight. Also, can be used to get free domestic upgrade for the wife when she is with you.

However, if you are trying to work towards free international travel, AA would be better as it has more reward partners internationally.

Whichever airline you choose, try to stick with it to get top-tier Elite status.

Whichever you choose, be sure to set your Hilton profile so that you get that airline's miles when you double dip. Also, you should be sure that you get FF miles when you rent with Hertz. That needs to be set to your profile with them.

If you don't have a corporate card you must use, consider a Visa/MC that is affiliated with the airline you choose (Citibank for AA; Chase for CO; or Citibank USA for Hilton HHonors points) so you get even more miles/points.

Hope this helps.

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On the road, In the air,
I enjoy travel, From here to there.

I'm also based out of Austin and find that using AA and CO works best for me. If your company provides paid biz class and you'll be going to HNL often, go for CO out of IAH and get their BF seats. You'll find many threads discussing HoKeY and how difficult it can be to upgrade on CO but if you get a paid ticket each time to HNL, do it. My wife is silver elite with CO and often gets auto-upgrades out of AUS. Both CO and AA offer frequent flights for AUS folks. AA works well if you fly coach given their MRTC.

With regards to a credit card, AA/Citi is good but also consider AMEX and MR points. You can use the MR points to fly CO/DL and UA thru DL. Just my 2c's...