Differences in buy 3 get 1 free
 

Are there any significant differences in the various fly 3 get 1 free promotions? I did notice that Delta's redemption period starts later. Also Northwest and Delta exclude specific fare classes, while UA includes all classes, but requires no Saturday night stay.

Do any of the offers look better than the others? I have a feeling that very few of these awards will actually be redeemed, with everyone in on the game now.

Alaska's offer is actually for bonus miles which could be redeemed for a ticket.

On the one hand, capacity controls are likely tighter on the coach award ticket.

On the other hand, I'll always take the miles because they can be used towards an F ticket (while the other free tickets are not upgradeable) or even towards an international premium class award.

After a quick visit to the websites, I came up with the following (though won't swear for it's accuracy)

Sat Stay allowed for Coach:
UA, AA - Not Allowed
Delta, Northwest - Appears to be allowed
US AIR - Only booking codes YBMUHQ allowed for coach

Dates of Offer:
UA, AA, US Air - Now to 9/30
Delta, NW - To Oct 7

Registration Dates
All by 9/30

Number of freebies you can earn
All limit it to 2

Black out dates
US Air - Didn't find them, though they say they have them, and didn't look all that hard, all the rest - 54 days between November this year and 12/31/04

Fares Allowed (listing coach only)
UAL - All, but no Saturday Stay allowed
AA - not EGISTUWZ
Delta - not LUT
US Air - Has to be YBMUHQ that do not require a Saturday stay (the assumption is you can stay a Saturday, but the fare can't require it)

Booking class of free ticket
Delta - E
NW - K

[This message has been edited by cordelli (edited 06-10-2003).]

Of interest to me is that Delta and NW appear to allow travel to Canada for the free ticket. The other airlines seem to limit the award ticket to travel within the contiguous 48 states only.

Yes. For example, a trip to Vancouver (usually expensive from the right coast) could be free, without the stupid bus ride from SEA...

edit

[This message has been edited by clacko (edited 06-12-2003).]

The use of codes vs. days in the restrictions make things interesting. (Do the fare classes roughly correspond to not allowing a Saturday night stay?)

Also, are the booking classes for the award ticket similar (and do they all carry the same restrictions?)

Another interesting bit of legal fodder: Do the airlines really have the availability to provide tickets to all those who qualify? And related to this, does this mean none of the cheap tickets will be available to purchase?

Booking class is stricter, for example on Delta it has to be in E, on NW it has to be in K, and I believe, though not 100% sure, that all require a trip with a Staurday night stay for the free one.

I keep waiting for a promo that includes
HNL but it never gets included. The last time
I remember a promo that included HNL was in 1991 when HP had a buy one get one free
offer system wide.

MilesBuzz???

ranles: i'd say it is most certainly milesBuzz! It is certainly frequent flyer program related (can't earn the bonus without being a member) and this is not about one program in particular, it's about comparing them and in the case of Alaska, even more bonus miles.

As for the comparison, you really might want to consider seeing what webflyer.com has in their NotiFlyer news section, here's the link:
http://www.webflyer.com/programs/notiflyer/#art_162

Strange, it is not about earning or spending miles, that WAS your defination of MilesBuzz. Since when was the defination ff related? That sound like most of the site!?

Seems these programs are about earning a free trip without miles being used??

That sounds like TravelBuzz or something else.

Reconsider? I hate to question the holy grail on his own site.

ranles: since we both look like two idiots since we can't seem to read what the topic of this thread is and respond accordingly, let's take this philosophical challenge over ot my forum and discuss so that those interested in what is being posted about the topic of "Differences in buy 3 get 1 free" don't have us distracting them any more. Meet you outside?

Here is another interesting link that does some (rather simple) math to see if the offer is worth it:

http://www.smarterliving.com/air/deal.php?id=5106

To me the big negative in all this with regard to CO's offer is the stipulation that miles or elite upgrades will not be honored with the 'free ticket'. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif !!