PAN AM's ORIGINAL WORLDPASS PROGRAM
 

ANYONE KNOW HOW PAN AM'S WORLDPASS PROGRAM WORKED? WAS OUR WORDPASS CARD AN IMPRINTER OR DID IT HAVE A MAGNETIC STRIP?


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I'm 90% sure it they were imprinted...no sign of a magnetic stripe.

I miss Pan Am.

Don't you hate when you're 90% wrong. Just found my old card...it's imprinted AND it has a mag stripe. It's bound to be a late-model card, though...around 1988.

I found my moms old Worldpass guide from November 1990. Complete with Award chart, and after talking to my dad he said you had to earn a minimum amount of miles a year or you lost all your miles, judging by my mom's balance of 7000 this was correct. They offered bonuses for nearly everything, a plethera of flights, buying duty free, hotels, car rental, joining the clipper club (gets you 10,000, 15,000 if your Elite), taking the water shuttle between the LGA Marine Air Terminal and New York City and more. I'm not sure if my dad's info is correct.

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DC-10's Forever!

My wife flew from SEA-LHR and back on Pan Am in December 1988. She was over there when the Lockerbie terrorist attack occurred. She earned something like 11,000 miles total in Pan Am Worldpass.

I saw on Flyertalk about two years ago, that most of the Pan Am FF accounts got merged into Delta's FF program. I called up Delta and said is there anything I can do with these old Pan Am miles. They said to fax in the old statement and they would transfer her miles to her Delta account. Two weeks later, she had 19,000 more points in her Delta account. There must have been some kind of bonus transfer added. Sometimes it pays to ask.

My Pan Am miles were transferred to Delta. I got a letter saying that I could notify them if I had a DL account and the miles would be merged. I asked that the new DL account be merged into my old DL account because the old DL number was easier to remember.

One time, I cashed in 10,000 UA Mileage Plus miles for an International upgrade to Business on Pan Am. I was able to earn miles on UA for the trip too. Between the actual roundtrip mileage and bonuses, it more than made up for the 10,000 miles for the award. Those were the days!!

Pan Am was wonderful. Still hard to imagine that they don't exist. Free helicopter from Battery Park to JFK for Bus/First passengers on the transcon. Routes around the world. They had an upgrade award once that was good on *any* paid ticket. I had a consolidater ticket (free from VISA, but VISA paid something) and they allowed me to upgrade to Bus (with my wife) on the nonstop from LAX-LHR. Clubs with free liquor in the US. The snottiest flight attendants you ever met if you were in Coach (pure cattle in their view) but classy service in Bus/First. A 747 from LAX to SFO (stub on long range route) so I could go business for $42 instead of coach for $35 (I was one of the few who wasted $7).

I think we are confusing luck with genius. Can you imagine what PA would be like now if it hadn't imploded like Jim Morrison, forever to be immortalized as "the good old days"?

Also I believe the Clipper Club had lifetime
memberships that were transferred over to the Crown Rooom membership as a DL agent once told me there are a few (not many)Crown Room members with lifetime. Too bad Ambassadors club did not get the same deal.

Does Jim Morrison implode? Wow, those history books are never right are they? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Pam Am often had more power and more contacts outside the United States than local United States foreign embassies. Folklore has it Pan Am helped out the US on many occasions where US Government operatives failed. NOW BACK TO OUR TOPIC

<<Free helicopter from Battery Park to JFK for Bus/First passengers on the transcon>> WOW THOSE CHOPPER WINDOWS USED TO VIBRATE..brings back many memories. I used to fly the wrong way to LAX to take that transcon flight to JFK and then chopper to NYC...I thought we landed somewhere else though and im not that old. Was the chopper always to Battery Park?

I'm one of the lifetime members (Clipper --> Crown Room) but for the last 3+ years Delta has been sending me Crown Room Membership cards with annual expiration dates instead of "Lifetime". So I'm hanging on to the old cards with Lifetime imprinted.

Pan Am even gave miles for NOT flying during certain peak periods http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif. My two kids who were under two years of age even collected miles on their 10% fare tickets and then on their 50% fares when they were between two years old until 12. We did annual trips overseas in Business Class every year and all four of us (wife and two kids) were Platinum members. Eventually Pan Am closed this loophole on collecting miles for minors on the 10% and 50% fares.

I'm still hanging on to several Pan Am amenity kits. May become valuable collectors items later on http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.

We each collected nearly 200,000 miles apiece of Pan Am which we transferred to Delta.

I remember the choppers to the roof of what was the Pan Am building by Grand Central Station and Park Avenue, now the Met Life building.

They had a terrible accident when the chopper didn't quite make it and plunged to the ground.