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.

Centurion: There was also a heleport at 57th(?) which was on a wharf on the East Side. I used Battery Park more often because I was attending depositions at a firm at the very south tip of the island. I could leave a meeting at 4:45pm and be on the 6pm Transcon from JFK to LAX. Try that today.

Ah, those PanAm memories! I flew regularily with them throughout the 80's. I didn't have a chance to fly in their glory days, but the early 80's weren't bad. They had a womderful upgrade policy (yes, all fares were upgradable as far as I can recall). Besides that, platinum members got one class upgrade when the ticket was purchased. I bought a $129 transcon economy ticket which was upgraded to Bus at purchase. I then managed to talk myself into an upgrade at check-in in LAX, so I flew first for $129. Not bad! Their transcon breakfast was something to die for!

IIRC Platinum (their highest level) was something like 50,000 miles per year, so it wasn't too difficult to achieve. But another poster was correct in that you had to get to a certain level each year to qualify for the next year. If you didn't qulify, you lost your miles.

I wasn't so lucky. I cashed in my Pan Am miles for a domestic award certificate on Pan AM, good for a year. Within that period, Pan Am folded and Delta took over Pan Am's FF program. I called Delta about my Pan Am award certificate, they said it was only good on the routes Delta took over, namely the Northeast shuttle, which made the certificate useless to me living in the Midwest. They wouldn't recredit the miles either.

Didn't Pan Am charge a one-time $35 fee to join their frequent flyer club? (NOT the club room; I'm talking about the frequent flyer program, the same one that was free on every other airline.) I have a very strong memory of adamantly refusing to pay the $35 and avoiding Pan Am because I wasn't a member. I thought they lifted the fee right before they tanked.

Amazing, the flawed knowledge and bad memories.

Platinum on Pan Am was 30,000 base per year. As a plat you could call up for a one class free upgrade 72 hours before flight time, the upgrade was not at booking time (unless of course it was within the 72 hours).

It should be noted that in their last 12-18 months of existance (Pan Am 1 that is), the lowest three classes were eliminated from the Plat upgrade program.

Sorry to say it but only uninformed fools cashed in miles in the time before they tanked. there were several reasons for my statement:

1) No airline of Pan Am's size/impotance had ever been able to collapse like this. 18 months before the fall, UA bought the LHR routes for about $400 million AND put up a $300 million guarantee to protect Pan Am tickets.

2) It was assumed by everyone that UA, DL or NW would absorb Pan Am routes AND the program. This was stated by all suitors.

Also, the Pan Am rules on earning or losing (as stated above) were pretty much the same as everyone else at the time. Non-expiring miles or activity every three years to keep the account alive are mostly inventions of the 1990's.

The chopper service was to from the Pan Am building until summer 1977 when the big crash happened. After some time it was re-instated from the East River heliport, next to the Queensboro bridge. They did try helis to/fr BAttery Park on and off, but never lasted too long.
Pan Am stopped charging for their program in 1985 or so, at the time there were other airlines in the world that also charged. It was not just before they tanked as asserted above

Didn't UA buy the Pacific routes?

UA bought the Pan Am pacific routes earlier. They bought the LHR route in late April on 1991

I seem to recall that the chopper accident on the Pan Am Building involved blades flying off and killing people both on the pad and on Vandebilt Avenue below. The aircraft itself remained on the pad.

PanAm stil had pacific routes June-1991 whenI was bumped from a America West 747 flight out of PHX to a PanAm 747 out of LAX to HNL. It must of been close to the end.

Most of the helicopter services ran to/from the East 60th Street Heliport (dail services). Anyone traveling in J or P on -- even if traveling on upgrades! -- could use it. If I recall, the WorldPass application fee included the first 10k miles free, enough for an upgrade. It was pretty easy to buy BOS-JFK roundtrips for $40, add on the $35 WorldPass fee -- and get to use the helicopter.

Flights to/from Battery Park were started after the E 60th services and op'd only on weekdays.

The best deal with WPass -- up until '86 if I recall -- was that awards were not capacity controlled. PA got into big trouble because miles had to be redeemed within 3 years (I think) -- As a result, right before a 30 June deadline, they had an inordinate number of pax using freebies in first internationally, filling up planes and totally killing yields. ouch.

I just went back and checked my 1986 calendar book. (NOTE TO THE YOUNGER GENERATION: We used written, pen-and-paper calendar books before PDAs came along.) In 1986, I began a fifteen-year period of serious business travel, and on one business trip that year I ran from one ticket counter to another, gathering membership applications for all the frequent flyer programs. (NOTE TO THE YOUNGER GENERATION: This was before the Internet, when you had to get an application, fill it out, and send it through the mail -- or hand it to a gate agent who invariably lost it.) My Frequent Flyer calendar page shows that I was a member of every major domestic airline frequent flyer program EXCEPT Pan Am, which I declined because of their membership fee. There may have been other airlines in the WORLD that charged such fees, but among domestic airlines of that time Pan Am was unique.

In 1984 I flew across the Atlantic about 10 times. The first of those flights was in February of that year and I specifically remember NOT joining Pan Am because of the "fee" involved.

In 1986 about the time they sold their routes, they revamped their FF programme and dropped the fee. I know I never paid a fee, and believe it or not I still have my FF card from that time and it expired in early 1997 (no, I do not save all my expired cards, but that one surfaced a few years ago, and I didn't toss it due to the curiosity value).

That being said, I do remember that I took a trip to Rome in March/April 1986 and was still not a member. I do know that I later managed to get retroactive credit, therefore I would surmise that they changed the programme in mid 1986.

Prior to taht date it had a very genric name like the FF Progrram, while later it became Worldpass.

Also, at that time Pan Am was BARELY a domestic airline.

Actually, no.

The sale of its Pacific Routes to United by Pan Am occurred during my tenure as a UA SFORR reservation agent (Feb 85 to Mar 87), most probably in 1986. While PA may have retained LAX-HNL service, if your recollection is accurate, the international Pacific route sale had long been consumated.

Unfortunately for the people of Guam, PA had just dropped HNL-GUM service, so UA did not exercise its authority on that route, and only serviced GUM (and SPN) from KIX (Osaka) briefly starting in 1994.

It was most definitely after the summer of 1985, because I took PA to Tokyo from the East Coast. I remember it distinctly, because one of the engines caught fire over Canada, and ceased to function. We had to dump fuel and make an unscheduled stop in Anchorage for a few hours.

The only other time I've had to do an unscheduled landing was with CO coming back from GRU, where we did an emergency landing in the Amazons.

Did some research. Sale was in 1985, but UAL didn't start flying the Pan Am Pacific routes until February, 1986.

Yes - the landing gear collapsed, and when the copter fell to one side (but not off the building) a rotor snapped and went flying into a nearby office building and killed someone. This was covered on the Discovery Wings channel - apparently landing on the Pan Am building roof was always a dangerous proposition because of winds.

The winds had something to do with it, but the cause was metal fatigue in the landing gear.

Sale of routes to UA was announced in early 1985, with actual transfer completed in Feb/March 1996. Hold up was the Japanese gov't, which wanted to extract some concessions in order to allow UA to be switched in for PA. Also, UA was required to give up its SEA-NRT route (it was flying this at the time). CO picked it up, then sold it to AA, which abandoned it 1+ years ago (the result of UA re-entering the market). The usual int'l craziness.

I found my Flag Traveller Program card (I think that was merged into Worldpass?) and it is embossed with number, name and address.
I also found a May 1986 Worldpass bulletin announcing a partnership with AAdvantage and giving me two stickers with an AAdvantage number beginning with HL. I have never used this number. They asked for $25 to "renew" my Worldpass for 1986.

You betcha, that's how I got my lifetime Crown Room membership. To the best of my knowledge, Delta has never offered a lifetime Crown Room membership, so this was the ONLY way to get one (other than being granted one by some high exec, I suppose).

Western Airlines pax also got lifetime comped by Delta if they had lifetime before. In the old days Flying Colonels had lifetime as well, but that was then abandoned.

There was however a cut-off at some point. I had a lifetime on Pan Am and it wasn't carried over. I didn't expect it to be. Many years later I learned on FT that this perk did exist and contacted Delta, they basically told me that the books on this were "closed" after five years and they no longer maintained the old records.

FT had something to do with the Ambassador club thing as AA monitored all the "chatter" about buying it and getting AA lifetime.

I had flown to SYD with my wife on Pan Am for a month-long vacation (those were the days) on Worldpass miles -- the condition of which was taking the IAD-LAX-HNL-AKL-SYD route, no non-stop LAX-SYD allowed. A day or two before our return - UA took over the routes. I called to reconfirm and asked if we could be changed to the SYD-LAX 747-SP flight previously not allowed. No problem. The aircraft sported a rapid paint job that covered the Pan Am meatball with a layer of white. (I have a pic somewhere). The interior was un-changed and serving items were from both PA and UA. The SP - an interesting aircraft, but that's another story.

Yeah, what ever happened to all those SP's? They must all be in the desert or in some very remote 3rd world market. My first flight back SYD-LAX was in first class on an SP in UAL livery. Incredibly bumpy the whole way back. Weird since that plane supposedly flew higher than the regular 747. That was one long 15 hour flight, especially with a bad case of sun poisoning that itched like heck the whole time.

That's 19,000 non expiring miles!

[This message has been edited by Kidz (edited 07-17-2003).]

Nostalgia Click Here and Enjoy

[This message has been edited by akhullar (edited 07-18-2003).]