Flying 'F' w/awards... explain the logic please
 

Hi,

I've heard on more than one topic folks saying that they always use their awards to fly 1st Class. Is this the majority of you? I just don't get it. I'd *way* much rather have 2 or 3 award tix to Europe flying coach than one award ticket in 1st. (Ex: AA is 125,000 for F to Eur, and 40,000 (or 60,000 peak) for Y). Is there something I'm missing? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/confused.gif I suppose maybe the amount that you would pay for the same 1st Class ticket would give the award more value to the dollar, is this it? Even so I'd rather enjoy more awards, rather than doing it once 'in style'. It seems F is over-rated. Then again I've never flown it so maybe therein lies the issue. Apparently I don't know what I'm missing. Is it the alcoholic beverages, or? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif I think I'll take my V-8 on ice and cloth seats, thus quenching that travel bug a bit more often! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Julie the Newbie


[This message has been edited by Julie the Newbie (edited 08-19-2003).]

Fly British Airways First just once and you will never want to sit in back going to Europe. BA is one of the few remaing that still give the full first class treatment like the old days from Pan Am. Covet thy First Class seat. What people talk about on Flyer talk is also why so many executives fly private. They do it once and they are addicted! Justify it logically or economically? No Way! Now just wait for everyone to chime in with words like "more productive" "time saver" "allows me to work in the air" It is all excrement...just human nature, which is everyone, likes a little luxury.

Hi Julie and welcome!

It may depend on your age & from which part of the country you are flying.

If I was in my 20's, I probably would agree with you and go for the multiple trips. But our trips to Europe start on the West Coast and involve somewhere in the vacinity of 13-15 hours of travel time. Also traveling through 9 time zones. So it is a very exhausting trip.

I flew coach on my first trip 5 years ago, and was in the middle of a 5 or 6 person center row, plus I had a terrified Arab woman next to me,who spoke no English, grabbing and squeezing my arm as she said her prayers. (AND she kept her light on all night) By the time we landed in Frankfurt, I was exhausted and bruised!

I'll take business or fc anyday over repeating that experience. In business you have seats that don't quite recline completely, but they are spacious and you have your own media system. In FC the seats actually lay out flat to make a bed.

Alcohal doesn't factor in on international flights, as it is free in all classes.

There's also the value aspect.

I bought a coach ticket SFO-LHR for $326. I'd be insane to blow 50,000 miles for that trip (less than a penny a mile).

A First Class ticket SFO-LHR costs $10,000. Using 100,000 miles for that seat is 10 cents per mile in value.

My in-laws suck up so many of my miles that I cannot fly free first if I wanted to.

------------------
United UGS, 1K, Million Mile Flyer
Hyatt Lifetime Diamond
Starwood Platimun

In my case, there were a couple of compelling reasons to book BA F awards for my wife and I. First, the difference in milage was very low - 60k for WT, 70k for WT+, 80k for J and 100k for F; certainly, at those levels J was a no-brainer over WT and the premium for F was small as well. The miles were well spent - BA F is a treat! - but unfortunately BA has since "enhanced" the redemption levels to 60/90/120/180 respectively. At those levels, we'd still spring for J, but probably not F.

Second, and probably more important, is that the number of miles we've accrued is fairly high relative to the number of opportunities we have to actually use the miles. This was the first real vacation we had taken alone in almost 6 years! I would imagine that a high "miles banked/number of vacations" ratio holds for a goodly percentage of FT'ers overall. So, why not use some of the hoarded miles for F rather than let them sit and get devalued over time as seen above?

I didn't know the seats lie completely down, that's pretty cool! I'm 31 and fairly small in size... that probably makes a big difference too. I imagine the coach seats could be really very small for some. I've flown a fair amount, but the longest flight I've been on was EUG(Oregon)-MIA... that was a long haul but nothing like going to Indonesia or something! I do see the point with dollar value... in extreme cases that's something to ponder.

Julie

Well, if you wanted to go away Labor Day weekend to a popular spot, you could pay an arm and a leg
for a short-notice coach seat with a high fare, or book an award seat. The problem is that coach awards
can be taken, but you can still fly F by redeeming more miles.

Some of us need to cash in miles because we have more than we know what to do with, but I
realize that, at the start, scaping together 25,000 miles could be painful and take quite a while.
In that case, it seems foolish to take one trip instead of several.

However, domestically, there can be less of a difference between coach awards and F awards.
Although cheap or free upgrades with paid fares can be easy to come by on AS, AA, NW and others,
some airlines (AS, UA) want only 40,000 miles for F.

Also, meals on certain flights (AS and others) can be very good (a salmon dish on AS was every
bit as good as one in an upscale hotel restaurant), and a longer domestic flight can be much more
memorable than the usual grind in coach. Of course, if one has flown a lot, either one might
not be too memorable after a while...

The exception has already been noted - - the flight from h@ll in coach - - usually on int'l
flights. If flying 8 to 16 hours wasn't enough, flying this long in coach can be quite gruesome.
.
.

[This message has been edited by IJK (edited 08-20-2003).]

This is absolutely the reason people do it.

If you don't fly in business or first class on business, chances are fairly high that you'll never get the full-on travel experience, since you won't want to part with so much of your own cash for what amounts to spending 8 or 10 hours in a metal tube.

However, if you are using a more opaque currency like miles, you might be more inclined to do it.

As the math above show, premium class travel is relatively cheap using miles.

Another thing to consider is that a lot of us rack up the miles very easily, thanks in part to tips we learned on FlyerTalk!

For example, all my credit cards earn miles/points. I am Premier (bottom-level elite) on United, so I earn a 25% bonus on all paid miles flown on UA. I look for other ways to earn bonuses (online booking, special offers, grocery miles, other partner bonuses, idine, the list goes on and on).

When you rack up hundreds of thousands of miles/points in a short amount of time, spending 90K miles on a business class trip to Asia or 100K miles on a first class trip to Europe doesn't seem so profligate.

Also, the unfortunately shaky financial state of many of the major airlines has been an inducement to burn miles more quickly than we might otherwise. What better way to "burn" than to fly premium class international instead of economy? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif


Kathy

BA Club World Business seats do recline fully flat remember - still the only truly flat bed in BC until Virgin get their Upper Class Suites launched.

There is also the buy cheap and upgrade with miles approach, which for those of us who accumulate miles faster than we can burn them can give the best of both worlds.

Award availability is another reason to redeem F/J instead of Y--sometimes Y just is not available on the required travel dates, and the miles required for F/J are often quite comparable to those required for the less restricted Y awards.

Life's too short for coach.

Thanks to Flyertalk, I don't need to fly coach.

But we all have our preferences, and noone views award travel quite the same way as anyone else.

My miles are first and foremost for upgrades. Second for free international premium class tickets.

If my primary goal was to see the world and not spend any money, and I was in a position of needing to stretch my miles (as opposed to having a 7 figure balance of miles) I'd probably want coach awards.

Instead, I have lots of miles. I really want to enjoy the travel itself as much as the destination. And I have more miles and less time to use them. If I was traveling all year for leisure I might be in a position of conserving cash and stretching miles. Instead, I work most of the time and the little bit of true leisure I get I want to make the most of.

I've claimed two coach awards in my life.

* One was a same-day transcon for a funeral back before I even knew awards other than the 25k coach saver award existed.

* The other was to the Freddies in COS this year. It was a personal out of pocket trip. I was flying UA out of DCA, which meant DCA-ORD mainline and ORD-COS RJ. An F award would have upgraded only the DCA-ORD flights, so it didn't seem worth it. Plus I mooched a DCA-ORD upgrade on the coach award anyway. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Otherwise, it's all C and F, baby!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

------------------
View from the Wing: A blog about Free Miles and Free Markets

I've used miles for a domestic first award once (well, technically business...). In that case, there were blackout dates on the saver awards for the dates I needed to fly. And most of the days around the blackout days, were sold out. For 40,000 miles I could have booked a standard award in coach without blackout restrictions. Or for the same 40,000, I could book a 1st class award. Needless to say, I booked the FC award, and ended up traveling in business in the upper deck of a 747!

I've never booked an international award. Most of my pond-crossing has been in the off season, where it's easy to get 3-5 seats to yourself. Pop up the armrests and you have a nice 'economy class' bed. (Albeit minus the 'socks')

Ah! I'm "getting it" now! *light bulb just turned on* I just checked out AS's upgrades, if I'm understanding correctly, you can upgrade for 5,000 ea. way??? To use your miles for upgrades for planned trips, esp. when you know how to find a good deal, makes perfect sense. Is is it really only 5,000 ea. way/per upgrade? I want to make sure I'm understanding correctly... For instance a paid for trip to Europe (or anywhere) could be upgraded to Bus. for 10,000 RT, and F for 20,000 RT? Now *that* is value! If this is how it works, then I'll be really excited to take my first FC trip! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif Now I just need to hone my cheap tix 'skills'...

Julie the Newbie

[This message has been edited by Julie the Newbie (edited 08-20-2003).]