The best deal after the KLM mega comp is still ongoing. WebAwards are awesome. Just got back from flying Washington-Seoul roundtrip in J via AMS for only 45k. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif


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Please click daily and help those less fortunate at www.thehungersite.com

Man, this thread is depressing.

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-alan in sitges, home of the new, improved, and now legendary Si-Re-Do

Back in 1989, Northwest had this deal for students -- get an Amex card and receive two NW certs. for $99 RTs anywhere domestic. You could earn miles on the RTs, so after two years of this (4 RTs), you could have a free trip after four really cheap ones.

I remember that travel agents hated these things. It was the old system in which agents earned 10% of the ticket price. The certs. made extra work for them, and they only got $10.

In 1976 I did a 3 week pass on Allegany for $179 (depart before noon on weekdays, anytime weekend, unlimited segments, except no stopover in the same city more than once.) No FF plans at that time.

In 1984, Eastern had redeyes from ORD to SFO for $35?. Only carry-on baggage.

[This message has been edited by gfowler-ord-1k (edited Feb 13, 2004).]

Are you sure about that? I remember it being from ORD to Houston or somewhere else in Texas. I don't recall Eastern ever flying the ORD-LAX route but I could be wrong.




[This message has been edited by Neal (edited Feb 13, 2004).]

BA in the Benelux had a promo offering a free concorde trip for 10 segments in Club Europe back in 1999. There was no limit to the maximum so each 5 returns in Club Europe was good for a minimum of 120000 miles. (trips were just round $300 each so for $1500 you got a heck of a lof of miles). I was doing these trips several times a week so it was quite rewarding http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

How about the promo that some consider to be the true beginning of air travel awards?

In the late 70s, UA had just resumed service after a system wide strike and needed to lure back their customers. At that time, air fares were still regulated and were fairly inexpensive, especially in Coach. One way fares were exactly half the price of a roundtrip to most anywhere in the USA.

For about one month after the strike, flight attendants handed out one "half off" certificate to each passenger. There was no limit to the amount you could accumulate and then use later. I remember a First Class ticket on UA from ORD-LAS was something like $188.00 or $376.00 roundtrip. Using the certs, I flew ORD-LAS roundtrip in F for just $188.00 and did this numerous times.

I believe AA matched UA and did the same thing. They too, needed a boost due to that DC-10 disaster near ORD besides having to compete with UA.

You are right, it was ORD-SFO. I corected my above post.

I am surprised that no one mentioned what I think was one of the best deals of all time. On the original award chart for Marriott they had, as their top item, award PZ for 360,000(?) points, which I earned my first year in the program (I took the award in 1987). Included in that award was *all* of the following:

1. Four airline tickets anywhere on the system (I took 2 TWA to Vienna and 2 Continental to Austrailia).

2. Three 10-day hotel stays, specifically allowing *reservations* for *suites*.

3. Three 10-day car rentals, mid-size.

4. AND, 2 people on a 7-day European cruise (we did the Greek Islands) because Marriott owned Sun Line Cruises for a brief period.

Whilst not as cheap as some listed here I thought the following was a great use of 150,000 AA miles in Oct 2003.

SNN-LHR : EI J
LHR-YYZ : BA Concorde
YYZ-LGA : AA F
JFK-SCL : LA F
SCL-GIG : LA F
GIG-LHR : BA F
LHR-SNN : EI J

Given that the miles cost me $2,300 to accrue on holidays last year, and the trip would have cost me $18-23k to purchase (depending on my country of residence), I felt it was a good deal. Thankfully I'd only previously claimed 1 AA award before discovering FT and more efficient uses for my miles.

For me,the best award was USAIR's Concorde RT award JFK/LHR on BA for 125K miles.

The old Delta Medallion award: 2 First Class tix from anywhere in the USA to Hawaii for 75k miles.

I also miss the PSA system awards for 10k miles. It shouldn't take the same number of miles to fly down the coast as it does to go transcon.

Exactly when was Concorde running from London to Toronto? Typo? ;-)

We made good use of the NW $99 certs in '89 and '90. Unfortunately, they did not serve NC back then, so we had to drive to DCA or GSP.

As part of the retirement "celebrations" there was a once-off flight from London to Toronto on Oct. 1, 2003.