THat's probably the $5 tax that you have to pay on domestic award tickets?

The $5 stupidity tax, perhaps? I've booked about 10 reward trips in the last year, so I am quite conversant with the taxes that are charged on them. I only *wish* that the taxes were $5. The tax/fees were about $83 on this ticket. This was a *separate* charge, which I'm sure was the pay $5 to talk to a real person charge, which is waived for Plats. It was also not a domestic award (for 35k). Maybe next year they'll be 35k though. Sigh.

I just want to offer a slight correction: UA Standard Awards are available provided there are still revenue seats available for sale in that class of service. While flights may be overbooked, a Standard Award on UA doesn't let you exceed the overbooking levels for that cabin. There has to be a Y, C or F seat for sale.

I think you all know this but just for the few folks who didn't.

Last year KE made a significant devaluation in their program with restrictions on upgrades and higher mile requirements for awards. Enough people complained so they decided to delay the change for one year. I would suggest that if enough people complained NW might consider delaying the changes for six months or a year.

not the most relevent comparison (with due respect)

So is it the higher KE award levels that is driving the increase of miles in the Asia region? If it is, that'll be another reason not to like KE. (First reason, from what I hear is their service record...)

Jiburi

Yes it is possible that KE is the driver of some of the NW mile devaluation to Asia with their revised plan. They limited the type of fare that are eligible to receive upgrades.

In regard to their service levels, I have flown them for many years and there is a big difference between econ and biz/first. Their service/safety record was not great a few years ago but they hired DL to recommend changes and I believe they have implemented many improvements in this regard.

Time to grab those South America awards. How many days out can COPA awards be booked? 330?

That sounds about right! Get them while you can. I now only have 1,500 miles in my WP account.

Suggested Compromise.....
 

I wonder if Northwest might be interested in a compromise. Just like when United had Old and New Program for its Mileage Plus program, I wonder if Northwest would be willing to keep our February 28, 2005 balance in the old program, redeemable for pre February 28, 2005 award levels. This would essentially prevent the further devaluation of our current miles. Any new miles earned after March 1, 2005 would count toward the new award schedule. Of course, any unused miles in the old program can be transferred to the new program (but not from the new to old).

Jiburi

It would be nice for us, but what's in it for Northwest?

happy flyers who will continue to patronize Northwest.......

Jiburi

aa did the same thing. my mom's bf has a pretty big stash of old miles that he uses to redeem from a very old award chart. and iirc, dl did something similar when it introduced skymiles (i think the lack of an expiration date might have been the only difference there though).

however, i've noticed that no such grandfathering has been applied during more recent devaluations. perhaps airlines previously felt some type of obligation to stand by their policies in order to ensure their credibility, but that is no longer the case.

The good news is that US->India hasn't changed. That's our 2006 trip so I'm lucky there.

The one thing I do see is that the chart says that FC to India is NA (not available I presume). I take it that means that Flying MH to India via LAX in First is not an option using NW miles?

For some reason most US-based FF programs seem to restrict India awards to transatlantic. I don't know why exactly, but I'm pretty sure NW, UA, AA, etc. all do it.

CO:Restricted travel dates will not apply to reward travel requests made in 2005
 

At Continental's website, there is a small statement which I thought was interesting immediately after the listing of restricted blackout dates on award travel......

Perhaps they are making improvement to its Onepass program, by getting rid of blackout dates, but I think otherwise. I'm thinking there might be award level alignment, similar to NW brewing at CO..... I guess I won't know until January 1.

Jiburi

Blackouts are not the problem for me at CO. You cannot get standard award availability and so everything is double miles nearly all the time.

Is there any news if the changes in the 2005 NWA program will also be effective for KLM? If so, I better switch back (I'm a dual Dutch-American citizen ;))

Happy with the Status Quo
 

I used to shudder whenever Delta sent out its "changes" each year! Man, am I ever glad that I switched back to NW!!! I'm only 17,000 miles away from my 2MM-er level. Status Quo is GREAT!

Any changes for travel from North to South asia on MH ?
 

I can't find any changes in the biz class award level for travel from North to South Asia from the current 30K level ? I'm thinking of travelling on MH sometime in 2006. Thanks !

Bump. I tried calling NW WP, but was unable to get a clear answer.

I have sent the following message to NWA thru https://www.nwa.com/talk/ttu.html, I encourage everyone to express their disappointment with this new program to NWA.
=======
Dear NWA,

As a frequent NWA flyer and a NWA Silver Elite member for a few years, I would like to express my disappointment and disbelieve about the WorldPerks 2005 revisions which can be found at http://www.nwa.com/features/awdchgs. My primary reason for flying NWA and its Skyteam partners is to collect miles for award travel to Europe. This used to be 50.000 miles but is 80.000 miles under the new program, an increase of 30.000 miles (60%!). This is not getting compensated in any way by the new “all paid fare classes are eligible to earn WorldPerks miles” update.

I will certainly consider my airline options next year, including the use of my WorldPerks Visa Credit Card if NWA actually implements this new program.

Thanks,
Mark Haanraadts

Qantas And United
 

It's likely that United will be revising award charts, as oneworld QANTAS just announced award level changes.

based from tinkybelle posting,
bus award SYD-HNL is now 160k but will be 144K
bus award SYD-LAX up from 160K to 192K.
bus award SYD-sin up from 100K to 120K
first award SYD-JFK up from 200K to 384K

Upgrade policy are also changing with cheap fares no longer qualifying for upgrades.

Jiburi

if true, this makes my decision to stick with jl, in spite of the 70% accrual, easier. when miles cease to have any meaning, my priorties shift towards convenience, lack of change fees, and civilized service. as for domestic us flights, i've found that hp is pretty good (insofar as my travel patterns are concerned); i use wn for the rest and don't really bother with ff matters.

however, i've decided to put a considerable chunk of my transpacs on ua because, as of now, mp kicks butt and E+ is a pretty good product. if i fly nw, i think i'll just credit to hp.

I hear a lot of rumbling about mileage devaluation, but what really burns me is the new EQS policy for 2005. To explain why, here are my stats:

2003: 62K EQM, 62 EQS = PE
2004: 62K EQM, 46 EQS = GE

Funny thing is, under the new all fare class EQS rules for next year (2005), I would have re-qualified for PE this year as I flew over 100 total segments. However, since NWA decided to go head-to-head with Indy Air in my market this fall, all my formerly cherished B-fares disappeared from the lowest-available category and I ended up flying on cheap K and M fares for the past few months. Yeah, fly just as much as last year and drop a level anyway. I'm certainly not laughing now. :(

Any chance NWA would consider extending my PE status next year under the new 2005 WP rules?

(I didn't think so. :rolleyes: I guess I'll have to live with GE status for most of next year until I re-qual PE by reaching 100 total seqments again.)

Or do 13,000 in mileage runs between now and 12/31 :)

EQM on Delta?
 

Ok…would someone please clarify this for me….do we earn any EQM’s when flying on Delta?..... has this, in fact, changed once again?....on Delta it was 50% EQM's....then 100% EQM's...then 50% EQM's...is it now at zero EQM's??.....

You WILL earn EQM on DL. Whether it's 150%, 100% or 50% EQM, it depends on your fare class.
However, you will NOT earn EQS on DL flights.

I fly all short flights usually on nonB/Y tickets so the changes are good for me. Hard to qualify by EQM when you only get 1000 per week of flying. I'll probably be close to 100 segments though since I fly at least twice a week.

Thanks...
 

THANK YOU!!!

North America to Europe is still 50,000
 

U.S. 49 (excludes Hawaii)/ Canada/ Central America/Mexico/Caribbean - Europe:
Coach: N/C...Business: 100,000...First: N/C

Europe - North Asia/ South Asia:
Coach: 80,000...Business: 120,000...First: 160,000

Unless you reside in North or South Asia, EXM, the award level in coach to Europe from the US is still 50,000.

N/C = No Change

Based on an email I just got back from Russ Hinkley, I don't anticipate any "sweetening" of the changes -- in other words, the only changes to the program are the increased award costs.

Short version: too many people are RuleBusting into WBC and they needed to raise the price so fewer people could redeem awards.

Of course, one might argue that this is an expected result of making people RuleBust -- rather than making standard awards available and funnelling people to less popular flights (and after all, people have a fixed number of vacations they take each year), once they've driven people to RuleBust, people obviously choose the most convienent flights for their schedule -- with those invariably being the flights where revenue seats are at a premium. And Plats, with no redeposit charges, making changes and/or holding and releasing seats, become the worst culprits.

I also think it's funny that promotions are being labeled another culprit...I thought the point of the promotions was to make up for the already poor award availability that was making people have to RuleBust -- but now it appears the promotions are another reason the cost of awards must go up.

2005 remains in question for me -- I will have to look at my projected travel.

Steve

promotions = inflation

There were too many too good promos in last couple of years. I'm a silver, spend on tickets on NWA about $2500/year. And every year I go to Europe on an award ticket in WBC at least in one direction. That's taking away about $1,000 (1/2 of ZRGO4FUN class ticket TYS-VIE) from NWA if (very big IF) they can sell the seat. Appears that they can, otherwise they would not be increasing the award travel "prices".

The increase in award travel "prices" had to happen.

Silly me, I thought the promotions were making up for poor standard award availability. Because that was the excuse given every time someone complained about poor standard award availability.

2005 will definitely not be an NW year for me unless I am back to flying almost exclusively on cheap domestic tickets.

Steve

That's too. Every stick has 2 ends :)

Hey AWESOME! You are correct, I have misread it. Thanks!

No more M-fare upgrades?
 

Whoa, did anyone else notice this? I just saw it while looking at NWA's upgrade policies (for another thread).

http://www.nwa.com/freqfly/travel/compan.shtml

• Effective March 1, 2005, WorldPerks mileage upgrades for trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific itineraries are only available on Northwest Y and B type fares and Continental Y and H type fares.

Currently we can upgrade from M fares for non-China trans-Pacific itineraries. I just looked at that NWA page recently, and I could have sworn that new item wasn't there. I looked at Google's cached version of the page at http://www.google.com/search?q=cache...l/compan.shtml (which was retrieved a week ago on 11/30), and sure enough, the new item wasn't there. Looks like we've been enhanced :mad: :td:

edit:
Hmm, it seems http://www.nwa.com/freqfly/memrules/general.shtml hasn't been updated yet, since non-China M fares are not excluded: Upgrade options are valid on most published fare types ... except for the following: ... U.S. point of sale trans-Pacific fares beginning with H/K/V/Q and H/K/V/Q/M for flights between the U.S. and Hong Kong/China ...

I am not happy about these changes either. It was also my initial reaction that the changes in Award levels to Australia and throughout Asia were probably a directive from KE. Another reason not to set foot on a KE aircraft...who I have never had much time for in the past.

I don't want to be an apologist for the increases, because they are going to severely affect me - however, what many posters really have not acknowledged is that NW still provides the elite mileage bonus for all Skyteam carriers. I recently took AF (for the first time) and got my full 125% platinum mileage bonus for all the flights. Apart from the UA/LH/US relationship, and AA, do any other major alliance airlines provide such the elite bonuses when travelling on all other carriers in that alliance?

Certainly, when I used to fly SQ, the only time I qualified for a bonus (as a gold) was getting 25% bonus for SQ and VS flights. And their award levels are *still* higher than the new NW ones.

I've seen nothing from NW to imply this. Delta, for example, is still at lower redemption levels and has been a Skyteam partner from the beginning.

Everything I have been told leads to the same conclusion: too many people Rulebusting and taking away valuable WBC seats from prime flights. So to reduce redemption, they raised the mileage requirements.

Steve