PG

Can you use your Southwest miles for Europe/Asia?

Shinkansen

About as easily as you can use WorldPerks miles with a standard award!

Obviously I'm kidding, but I think NW should call the "Rule Buster" award the "Standard" award and the now Standard award the "Discount" award. I think that would be most accurate regarding international awards.

Western Airlines

And can you use them over a year after the issue date of the free ticket?

Therein lie the two glaring problems with Rapid Rewards.

Though I love WN, Rapid Rewards is one of the reasons I left. The others are lack of assigned seating, the cattle call, and lack of First. Even though it's not the greatest, an F seat on NW beats a seat on WN any day. So does a snack, or meal, or whatever you want to call it.

PG

I completely agree. NW should admit that they are not offering any standard awards on some routes.

rcowen

Keep trying, at least once a week. I ran a test on formerly blacked-out dates on the day they became available. Nothing except to TOL, CLE & BUF. Some have opened up over the past 2 months. If your miles were earned on Y fare seats & are a gold or better elite member, you can plead with an agent to make more seats available if the load factor is light on the flights you want. More details on my web site: www.BobsTravelTips.com. Good luck,

Bob

Steve M

So, you love WN, except for:
- Rapid Rewards
- No assigned seating
- No first class
- Cattle call boarding
- No food

How do you think WN keeps the fares low?

E

Thanks for the tips and suggestions, folks.

Every week, I either go online or call the GOLD ELITE line directly to see if they can help get my wife on our flight to HNL. Several times the CS agents have said "hang on a minute!"...and I've waited it out for them to come back and tell me "no dice" on the standy-by change. At least we are all flying down there on the same day and will arrive within a few hours of each other...and we are all on the same flights home...it just seems a bit ridiculous at this point.

As for the Florida situation...I know that I must keep checking online and calling as well as award seat inventory SUPPOSEDLY changes all the time...and I'm sure it does to a certain extent. But how does that help me in pre-planning any kind of long-term vacations? I doesn't. Period.

BA Fan

PARSpro,

To my knowledge the 6/1 flight from AMS-SFO is not full however I've called NW a number of times to get a mile based upgrade and these are not available at this point in time.

If you think they are available, let me know and I'll call again.

Forgive me for asking, I'm sure it has been posted in the past, but can I have the ITN webaddress you use to check the Z class availability.

Thanks,
BA Fan

thezipper

BA Fan, this link basically "uses" the ITN search engine to show you class availability, hope it helps.

http://flyaow.com/classavailability.htm

Western Airlines

I'm guessing it's mainly due to good management, good agreements with the unions, and lower pay for some of the pilots than other airlines. The ability to turn a plane in 30 instead of 60 minutes helps too, and is related to the cattle call and no assignments.

No FC saves money but costs money. How many high-dollar business travelers avoid WN for this reason? And they're not saving much on meals, but per passenger costs would add up.

If you must fly coach, the inflight experience on WN is great. The crews are without fail fun to spend time with. The planes are mostly on time, and yes, most of the times the fares are low. But not always.

Apologies for the OT post.


[This message has been edited by Western Airlines (edited 05-08-2002).]

BA Fan

thezipper,

Much appreciated. Thanks.

BA Fan