Issues with this weeks MilesLinks "Answer"
Apr 17, 2008 | 7:26 pm
#1
Original Poster
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
Issues with this weeks MilesLinks "Answer"
Randy:
I love your answers to the questions that come up in the Q&A for the MilesLink newsletter, but you got a couple things in this week's wrong. Despite your claim that "Australia is an elusive award destination because none of the U.S. carriers serve that country direct, unlike years gone by," United still flies to SYD from SFO and LAX. That doesn't necessarily help for the person asking the question since OnePass miles cannot be redeemed on UA (yet
) but it is certainly more accurate. Also, HA serves the HNL-SYD route, and I would imagine there are a few Hawaiians out there who would be upset to see that you've ceded their state from the Union.
Second, Continental Micronesia does fly from Guam to Cairns, but not to Sydney as you suggest, "...then continue on Continental Micronesia to either Cairns or Sydney."
Better advice for the guy would be to sign up for a QF account online for free and use their tool to query the various flights/gateways until they find the ones they want and then call CO to book. The details on how to do it are actually covered the FAQ on the CO forum here.
Thanks for listening to/reading my rant.
S.
I love your answers to the questions that come up in the Q&A for the MilesLink newsletter, but you got a couple things in this week's wrong. Despite your claim that "Australia is an elusive award destination because none of the U.S. carriers serve that country direct, unlike years gone by," United still flies to SYD from SFO and LAX. That doesn't necessarily help for the person asking the question since OnePass miles cannot be redeemed on UA (yet
) but it is certainly more accurate. Also, HA serves the HNL-SYD route, and I would imagine there are a few Hawaiians out there who would be upset to see that you've ceded their state from the Union.Second, Continental Micronesia does fly from Guam to Cairns, but not to Sydney as you suggest, "...then continue on Continental Micronesia to either Cairns or Sydney."
Better advice for the guy would be to sign up for a QF account online for free and use their tool to query the various flights/gateways until they find the ones they want and then call CO to book. The details on how to do it are actually covered the FAQ on the CO forum here.
Thanks for listening to/reading my rant.
S.
Apr 18, 2008 | 9:14 am
#2
Founder of FlyerTalk
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 6,540
Thanks. I completely spaced out that CO/Mic had dropped Sydney more than 10 years ago (shows you how long i've been doing this stuff) and i should have checked first. Heck, if anyone knows that airlines change route structure, it should be me.
As for not mentioning UA, well as you might guess, it does no good to confuse a OnePass miles member with information that another non-related program will get you there, thus the reason to excuse mentioning United. As for the HA solution - space (word count) and the experience with many that have tried that were somewhat less than happy with the success rate of changing partners in HNL. Certainly a solution and in a larger format answer I might have considered including all the solutions but print space is an entirely different animal than the Web where these are no limits for space considerations. As for the QF trick - experience through the years is to make it simple for the person asking the question. A few top tips and life is very good for them. Try adding in registering another account with a non-related airline and the eyes start to glaze over and of course, unlike the environment of a bulletin board like FT, you do not have the luxury of a dialogue. You'll notice these same attributes in any print column giving advice. Those similar columns in the online world are much more different, more in-depth and of course the advantage of links, etc.
InsideFlyer has helped readers for 22 years and did well enough from that to fund the advent of FlyerTalk as we always did want to get to a place where the dialogue could move beyond "a 225 word count" and are extremely happy that has taken place.
Again thanks for the comments and I will re-calibrate my knowledge of the CO/Mic route system. Maybe i can make good by lobbying them to restart the service!
As for not mentioning UA, well as you might guess, it does no good to confuse a OnePass miles member with information that another non-related program will get you there, thus the reason to excuse mentioning United. As for the HA solution - space (word count) and the experience with many that have tried that were somewhat less than happy with the success rate of changing partners in HNL. Certainly a solution and in a larger format answer I might have considered including all the solutions but print space is an entirely different animal than the Web where these are no limits for space considerations. As for the QF trick - experience through the years is to make it simple for the person asking the question. A few top tips and life is very good for them. Try adding in registering another account with a non-related airline and the eyes start to glaze over and of course, unlike the environment of a bulletin board like FT, you do not have the luxury of a dialogue. You'll notice these same attributes in any print column giving advice. Those similar columns in the online world are much more different, more in-depth and of course the advantage of links, etc.
InsideFlyer has helped readers for 22 years and did well enough from that to fund the advent of FlyerTalk as we always did want to get to a place where the dialogue could move beyond "a 225 word count" and are extremely happy that has taken place.
Again thanks for the comments and I will re-calibrate my knowledge of the CO/Mic route system. Maybe i can make good by lobbying them to restart the service!