So I am a little curious about buddy passes on some US airlines. Where you can fly for fairly cheap. Is anyone familiar with these and if so, how do they work? I have a friend with Continental who was speaking out them but was hoping to get some more information before I try to get myself some. Do they require the sponsor to be with me on the flight?


Any help?

Thanks in advance!

Every airline employee travel program is different. You really need to ask your friend for a printed copy of the rules, and in general be prepared to miss the flight you want to be on, sometimes for several days in a row. Non-rev travel sounds more exciting than it is.

Also note that "buddy pass" travel is usually, if not always, based on "space available". That means that you are at the very bottom of the standby list. In today's world of full flights / load factors >= 90%, this can mean a lot of waiting in airports. Friends of mine recently used UA buddy passes to fly to SE Asia on *A partner carriers. It took them 4 days to get there and 3 to get back (on paid fares, it is usually 2 days to get there and one very long day to get back).

In the past, non-revs often were given premium class seats, as these did not sell out. These days, J and F are often full, or even if not full, are not given to non-revs (on SE Asian carriers, at least). Other friends have spoken of the glory days of flying UA International F on buddy passes, but I have not heard such tales in the past couple years.

Policies regarding flying on buddy passes and whether they require that the employee be present seem to vary widely among different carriers. The aforementioned friends who went to SE Asia were with the UA employee.

Since you mentioned CO, I can outline some of the policies that were in effect during the time I had CO flight privileges (late 1980s to early 2000s). The 2010 policies have probably changed a great deal, but this post is meant to give you some general concepts:

Each employee received the privilege of "gifting" ten domestic US buddy passes. We also had access to a limited number of international buddy passes. Domestically, the recipient could either travel with the employee, or unaccompanied (without the gifting employee). Internationally, the buddy pass user needed to be accompanied by the employee (or another pass-eligible employee) traveling the same itinerary.

Whenever the buddy traveled with the employee, he/she received the same boarding priority as the employee. However, when traveling domestically without the employee along, the buddy received a very low boarding priority (something like SA5C or SA5P, I forget). Essentially, this meant that most all other space-available travelers would be seated before the unaccompanied buddy.

On CO during my years, buddy pass travelers, whether escorted by the employee or not, were NOT eligible to sit in premium cabins. This is not to say that I did not see this rule being broken by gate agents - I did, sometimes often (seating against the rules seemed positively endemic in EWR back then).

Bottom line: The only realistic approach to successfully using buddy passes is to set realistic expectations. Have your friend check passenger loads carefully, and re-check constantly before the day of travel. . Expect to travel at the least desirable times, and don't expect to travel to highly popular destinations in high season (such as Cancun during spring break)

Buddy Passes, as I've found it, are almost useless. It usually involves getting stuck somewhere, sometimes for days. I usually wont give them out, because people don't know what they are getting themselves into, and they don't know what they are doing and tend to just annoy gate agents and passengers... not to mention they have really gone up in price...that is my airline, CO may be different.