dumb thread of the day: Which is better when using awards? non stop or connection?
 

When using my miles to book award travel, I personally prefer non stop over connection flights. That is, unless I plan to stop over in the one city most airlines allow you to do that at when traveling on awards.

I can see how in some cases, paying to fly may warrant desired connections in some certain combination so a mileage run can obtain more miles as a result, but when USING miles to attain award travel, why, unless there are no other choices, would someone want to stop more?

Do YOU like non stop over connection flights for your award travel?

if so why? if not, why?

One more side note: If you booked award travel and thusly planned on traveling a non stop and suddenly the airline changed this reservation on you so you now need to connect, would it bum you out? Would you wish to rebook and try to get non stop if you could? Would you spend more miles to do it?
:DMM

I think the biggest variable in the answer to that question is class of service. Some who are not used to the "high life" of travelling in the front cabin may want more time in the air/more connections/different types of aircraft, which isn't so bad when you're not crammed in like sardines.

Now on the other hand, if I'm in Y, just get me there as quickly as possible.

Depends if I want to fly in a new airline/seat config I've never tried before. The new SQ J comes to mind...

I take the most direct routing I can unless I'm on a mileage run, whether it is reward travel or paid. If I can get reward travel in a higher class of service by taking a reasonable connection I will do so, but thus far that has not been an issue for me in my travels.

I really do enjoy the entirety of the flying experience, but when I am going somewhere I enjoy the being there part more. Plus, I know I'm going to fly again and I may not get back to that place again, so I err on the side of spending time there over spending time getting there.

how so? are you saying you want to keep trying their planes? In which case, you may want to connect?

I think sometimes with award flights, especially in premium cabins, you are more limited to what has availability, rather than the most direct routing. At least that has been my problem most of the time. Plus with NW award tickets you are allowed one stopover, and one open-jaw, so if you route it well, you could 3 destinations out of an award ticket.

Agreed.

Availability is prime consideration.
Odd requirements for stopovers/long transits that can be shoehorned into a single award are next.
New/better products next.

To give some concrete examples, if I wanted to fly United award travel SFO-LHR, I might want to choose SFO-ORD-LHR, SFO-IAD-LHR, or even SFO-LAX-LHR....

• In order to get award inventory availability if the SFO-LHR non-stop doesn't have any availability.
• To give me access to flights at different, perhaps better times of the day for my travel plans. There are only two SFO-LHR flights per day, but lots more different possible departure/arrival times made possible by looking at the connections.
• To give me access to different aircraft types. (In this specific example, United 767-300 aircraft with the new FC/Biz cabins are flying the IAD-LHR route, whereas no United 777-200 aircraft flying the non-stop SFO-LHR route will get new FC/Biz cabins anytime soon.)
• To let me disembark and stretch my legs.
• To gain access to the international gateway departure lounge at the connecting airport, esp. when that's a International First Class lounge that can be a rather nice place to take a break and enjoy some decent food.

I was listing my preferences and there didn't appear to be a pattern until i considered my international destinations - so i deleted all that listing and i'm going to sum it up :)

If i've been somewhere before and find it decent or interesting i wont mind stopping there. If it was a nightmare, i'll avoid it like the plague. I also don't like backtracking when i travel. Starting in Florida, flying to Chicago then to Ohio is okay - however, don't try to fly me to Texas then to a new england state.

the specific instance which prompted me to write this thread is this:

AA milesaver award - 30k per person in econ or 60k anytime econ, or 60k biz class.
In Nov 2007, we got non stop BOS-AUA. brought 18 month old daughter. We booked it in July 07.
We took the 2 biz class seats with child as lap ticket (no mileage cost) for 60k pp. Flew the 4.5hr flight with ease. Left BOS at around 10:00am. AUA has a 3hr long security procedure in airport coming home but generally it was a great trip because it was non stop both directions. Got home by around 10:00pm.

AA mileseaver booked Aug 08 for Feb 09 - 30k pp, same itin as above, this time daughter is 2.5years old so she needs her own award ticket and we have a 7 month old boy as lap ticket. We chose 3 joining econ seats. In Nov 08, AA changes schedule to now connect thru JFK on outbound, so it's now BOS-JFK-AUA and we leave home at 5:30am, not 10am. Return connects thru Miami, getting us home close to midnight. Airline said it discontinued the non stop on the dates we chose. After much discussion, I elected to change dates to 2 days later in both directions, change hotel res and use their 70k pp anytime award. (actually have it on hold now and may or may not really go because that's a lot more miles-- but I can stomach it. In this case, ease of travel would win over amount of miles used.)

In the case above we would rather get there and not suffer the connections with little kids. We are not earning, we are burning. Don't particularly like hanging out in airports. Nothing against the cities of Miami or NY, but those airports are not where it's at for us.

my theory here is that airlines are devaluing the mile and giving us the choice to let them do it. My theory is that if guys like me so CHOOSE to just pick the award that requires more miles to do the same thing, they may eventually do away with the lesser one, believing that no one wants it anyway--or at the very least, that it may prompt them to never have it available as a non stop. So the 30k award (now listed at 35k pp) would ONLY ever be seen IF you connect, whereas the 70k award would be the only option for non stop now. I don't want to help drive the price up but that's probably what I'm doing.

key to this post: Yeah, we have the kids and that's our choice, but for our own reasons we just LIKE non stop if it exists. our choice. Willing to pay for it when I can.

thoughts./

I concur with the thoughts that it depends on the cabin & who you are traveling with... On an award in economy, the fastest & cheapest path is the best one, especially when traveling with others who may become cranky during the flight - children, parents, siblings, etc :D

When a higher cabin is factored in, the dynamics change a bit. I was faced with an interesting situation for Spring Break this year... ANC-MIA. All AS 10K OW saver seats are gone already, so get to book a peak award @ 20K OW... however 4 F savers are open... if we route ANC-JNU-SEA (overnight) SEA-MIA. If it were a shorter flight, I might have considered economy... but the opportunity for my family to take over 1/4 of the F cabin... for the same cost of a coach saver :cool: Yes, it makes our trip length overall longer, but in style!

If only the return had saver F available... looks like I'll be in the back :(

If they changed your flight on you then they should've accommodated you without charging you more points.

I thought so too, as had many others, but 3 calls to CS and an email resulted in a polite but stern NO. I had to change dates too because they said the nono stop no longer even exists on the orig dates chosen. And in the AA thread, I got more "live with it and stop complaining" or, 'the fact you are complaining in here will result in your need for a fly swatter because we are going to bash you just for typing posts longer than a paragraph' than anything else. Seems that of all the sub-forums out there, that one is filled with a lot more masochists and narcissists than we may find elsewhere in FT. Some experts and other somewhat sympathetic posters helped but generally it was as if I was simply not allowed to even have a problem with the coveted airline. And yet I do not sit here and say "they screwed me, F them!" I just don't like it but I did deal with it.

Still, non stop is better for me and the kids, and it's too bad I was sent in the direction of ultimately choosing to spend more pointage.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8310/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

I agree about the AA forum. I've gotten some invaluable help there, however they jumped all over me when I had a particular problem with an AA award itinerary several months ago.

Not sure that changing dates by 2 days in each direction should get you accommodated on the flights you choose.

They should accommodate you on any flight in their system that have seats on the day that you booked travel, but it isn't reasonable, imo, to want to change several people to flights on later days.