Triangle Trip

Similar to last year, American Airlines has recently jumped on the Triple Miles and Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) program (link to United & Delta’s Triple Miles & EQM/MQM offer). AA’s offer effectively one up’s United; but it’s still inferior compared to Delta. AA’s Triple Miles and EQM offer allows its customers to earn triple miles and EQM between New York’s LGA and Chicago’s ORD and between LGA and Boston Logan.

AA was pressured to make the triple miles and EQM offer to compete against United at their Chicago hub. AA’s shuttle service between LGA and Boston Logan cannot compete with the hourly Delta Shuttle or US Airway’s Shuttle services. Let’s see if USAir will jump on this triple miles and EQM offer, since they are a direct competitor of Delta’s Shuttle LGA/BOS and LGA/DCA routes.

Looks like a great summer for New Yorkers to earn some airline status this year.

In response to Delta‘s recent offer (link to register) for Triple Miles and MQM (Medallion Qualifying Miles) between New York’s La Guardia airport (LGA) and Chicago’s O’Hare (ORD), United launched its own Triple Miles and EQM (Elite Qualifying Miles) yesterday (link to register). However United’s Triple EQM is a bit limited compared to Delta’s offer. United’s offer is only valid to residents from the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut or New Jersey. United’s Triple MQM offer is only valid for itineraries for travel solely between Chicago O’Hare (ORD) and New York LaGuardia (LGA) so layovers on a coast to coast flight or somewhere in the Midwest does not count.

Delta’s Triple Miles and MQM offer is a lot sweeter. Basically all you have to do is hop on the Delta Shuttle from LGA to either ORD, DCA (Washington DC) or BOS (Boston). There are not residency restrictions. I also believe Delta has upgraded most of its Delta Shuttle flights to new Embraer planes. Both offers start in mid June and end on August 31, 2010.

Delta has been expanding its presences in the greater New York area for the past two years with non-stop flights from JFK to SFO, LAX and ORD. The coast to cost long haul flights used to be United and American’s bread and butter in the New York market since they don’t really have a strong presence in NYC (I have made 1K on United and Executive Platinum on AA on the same year doing these coast to coast trips). United and AA also dominated the LGA/ORD route as well – I have made United 1K just doing this route.

We glad to see Delta is in the mix and playing with the big boys! Now we have three options to go from JFK to the West coast, Midwest and even London Heathrow. The increased in competition should be great for NYC-based travelers as we do not have a hometown airline or airline using NYC as a hub. Sorry, JetBlue doesn’t have enough of a presence in the globe and Newark doesn’t really count as NYC. Now we will wait to see when the airlines look for their bailout (see previous post).

As frequent travelers, especially to countries that insist on stamping your US passport every time you enter or depart the country, having enough pages in your US passport is really important. The 15 or so pages in your US passport generally won’t last the 10 year period. When you run out of pages in your passport, you can apply for a renewal or simply request to add more pages to save the renewal fee.

The US has a pretty streamlined process for passport renewals but it still takes three to four weeks for the US government to process your request. You can always pay extra for expedited service but who would want to do that?

The recommended approach is to stop by a US consulate when you’re abroad and have them add the pages to your US passport. The process takes no more than 30 minutes at a US consulate abroad – probably faster than clearing airport security. Just walk up to the counter and tell the associate that you wish to add pages to your passport. The associate will process it immediately. Make sure you go during off peak hours to save time.