Triangle Trip

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).

United is merging with Continental to form the largest airline in the world (see news). United will carry the name, and probably its poor customer service, to the newly merged airline. I’m not sure how combining two non-profitable airlines will make the company profitable; the merger will create more United 1K and Global Service members. The merger will further dilute and devalue airline miles and making redemption of airline miles harder. This is why hotel points are much more valuable than airline miles.

Furthermore, I wouldn’t be shocked if United will follow Spirit Airlines’ lead and begin charging for carry on baggage for non-Premier members. You heard the prediction here first! Vacationers and casual flyers are going to get squeezed either way, whether they pay for carry on or get the Premier Baggage membership for $250.00.

The good news here is it will take these two inefficient airlines another 18 months to 2 years to merge their internal systems. It is definitely time to burn your airline miles and consider switching to the SkyTeam or OneWorld alliances, or JetBlue or Southwest if they’re available in your market.

I recently discovered that the minimum time for baggage check before plane departure is set by the individual airports, not by the airlines.  Delta’s JFK staff has a one hour prior to departure bag check policy, while Delta’s SFO staff has a 30 minute prior to departure bag check rule. Unfortunately, I learned this as a result of a bag check incident at JFK that led to me missing my flight for only the third time in my 10+ years of traveling (previous post).

Why does JFK need an extra half hour? Although JFK is definitely busier than SFO from Delta’s standpoint, there were probably 3x the amount of Delta employees at JFK versus SFO. Does it really take 2x the amount of time to load up bags at JFK vs SFO?

I believe the minimum time for baggage check before departure is in place to gives airlines and baggage handlers enough time to get the bags onto the planes; it certainly should not be a hard and steadfast rule to prevent passengers from checking in their baggage after the deadline. Baggage handlers are professionals and should do whatever they can to accommodate passengers, especially when airlines are charging passengers up to $30 to check in each extra bag.

For your reference, here’s Delta’s published prior to departure bag check time for each major airport in the US: