Triangle Trip

In order to stay competitive with American, United and Delta’s double elite qualifying (EQM) miles offers, USAir is offering a super fast track to Preferred status. All you need to do is fly 7,500 miles (or 10 segments) between October 1 and December 25, 2009 to get Silver Preferred status. The normal way to qualify for Silver Preferred is the airline industry standard 25,000 flight miles or 30 segments.

This USAir promotion is the best fast track program out there! Assuming you haven’t flown a single mile in 2009, all the Double EQM programs require you to fly 12,500 miles to get Silver (vs. USAir’s 7,500). FYI, here are links to the other three promotions:

*  American’s Double Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM)

*  Delta’s Double Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM) + Delta MQM Rollover

*  United’s Double Elite Qualifying Miles or Elite Qualifying Segments

This is USAir’s way of saying: “we screwed you and thank you for being loyal all year round” to its most loyal customers like the Coach who has been flying on USAir all year. To soften the blow, this is what USAir posted on their website:

Don’t worry, the miles you fly will also count towards the total miles you flew for the year – you’ll be awarded the highest status between the two. So if you fly 55,000 Preferred miles for the year but only end up flying 8,000 Preferred miles during the promotion period, you’ll still earn Gold status for the year.

The Coach definitely has enough actual miles or segments to qualify for Platinum Preferred in 2010 but probably won’t have enough flight miles between October 1 to December 25, 2009 to get 30,000 miles to qualify for Chairman. The end result:  Coach won’t benefit from this promotion but someone else may trump him and get Chairman Preferred status with much lesser flight miles. Coach will probably have 92,000 flight miles at the end of the year and 23,000 flight miles during the promotion period which means he’ll be stuck at Platinum.  I should take six (6) coast to coast round trips and make Chairman just to piss off the Coach.

Here’s how the rest of the fast track to Preferred status promotion works:

• Fly 7,500 miles or 10 segments and earn Silver Preferred status
• Fly 15,000 miles or 20 segments and earn Gold Preferred status
• Fly 22,500 miles or 30 segments and earn Platinum Preferred status
• Fly 30,000 miles or 40 segments and earn Chairman’s Preferred status

FYI, below is a chart showing the USAir Preferred status benefits:

Most US airlines have raised ticket change fees which make non-refundable tickets worthless. I had a USAir discounted non-refundable ticket for $198 but had to cancel the flight for personal reasons. After being routed to two India call centers, I was told that a credit will be issued under my name and I had one year to use it. The credit is not transferable and it will be worthless after one year from the date of issuance. Finally, the USAir call center rep told me that there will be a $150 change fee if I want to re-use my $198 credit for another flight.

After hearing the call center reading all the rules from his screen aloud to me for close to 2 minutes, I asked myself the following question:  “What is the point of issuing me a $198 credit, then take $150 away on my next booking. Why doesn’t USAir just tell me that I have $48 of credit to use for another USAir flight?”

At first I thought the $150 change fee was steep, then I learned UAL has recently up their fees as well. Ghetto Delta has always charged $150 for their itinerary change fee but now they are charging $250 for international change fees (check their ticketing FAQ).

Here’s what I have learned from this experience:

1.  If you see a cheap airfare and clicked on the “SUBMIT” button on a website, you better travel on those dates and times or your ticket will be worthless.

2.  Buy a refundable ticket or wait until a week before you are planning to take off if your plans are still influx

Airlines are obviously using change fees as an alternative way to get more revenue and stick it to its customers.

A follow up to my earlier post, Continental Airlines has succumbed to the pressure from United and American by offering double Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) today. Here’s the link to register if you’re interested. Continental is upping the ante by not requiring a ticket be booked during the promotion period. You just need to be onboard during the promotional period which is now until June 30, 2009.

Since all these EQM promotions wont’ take affect (credited into your frequent flyer account) until after the promotion, we will have a bunch of fliers with “cheater” status come July 1, 2009. For the record, it was USAir (US-Scare) that started all this… For those of you who hasn’t registered for US Air’s double EQM promotion, here’s the link. You’ll have until the end of March to get your double EQM offer.

So … will ghetto Delta be next to join this pack?  I am hoping for a better offer than what I have seen so far. The Sky Team needs to step it.