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What's next? after American Airlines

B

Beverley

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
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Location
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What does everyone think? Which other airlines have good frequent flyer programs and good coverage as to where they fly and availability of flyer seats?

Any other programs that give lifetime elite status within reach??

I was thinking of Continental or Delta Or Alaska Air??

Beverley:ponder: :ponder: :ponder:
 
We got out of American because of the changes in their program. They really stuck it to their FF members with everything from requiring more miles to baggage charges to a lot of indirect routing of free tickets.

I think your decision depends upon where you live. United cut their flights here in the Summer to the point that it was almost impossible to use a FF award ticket. We are in Delta and with the recent merger with Northwest they offer pretty good routing both domestic and international. The problem with Delta is that they only grant program miles from an AMEX credit card. That limits your choices of retailers and restaurants in certain areas. However, every year of membership you get a Delta two for one domestic ticket voucher.

After getting the American Airlines devaluation we decided to go with a bank credit card. We went with Chase Sapphire. You get a bonus of 10,000 miles when you start and there are no blackout periods. There is no annual fee the first year. There is no problem with acceptance at most places. After reading the CC reviews we could have also considered Capital One. The Chase Sapphire uses 25,000 miles for a free domestic coach ticket. I think it is a great second card to back up our Delta card.
 
We do a lot with United. They have a HUB at Dulles which is the closest airport to us so we can get a flight to almost anywhere.
 
We had fairly good success with Continental when cashing in two travel packages earlier this year. Though now that they are merging with United, who knows.
 
I haven't seen a prime time weekend business class saver reward on Continental in over a year. They do have full reward coach class tickets readily available.
 
Lifetime elite status is an AA thing. I hit AA Lifetime Gold in 2009. The loss of Marriott travel packages with transfers to AA miles will definitely slow my ability to reach Lifetime Plat with AA.

I'm waiting until next week to see if the rumored merger of UA and Continental comes to pass. If it does, I'll be looking more towards the new UA/Continental program. But it will take me some time to learn the rules of the game with these carriers.

British Air is another possible.

I usually redeem my frequent flyer miles for international travel. For travel within the USA, I will usually pay for the ticket. I don't see any reason to change that right now. And with that strategy, I see no reason to focus on Alaska Airlines.
 
Thanks for all the ideas/ thoughts.

I was thinking about Continental but then heard the recent news and had some concerns about United. However, that might be an option. Delta was another one that had come to mind. We do not travel to Europe that often. (3 times in the last 10 years), however, we want to be able to go to the Carribean, Canada, and Hawaii easily. We like Southwest, however, I don't think they go to the Carribean (except San Juan I understand may be coming soon).

We live in Connecticut so the nearest airports are Bradley (Hartford - 1 hour) and JFK (New York - 2.5 hrs). We had thought of Alaska as it is a partner on AA and we might end up flying AA. Not so sure Alaska flies out of Hartford, though.

Presently we have enough miles already w/ AA to cover the next couple of trips. I guess we will have to do some research. Does anyone know if elite status exists on Delta and Continental and United? If so, does anyone know the qualifier(s) for it??

Beverley :doh: :bawl:
 
Does anyone have Hawaiian Air FF miles? I always use my AA for Hawaii tickets and am trying to come up with a new strategy. Thanks!
 
SM,

I just opened a Hawaiian FF account yesterday, and opened one of their credit cards too.

It appears to be 40K roundtrip to Honolulu, and then another 7,500 each way to another island. So a little bit more than AA (if you're going to a different island).

I don't know how their availability is, but I do know that my brother booked 5 free seats on Hawaiian at approx day 250 (for June travel) so perhaps availability is good (better?) than on AA -- which disappeared for me almost upon release.

Good luck to all....

Greg
 
If you have a Hawaiian airlines credit card tickets can be as low as 35,000 miles. Also it is good for any Island. In March flew SAN-HNL-LIH and LIH-HNL-SAN all for 35,000 miles. Availability was good. Only booked a few weeks before my trip. Also there is no fee for booking within 21 days unlike AA.
 
Hawaiian Airlines let you share your miles with family or friends at no expense but you need their CC. We like Alaska Airlines the best and use them as much as we can. We fly their routes because we like Hawaii and the west coast including Mexico but now they also fly to Washington D.C. and New York City. :)

Their miles do not expire or, at least, not yet.
 
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