As a business traveler weather delays are annoying especially if they lead to lost revenue, but that is no reason to take frustration out on gate agents.  If my flight is delayed I stay in the gate area just in case something happens, but I try to check the website and pay attention instead of hounding the gate agents.

Last night I landed in CVG 30 minutes late which was the time my scheduled flight to CLT was supposed to leave.  On deplaning the person meeting the flight to assist with connections stated all of us going to Charlotte and Chicago had missed our connection.  I thought that was funny since the website had just said the flight was delayed, but situations change quickly so I decided to see the red coat as instructed.  That guy looked in his computer and confirmed my flight was delayed.  He should tell that to the guy shouting Charlotte passengers needed rebooking.

I got to the gate and began waiting.  My flight was delayed while waiting for a first officer.  The FO was coming in from Grand Rapids and that flight wasn’t leaving any time soon.  The flight next to us was waiting for that plane, but then got another plane, then needed a flight attendant.  A captain was supposed to be flying in the back of the plane back to his home in Charlotte.  He wanted to get home so he got the paperwork to crew our flight.  I made a comment that it was weird seeing two 4-stripers.  A guy next to me in the boarding area asked me how I knew what the stripes meant.  If you fly enough you just know that most domestic flights are crewed by 1 person with four stripes and 1 person with three stripes.  Mainly I like to pay attention to how many female pilots there are.

We finally made it to Charlotte.  I had checked my bag (due to not wanting to mess with waiting for a gate-checked bag with a tight connection) so I waited for it at baggage claim.  While at baggage claim another kid from my flight who had been very mad with the gate agents made a comment I just had to react to.  He said “If we were waiting for a stewardess why couldn’t the second pilot just do it”.  Now maybe he’d been paying attention to the cross training at British Airways, but I doubted that so I quickly said “First of all, our flight was waiting for a first officer, not a flight attendant, that was the flight next to us.  Second, a pilot can’t just be a flight attendant.  That’s a huge step down on the pay scale”  Now I know my last sentence was an exaggeration, but this kid didn’t look like he was in the working world yet so I didn’t think he’d really understand anyway.

So to sum it up: airlines can’t control the weather.  Weather messes with flights and that leads to crew and equipment shortages.  It sucks, but the gate agents can’t change anything about it.

I got a voicemail saying my flight tomorrow was already canceled so I just booked a new flight with a better connection.

My company requires us to purchase the “cheapest logical fare” for trips.  Out of CLT at the 7 day mark (because I often book 2 clients in a week and change fees get really messy) that usually is not the direct flight.

The math for these calculations is easier if you work for a company that bills for travel time.  Obviously if a direct flight is 2 hours or a connecting flight is 2 hours + 2 hours + 1 hour connection it makes the math slightly different.  My company does not bill clients for travel time so they get billed for the airfare only.  Since time is not billed for, to my company that takes time out of the equation and they really force us into the cheapest airfare.  The booking engine seems to disregard schedule parameters I put in so to book a basic flight that must leave after 5:30 pm I must first look on SideStep and find the flight/airline that will be the cheapest within my time parameters, then manually find it on the corporate travel site.

What I’m trying to get at is this week I needed to go from CLT to PIT.  I was scheduled on a 2:15 pm flight on Delta connecting in CVG.  That flight was canceled this morning pushing me to depart at 4:38 pm to connect in ATL.  That’s great, but weather on the East Coast was a mess so that flight left 30 minutes late, then the flight to PIT left 2 hours late.  I was originally supposed to get into PIT around 6 pm but got in around 11 pm.  I look at US Airways’ flight status and they had a flight leave CLT at 2:45 and arrive in PIT at 4:11.  My DL ticket cost $250 which means that US ticket probably was around $600 when I booked.  I wasted 5 hours in connection limbo and wasted almost 8 hours over the direct flight…but probably saved around $350

So what criteria should I use to determine if a connection is worth it?  I know some say I should always take a non-stop over a connection out of principle.  Others will say I should always connect to get more miles.  Right now I look at departure time first.  If a flight leaves too early it’s out.  If a flight doesn’t allow me to work a full day at a client and then leave it’s out.  After that I go by connection city.  I avoid EWR, JFK, IAD (always canceled for mx reasons), and PHL.  I try for connections in CVG, or DTW.  I’ll take an ORD connection because  I can’t avoid them.  I avoid connections that involve reclearing security.  After that I’m left with a connecting ticket at X an a direct ticket at 2X.  Since X is usually at least $300 and often $500 in peak months 2X is $600-1,000.  Not exactly chump change to people who aren’t used to paying airfare for vendors.  A misconnect resulting in a hotel room is usually less than $170 so the connecting flight is still significantly cheaper than the non-stop.  What math should I use?

Things to do in an airport when you’re bored

A friend forwarded me this video.  It’s interesting since I will be in PIT this week actually.  It is good to know that McDonalds trays do not work to slide down ramps.  I wonder if certain wheeled luggage would, but my luggage only has a pair of wheels so it probably wouldn’t work.

PIT is very much a ghost town.  When I first started traveling for work my coworkers would advise me to try for the flights connecting in PIT instead of PHL.  Now PIT is nothing to US Airways and it is sad since I like the PIT airport more than PHL, but PHL does have Chick-Fil-A.

I try not to talk about my personal life too much on this blog, but today I got married in a private ceremony. I have to do so much planning with work that I wanted something with no planning.

The honeymoon was actually planned before the actually ceremony was.

Now after the marriage license comes back I get to begin the fun process of changing my name on all my frequent flyer accounts…except United. I can’t change that one until I get back from Australia in March.

When I lived in upstate NY I had no issue calling US Airways “Useless Airways” because the odds of misconnecting in PHL are so high for me.  Since I’ve moved to CLT and connected in PHX I really haven’t had too many issues.  It had been a couple years since connecting in PHL and I was actually starting to like US Airways.

My flight from SWF to PHL was delayed an hour causing me to misconnect.  Upon arrival into PHL I noticed the queue at the gate was quite long since 5 flights were all being serviced by 1 desk.  I set off around the F concourse to find a staffed customer service desk instead since I didn’t recognized anyone in the queue from my flight and didn’t want to burden agents working outbound flights.

There were no customer service desks I could find in F so I took the shuttle over to B/C.  I walked around B and couldn’t find anything resembling a customer service desk.  It was only 9 pm and there were flights departing after 10 pm so I took my chances and left the secured area at B to talk to someone at check-in instead.  The marquee stated that check-in area was open until 10:30 pm, but only 1 person was working the whole B concourse check-in area.  I had to wait a minute in line behind someone else and there was 1 other person in the whole concourse check-in area, but he was on the phone and motioned me ahead of him.  I approached an agent we’ll call YL and stated I had misconnected and needed assistance.  She looked up my information and I stated that I was due a hotel voucher.  In a snippy voice she asked why I thought I was due a hotel voucher and I clearly stated my flight was mechanical.  She repeated back with a rude tone “Your flight was from Canada?” so I restated that my flight had a mechanical delay.  She said it wasn’t in the computer that way and I’m not due anything.  The agent back at SWF specifically told me he had put that in my record so I asked her to look at my record.  At that point she actually took my BP stub and looked me up, then stated “which gate did you arrive in”.  I said F.  She stated that I was in the B concourse and asked how I got to B.  I wanted to say “what difference does it make, just do your job” but figured that wasn’t the way to get a voucher.  Instead I said I was trying to find a customer service desk and couldn’t find one in F or B.  She said someone should have met my flight.   I didn’t respond because no good response could come from me at that point.  I have a common last name, but not a common first name so it’s not like I can sell my hotel voucher to someone else named Grace and it’s not like she personally has to pay for the voucher so I don’t know what her issue was.

I will probably draft a letter to US Airways and then just let it sit on my hard drive.  I’m really more annoyed that there wasn’t a single special service desk open in F at 9 pm when several flights were scheduled to go out.  If the gate I arrived in only had 1 flight leaving I would have probably stayed there, but when 5 flights were being assisted it changes the game.  Last time I misconnected in PHL (which I think was the last time I connected in PHL) I met an agent in F who was working the gate and didn’t even know how to issue a hotel voucher.  She had to call her supervisor and he did it for her.  I hoped to avoid that situation at a customer service desk because that’s their job.

Waiting for the shuttle bus I met up with others who were on my flight (and managed to find customer service in B) who got an amenity kit and breakfast voucher.  I’m on an expense account and I didn’t check my bag so those amenities don’t matter to me (meal vouchers are just a pain), but the fact remains that YL didn’t do her job and offer/issue them to me.

This is the long end to a very long week.  I just want to get home, but I’m on an imaginary flight tomorrow so we shall see.

According to CNN the Transportation Security Administration will begin random hand swabs for explosives.

They just keep grasping at straws to make it look like they are doing something.  The system they currently use on luggage will have a false positive if you put on hand lotion and touch your bag.  Since hand lotion is intended for hands it makes me wonder how many false positives will result from testing hands.  So this means you must get your lotion in a container 3.4 oz or less, wash hands thoroughly before entering the checkpoint, then apply lotion after clearing security just in case you are randomly selected for a hand swab.

…and if you are a terrorist you just need to wear some protection so you don’t get explosives on your hands.

Do I like red eyes? No. So why do I take them home from the west coast instead of staying another night and then flying home? Because I’d much rather get home and sleep in my own bed than fly all day the following day. Maybe it’s just me.

During my mileage run I had the opportunity to fly US Airways and United for the Lunch/Dinner buy on board times.  Here is a recap of my experience.

US Airways:  For lunch/dinner they had 2 options: a turkey club sandwich or a cheese plate.  I don’t eat pork, but the sandwich sounded like a better lunch than the fruit and cheese plate so that’s what I went with.  The cost was $7 and included chips and a drink.  I peeled off the bacon and wiped off the turkey since the bacon left a brown residue.  The sandwich came with lettuce and tomato.

In the past one of the biggest problems with US Airways catering was the lack of it.  It seemed like the money from meals was not getting back to the caterers and the accounting setup described at one time of flyertalk made it sound like the whole system did need to be scraped.  Now US Airways does use devices to swipe credit cards which should also track sales.  If not, I know a company their catering company should contact to get their whole system into shape.  An A319 full of people at lunch time probably still leads to sell outs before row 20, but that’s better than selling out before row 10.

United: United had a few sandwiches on the menu to choose from, but the flight attendant said my only choices at that point were a salad or the roast beef sandwich.  I had really wanted the turkey sandwich to do a taste comparison, but I was stuck with roast beef instead (although you can’t tell from the picture).  I didn’t pay enough attention to know if they ran out of turkey or just didn’t cater it to begin with.  The sandwich was $9 on United (also conveniently placed on a credit card) and was just a sandwich and chips, no cookie.  I was in the exit row so I was at the end of Economy Plus, but still near the front of economy as a whole so I’m not sure how far back the buy on board meals last on United.

As a whole, the sandwiches were of good quality.  The presentation was fine (the pictures were taken as provided with no manipulation from me).  From a value perspective I could have purchased a better sandwich at Panera for the same or less.  The reason I buy this stuff is mainly convenience.  I’m not hungry at 10 am when I board a plane so I’m not interested in buying food from an airport restaurant.  By the time meal service begins it’s around 11:30 am which is prime lunch time.  I’d like to know how well the catering companies forecast how much to provide and if airlines are really the ones limiting the supply so much.  Using the point-of-sale devices to track sales is a new concept for onboard catering so hopefully the field will only go up from here.

In the comments of my last post a fellow BoardingArea blogger mentioned original routing credit so I thought I would talk about that some.  Many times I use this is a “double-dip”, but it applies in my situation over the weekend as well so I will discuss both situations.

I live in a Star Alliance hub which means the majority of direct flights will result in Star Alliance (United, US Airways, Continental) credit.  Since direct flights out of CLT are often double the cost of connecting flights at the 7 day mark and I have to book the cheapest logical fare I rarely book the direct on US Airways.  This becomes my ace-in-the-hole.  If I’m somewhere like MCI and have a mechanical issue on my cheap Delta ticket I request to be endorsed over to the direct on US Airways.  I give US Airways my United number so I earn United miles on my new flight and I fax my ticket, boarding passes (VERY important) and a letter saying I was *involuntarily* rerouted to Delta to request mileage for the flight I was supposed to be on.

For all intents and purposes  I was going to fly every segment as I had booked it until a weather issue forced irregular operations.  Since I was involuntarily rerouted and that rerouting cost me miles I intended to earn I will fax United a copy of my ticket, boarding passes, and and explanation of my request.

I always do this by fax because if you mail it they want the originals and you must part with them.  If it gets lost in the mail too bad.

From my errors when I first attempted this I learned that you must send them a copy of the eTicket (which usually isn’t an issue to obtain online from where you bought the ticket) since that lists the ticket number, the price paid, and the itinerary as purchased.  You must also send them the boarding passes of the flights you actually flew.  Maybe that don’t always require this, but it did end my first request because I had already trashed my BPs.  Of course you must also send a quick note stating what you’d like them to do.  They aren’t psychic and receiving a fax with a ticket and some BPs isn’t always obvious.  I’ll post my sample letter in a future post.

How do I keep track of boarding passes?  I try to always check in online and I use CutePDF to “print” the boarding pass to a PDF.  I keep these PDFs for at least a year since they take up very little space.  If I can’t check in online then I mentally make a note of that and hold onto the paper boarding pass until mileage posts.

Can anyone out there confirm if this can be requested for voluntary reroutes?  I always figured that changing to a routing that would get me in earlier was payment enough and I didn’t deserve original routing credit.  This happens occasionally with Delta’s kiosks now where I’m supposed to connect in ATL and I change to connecting in CVG which cuts out some miles.  Just last week I was supposed to be BDL-ATL-CLT but changed to BDL-CVG-CLT and lost a handful of miles in the process.