Sorry, I couldn’t help myself with the post title. Hey, don’t knock it. If you need to fly to Jackson, why not try US Airways’ new nonstop service between Washington, DC (DCA) and Jackson (JAN)? Book and fly by April 22, 2012.

The terms and conditions according to the email I received: “You must book by April 22, 2012 for travel March 5 – April 22, 2012 to earn double Preferred-qualifying miles on base miles flown. Miles count towards Preferred status and are earned on the DCA-JAN or JAN-DCA segments only. US Airways will award miles 1 – 2 weeks after travel has been completed. All Dividend Miles terms and conditions apply.”

You might remember my blogging about my own experiences with US Trial Preferred membership as well as those of my good friend from North Carolina. I get lots of questions about the program, and the number one question I receive is “If I buy Silver, but fly enough to earn Gold or Platinum, will they give me that status?” There’s plenty of evidence on the message boards that the answer to that question is yes. Now I have some real evidence as my friend wrote me this morning just to say “Gold Preferred.” He hit the qualifying miles late last week, and his new status posted overnight.

I believe this isn’t just a fluke, but is the way they want the program to work. It can make sense to buy the Trial Gold program if you have a lot of international travel coming up just for the Star Gold status alone. But if you are looking at just domestic flights, and know you’ll fly enough to hit the higher status levels, suck it up as a Silver for a bit and earn your advanced status by flying (and save a couple hundred bucks too). Hey, maybe it will make you appreciate that higher status just a little more.

Yesterday’s post on my positive experiences with US Airways really generated a lot of interest. Every word I said is what I feel, and it’s obvious that the topic has some traction with a lot of people based on my analytics data. That said, there are a few things that I would change about US if I could. Given the amount of readership my blurb about US Airways got, I thought that a little constructive criticism and ideas for improvement of the US Airways product might be fun to talk about. I’m going to keep it simple and speak to the 3 things I wish US Airways would change that I think would make for a better airline product.

Item # 1: One-way awards from Dividend Miles

I am unapologetically in love (ok, that’s a bit much, but you get the drift) with one-way awards. For me, the flexibility offered by one-ways is just too much to pass up. You’ve already seen me blog about a good example. The possibility of flying into one city and out of another using my award miles is worth a lot. Yes, I realize American took away stopovers when they rolled out one-way AAdvantage awards, and yes, I think its lame…. but it’s a price that I am willing to pay. I really wish US Airways would implement one-way awards.

Item # 2: Inflight Wi-Fi

Reading the paper, I am led to think that I must be the only person in the world who routinely uses inflight wi-fi. Talking to people I know that fly, I can’t help but conclude that I’m not an outlier. I really wish US Airways would offer inflight wi-fi on aircraft other than the A321s. Inflight power would be nice, even if only offered in premium cabins, but wi-fi, I would really appreciate.

Item # 3: Take slightly better care of some aircraft interiors

My flights aboard US Airways have been pleasant, and on time. The crews have been good, and the people on the ground have been nice too. Heck, I don’t even mind the plastic cups in First Class on short flights. The planes have been mostly clean too. So what do I mean by take better care of the interiors? Take a flight in First Class on a US aircraft that’s a little older than 2 or 3 years, especially some of the old US east Airbii products with old style seats. It’s not all that unusual to see chunks of plastic missing in certain spots. The seats aren’t necessarily uncomfortable, but sometimes the pitch is tight. The recently delivered A321 First Class seats are a model for what the rest of the fleet should look like…. ALL THE TIME.

So, those are my three. What improvements would you like to see from US Airways and Dividend Miles?

I’ve had an odd little relationship with US Airways for a long time. I never quite forgave the airline then called US Air for buying the best airline ever, Piedmont. That would be the Piedmont Airlines, not that Piedmont Airlines, the DHC-8 operator. That said, the truth is that US Airways Dividend Miles is the mileage program which I have been a member of the longest with my date of joining going all the way back to the Piedmont Frequent Flyer Bonus Program in 1987. Yes, I was 17. Being from North Carolina, US Airways was quite easy for me to fly, and I have. Back in 2005 and 2006, I even rose to Chairman’s Preferred status, their top tier.

Somewhere right around that time, the airline’s operational situation took a turn for the worse. Couple that with all the drama from integrating US Airways and America West, the benefit reductions in Dividend Miles and just a general malaise that seemed to surrond the airline, I made it a point to never fly them unless absolutely necessary. In fact, I didn’t fly them for several years, and when I did, I credited the flights to my United Mileage Plus account.

Moving into the District of Columbia in late 2007, Reagan National Airport (DCA) really became an airport of choice, and Dulles became less convenient. As time has gone by, US Airways has seemed to make improvements in reliability, and their burgeoning flight schedule at DCA combined with the aforementioned improvements in reliability have made US Airways more attractive to me. Coinciding with last year’s Dividend Miles Grand Slam promotion, I signed up for their Trial Preferred program. This gave me a minimal level of elite status with which I could try to ease the transition back to US and Dividend Miles.

I took several flights, and a funny thing happened….I liked them. All of my flights last year were on time, the employees were polite if not gregarious, and the inflight experiences and comfort level were good to great, especially on their newer A321 aircraft. I had access to US Airways Clubs through my American Express Platinum Card, complete with its $200 dollar airline fee credit to cover things like inflight meals when flying coach. In short, my flights were quite comfortable, and my upgrade clearance rate has been better than 60 percent, not bad for a lowly Silver Preferred.

US Airways and Dividend Miles will be my Star Alliance airline and mileage program of choice in 2012. I can’t believe I just said that!

Disclaimer: If you apply for and receive the Amex Platinum Card through the link provided above, I will receive a commission.

Good morning from the brand new (it even smells new) US Airways Club at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU). I’m here this morning waiting for my 9:15am flight to Charlotte (CLT). The upgrades have cleared all the way home, and life is good. I got here a little early just so I would have time to stop by the new club, and I’m glad I did. It is much larger than the one in the old Terminal A, with brand new furniture, and a large cyber-bar with plenty of outlets. There are several table and chair sets as well. I really like what they did with the place! It’s early, and there is only one other person in the club. Breakfast items include muffins (normal sized, not the little miniature kind), oatmeal, and fruit. Rest assured, the Flavia coffee machine is here too! I snapped a few photos. My apologies for the fuzziness in some.

Note: I access the US Airways Club using my American Express Platinum Card. You can do the same by applying here. If you apply using this link, I will receive a commission.

If you are looking for a club membership, US Airways is running an excellent promotion for a brief time. Join the club between now and February 17, 2012, and enter the promo code CLB5K and you will receive 5,000 Preferred Qualifying Miles in the Dividend Miles program. The cost is $375 for Silver through Platinum Preferred members and $325 for Chairman’s Preferred. The cost for non-elites is $450.

You can enroll online or by calling 800-828-8522.

Being in a temporary (and planned) travel slump, I’ve been thinking of little things I could do to ensure that I don’t suddenly find myself statusless next year. I could try a couple of mileage runs, and there’s a good chance that I will, but I actually need to head down to North Carolina to check in on my Mom pretty soon. We only have one car, and Mrs MJ on Travel needs that on the weekends, so my choices are Amtrak, plane, or walk. You know which choice I picked.

I poked around the interweb earlier today for flights and prices. Unfortunately, DCA is out because of prices ($500 dollar range for a roundtrip), so I expanded my search to BWI departures. Both Southwest and Delta have nonstops from BWI to RDU, but who wants to do that when you need segments?! Not me. I found a reasonable fare on US Airways routing me BWI-PHL-RDU-CLT-BWI. I need to go to Raleigh, and I need to start working on qualifying for Dividend Miles Preferred status for next year, and I will qualify on segments. Problem solved. Now I need to figure out how I can do something like BWI-PHL-LAX-CLT-RDU-CLT-LAX-PHL-BWI for my next trip to Mom’s house. Not much time for that kind of thing right now, so this will suffice just fine.

I’ve been meaning to mention this, but it just kept slipping my mind. You might remember that I signed up for the Dividend Miles Trial Preferred program on the first day of the Grand Slam promotion back in September. My trial period ended on December 13th and a couple days later I received an email from US Airways, “Your Trial Preferred Status.”

“Congratulations, you’ve qualified for Silver Preferred! You’ll keep this status through February 28, 2013. Take a look at your Preferred benefits. And did you know you can buy up to Preferred to maintain or elevate your status? The cost depends on how many miles and segments you’ve flown in 2011.”

Of course, I’d already received my Silver Preferred membership card a couple weeks before which had a February 2013 expiration date. I mention all this because it confirms the answer to a question I’ve seen on some of the forums about how long your US trial preferred status is good for. Since I started in the second half of the year, my status was good for the remainder of 2011 and all of 2012. US Airways website was slightly confusing on the topic in that it only listed one date…. February of 2012 if you signed up for the program. I confirmed with a US Airways representative that the status would be good for all of 2012 before signing up for the program, and the membership card and email from US Airways confirm what I hoped I knew.

Living where I live, US Airways is a very useful airline, and I like having status on them even though I wish it was Gold status and not just Silver. We’ll see how this year goes. Now I just wish Dividend Miles offered one-way awards.

I was perusing around the interweb this morning and discovered this thread on FlyerTalk which points out that US Airways has loaded it’s first round of new schedules following the big slot swap with Delta. I only checked one route, DCA-FAY, which I might actually use, and it starts on 3/25/12. While I’m not surprised that things are majority RJ, I would hope that phase 2 of the expansion will include some additional mainline service to somewhere. The last thing US needs is a bevy of new 50 seat CRJs trying to fly in/out of the gate 35A charlie foxtrot at DCA. There’s a Milepoint thread on the same topic you can review here.

According to the poster on FT, here’s the first round of destinations:

I see Lucky already beat me to the punch with this, but hey…it’s holiday party season and I’ve been celebrating. I received an email this evening from US Airways entitled “Dividend Miles Program Changes” and thought “oh boy.” Honestly, the first thing I thought was they’ve probably dropped the 2 checked bag benefit for Silver members like United and Delta, and of course, that’s exactly what they did. But they also announced a change that I think was an honest to goodness enhancement.

Beginning February 15, 2012, US Airways is introducing a mileage-based Dividend Miles mileage upgrade scheme, and I think it’s a good thing. For as little as 5,000 miles, you can upgrade your flight to First Class, and better yet, Preferred Members are exempt from any co-pays for mileage funded upgrades. You can review the details of this change and others here. Of course, there’s one other thing. The bogus “quick ticketing” window for award travel is being pushed out from 14 to 21 days, so you’ll pay a fee of $75 dollars for ticketing an award trip within 3 weeks of travel unless you are at least a Gold Preferred member.

This makes me wonder if American will make changes to its baggage allowance for AAdvantage Gold members. I think there’s at least a chance that they don’t match while they’re in bankruptcy, but who knows. In truth, I rarely check bags, and if I do, it’s usually not more than one, so this really doesn’t impact me. And I’m happy to see the mileage-based upgrade awards. I think that’s a real enhancement….not an “enhancement.”