One of the most frequent comments I get from non-mileage runners is “wow, I can’t believe you fly for ‘no reason’ without ever leaving an airport, just to earn miles.” Well, maybe I can get some praise from those people with this one….

United is offering some great fares to launch their new Dubai route, as low as $1,100 all-in roundtrip from many cities in the US. Through March 31 you can also earn 3,000 bonus miles for the cheaper coach fares, which is nice.

I almost never fly revenue flights internationally, since I usually do award tickets in premium cabins, so most that know me would never suspect I’d do this as a quasi-mileage run.

Anyway, I’m seriously considering going to Dubai shortly after Christmas, during my winter break. The dates I’m looking at are $1,300, but in this case one direction is upgradeable (and confirmable), so I’m fine with that. The other direction, spanning over 15 hours, would not be upgradeable.

Now, the only reason I’m seriously considering this is because I have a bunch of vouchers sitting around, including a $600 bump voucher and $400 customer relations voucher, which can be combined for $1,000 off any one ticket. That means for a mere $300 I could earn nearly 40,000 miles, which I figure isn’t bad, especially since Dubai is high on my list of cities to see.

I’m thinking about staying for two to three nights. Typically Dubai hotels are expensive as hell, especially around the Holidays, but in this case I found the Holiday Inn Express Jumeirah for about $80/night all-in, breakfast included, which is amazing considering I’ll earn points and hopefully get some form of status recognition. Reviews of the property are great as well.

So I’m thinking this one over, it’s definitely tempting. I could earn a bunch of miles, earn an extra two systemwide upgrades thanks to crossing another milestone, and see a city I desperately want to see, all for $300 plus a total of about $200 in hotels.

What say ye, wise readers?

Since I’m already in weekend mode (at least in my delusional world), I figured I’d get a head start. This weekend is the annual “Mega Do” in San Francisco, which is a fun weekend where 100 or so of us FlyerTalkers hang out, and talk anything but miles and points. As a result I’m taking a long weekend, leaving Friday morning and returning on the redeye on Sunday.

My first adventure will be getting to SFO. I booked my flight months ago, when the cheapest fare by over $200 was TPA-IAD-SFO, departing at 6PM, getting in shortly after midnight. Since I have to be at SFO by 1PM at the very latest, I’ll be playing standby roulette through ORD, starting at 6AM on Friday. Shouldn’t be too much trouble…. hopefully.

You can expect a trip report, including a review of the relatively new InterContinental San Francisco. I booked the hotel months ago for $179/night and plan on using a buy one get one free weekend night certificate, so my total for two nights will be about $210 with tax. Not bad considering I’m already showing confirmed in a one bedroom suite, which retails for over $1,000/night, and should get club access.

Also, we’ll get a tour of the Gate Gourmet facilities at SFO on Friday at 2PM, so I’ll try to write a report on that since it should be interesting. Apparently we’ll even get to sample first class meals! By the way, we have two open spots, so if anyone wants to join us, please shoot me an email and I’d be happy to sign you up for the tour.

I should have internet access throughout my trip, so expect continuous updates. 

I remember View from the Wing posting about the new AirTrain elite benefits about a week ago, including a tidbit about elite status with AirTran not expiring:

And I’m personally fortunate that I took advantage of a temporary status match program they offered about 5 years ago — since at least up to this point elite status, once gained, is permanent….

Well, it seems like that’s changing starting February 1, 2009. Thanks to this FlyerTalk thread for pointing out:

Once a member earns Elite status, the member will be required to fly at least 12 one-way, A+ credit-earning flights during the subsequent 365 days to renew the Elite status for another year. Current Elite members will have until 1/31/2009 or 1 year from the date of attainment of Elite status, whichever is greater, to renew their Elite status. 

Makes sense to me, although I think they should let Gary keep his status as a one time exception.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t fancy domestic airline food, so the impact of these changes on me is minimal. Whether I get a sandwich with crap on it or a seemingly inferior coach buy-on-board meal…. well, it makes no difference to me!

That being said, UA is making cut after cut after cut after cut after cut after cut after cut domestically, and I don’t know where it’ll end. Just a few of the changes over the past couple of months:

•  Massive Premium Service (PS) cutbacks in first and business. Staffing in first goes from two FA’s to one, and as a result service is now done on trays. The business appetizer has been cut and the gourmet meals they now offer are along the lines of hot dogs and cheeseburgers. No more pre-arrival snack for breakfast flights. This service would now more appropriately be called POS.
• Hawaii catering has gone downhill. No Mai Tai’s and a bunch of other cuts, since 757 galleys are now catered roundtrip from the mainland…. don’t eat the fish on 757′s ex-Hawaii!
• BusinessOne routes (prime business routes ex-ORD) no longer get hot meals, but now get cold fruit plates for breakfast and cheese plates for lunch and dinner
• Three cabin domestic flights get buy on board service in business, although that’s nothing new
• No more sundaes in transcon first
• Transcon first no longer has hot meals for lunch, because let’s face it, hot meals are just too generous for a six hour flight!

Sadly that’s only the beginning. United, our premium airline…. it’s time to fly (just bring your own food or prepare to dish out $6-9)!

As I posted about a few weeks ago, AA will start implementing their version of the ego booster next week, aka the boarding area carpets. Interestingly enough it’ll be for all AA elites, much like most US airlines and unlike UA, where it’s only for top tier elites, F, and C. I can already picture 2/3 of the plane boarding via the special people carpet on a weekday morning flight. That being said, I think the carpets can be a great benefit, and have saved gate checking a bag plenty of times thanks to it.

I got an email about this from AA, but it contains far too many customer suck-up words for me to actually post it here without cringing.

Full terms and conditions can be found here. Basically you have to book by January 31, 2009, and use the coupon for a stay by March 31, 2009. Simply use the code “FAN50″.

After some big changes to the OnePass program earlier in the month, including the elimination of 500 mile minimums, CO has decided to reconsider. They’ll be restoring 500 mile minimums, but only for elite members. A big kudos to CO for listening to their customers, and I can only dream that UA and others will use this as an example (although I know it’s not happening since UA eliminated the minimums back in July, so they probably think most of us have forgotten about them by now).

The only thing better than what CO is doing here would be if the airlines were actually rational to begin with and thought about their policies before changing them….

I love these kinds of stories. From the Vancouver Sun:

SYDNEY, N.S. – It was the right name but the wrong continent for a sculptor from Argentina.

Monique Rozanes Torres Aguero of Buenos Aires was daydreaming about her vacation in Sydney, Australia, when her Air Canada Jazz flight landed in Sydney, N.S., this week.

“She never thought anything was wrong until she got on the small Dash 8 in Halifax,” said Christiane Tanner of Westmount, N.S., who met Aguero on the flight and has since befriended her.

“She was taking pictures out the airplane window and said to herself, ‘Something is not right.’ “

It never ceases to amaze me how long it takes some people to realize they’re going to the wrong destination. Sounds like everything was ok in the end, other than the fact that she never made it “down under.”

I’m happy to report that as of today I’m officially a “Featured Blogger” on Boarding Area, so I’d like to thank all those that have made this possible, from Randy and his team, to all those that read my blog on a daily/weekly basis. Thanks to the change you can now access my blog directly from the front page of Boarding Area; it will no longer be listed on the “Prior to Boarding” page.

Thanks again to everyone that has stayed loyal, and here’s to years and years more (if there’s an airline industry to speak of).

I always appreciate a good laugh, and in this case it came at the expense of an extremely professional Admirals Club agent. The prank call audio can be found here. At first it was painful to listen to, but the agent played along so nicely that I couldn’t help but crack up. Enjoy!