<p>binx, not sure but believe most of the intl airlines reduced their luggage allowances from 32k to 20k. Price of gas? Business class still gets 2 bags at 32k plus 2 carryons. If you can’t get free tickets, maybe use your miles for free upgrade for you…AND your luggage. ;)</p>
<p>However, the cost of another bag is $80 to $100–the cheapest trans-oceanic shipping available.</p>
<p>The US airlines are nothing short of cattle cars. Southwest and Poeple’s Express got away with it by using a little show biz and humour. Not the specialty of American or United Airlines–or Delta from what I can see. </p>
<p>That wasn’t even really the end of my story. Odd how - bits and pieces come back. Once finally boarded onto the connecting flight, I quickly called my support person from my cell to let her know I was on the plane. It was around 9 at night by then, and I knew she would be working to try to find me some solution in Charlotte, so, I didn’t want to leave her hanging and wondering, and, with security and all, I knew she would not be able to simply call the airline and find out that I’d boarded the plane - no way would they tell her anything I figured. </p>
<p>So I quickly called just to say “I’m on the plane”. The plane was just backing away from the gate when I hit “dial”. Flight attendant yelled at me - over the microphone no less so the whole plane heard - to turn off my cell phone or risk being removed from the plane.</p>
<p>Oh, and (why did this thread get started - now I’m not going to be able to stop) -how about the airline staff - when they serve drinks and peanuts or whatver? </p>
<p>It’s bad enough that airlines never serve anything that tastes good or even anything that is nutritionally useful, but, while I do understand that the drink cart has to come around, when they can clearly see that a passenger is asleep, why oh why must they yell as loudly as possible to the person in the seat next to the sleeping person “WOULD YOU LIKE SOMETHING TO DRINK”??? </p>
<p>I mean, why? It’s not like the person they’re trying to ask is at the other end of a football field or something.</p>
<p>Oh, and then (this thread is going to compete with the Duke thread for server space before I’m done) there was the time just a few months ago, I got on a very big plane out of one major city enroute to another. My business partner was booked on the same flight; we had an appointment. </p>
<p>But I didn’t see him board - no big deal because I would not ordinarily bother to look for him, and we don’t typically make any effort to sit together - anyway, once seatbelted in, I asked the flight attendant to find him, because I had documents on an external harddrive that were critical - I needed to get them to him during the flight, because he would have the flight time to work on some edits; once we landed we would have to jump right into a taxi and get to our meeting. </p>
<p>He has a very uncommon four letter first name, and a common two syllable last name. A six year old could have picked out his name from a passenger manifest. But the flight attendant came back to me and said he wasn’t on the plane, and that they’d checked further, and he wasn’t on any of their earlier or later flights either. I asked if they were sure - I even wrote his name down. They came back and said they double checked and no he wasn’t on the plane. </p>
<p>I freaked, sequentially thinking, how in the world did he miss the plane, and furthermore, surely he wasn’t in an accident on the way to the airport, followed by well maybe he hopped on some other flight - after all there would be many flights from many airlines from this one big city to this other big city, finally followed by just in case I’m solo here I’d better prepare for the meeting accordingly. </p>
<p>So I worked like a crazy person for the entire flight preparing for the meeting minus him. Of course, when we deplaned, there he was; he’d been on board all along. Don’t know why they couldn’t find him on the passenger manifest. (And no, he wasn’t flying under some alias.)</p>
<p>If you want high- quality venting, here is another story, this one from the Dark Ages, aka, the late 1970s.</p>
<p>I was flying back to London on the overnight plane. H was in London and had booked tickets to hear Brigit Nilsson (I can’t remember who the conductor was, but it believe it may have been Furtwangler). </p>
<p>We get on the plane for a 7pm departure. Delay. We’re told that one of the chutes is not working properly. Repairs are going to be made. 9pm: repairing it is not possible, another one will be coming shortly. 10pm. No chute; we’re told that a replacement chute is on its way from NYC. 11pm: still no chute, another one will be coming from Dallas. </p>
<p>No food has been served; all drinks have been used up, and so, alas, has all the toilet paper. Babies are yelling their heads off, but there’s no milk, either. The smokers and the non-smokers start trading insults and nearly come to blows.</p>
<p>3am: the flight attendants suggest we may want to deplane. those who live nearby do so, but at this time of the night, there is no hotel available for the rest, so most of us stay on the plane.</p>
<p>5am: the milk delivery man arrives, and also delivers some bread. The door closes, the ladder is moved away, we are about to take off. The ladder is brought back, the door opens again: the milkman was still on the plane and had no intention of going to London!</p>
<p>I arrive in London in late afternoon. H asks:“Do you want to listen to Brigit Nilsson?” I am in no mood for Wagner. All I want is a shower and a long undisturbed sleep. He still tells me what a great concert I missed.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your Delta story. If I can manage I only fly Delta - I think it is the best airline and whenever I have had a problem they have always fixed it. I fly quite often and have used my FF miles whenever I have wanted - minus the blackout dates but I have not found that to be unreasonable. I also use my miles to upgrade when I have a long trip. </p>
<p>Off topic - but has anyone else heard that many of the low cost airlines have deals where they do not have to pay the leases on their airplanes for several years and also receive tax breaks? If that is true I think that airline travel will only get worse</p>
<p>Oh, and for a vent. I was flying from Dublin Ireland to Sarasota Florida 6 years ago on Continental. I was traveling alone with a 16 month old at Christmas time. I bought a FULL FARE seat for my D and for myself. When they came around with the food I asked for the child’s meal I ordered for my D - the flight attendant told me that he had given it to the child sitting 3 rows up and that he would prefer to serve “paying customers first”. I said I paid for my D seat and he said “prove it”. I am not kidding. Can you imagine. I produced the ticket - which he brought to another flight attendant and then he came back - threw the ticket at the me and rudely gave a meal my D would not eat and never aplogized at all.</p>
<p>I worte a letter to Continental and complained until I was blue in the face. Nothing happened, so I decided that I would NEVER fly Continental again. I haven’t - I make sure that now I ask about who will be codesharing with Delta because I refuse to go on any Continental flight - a horrible horrible airline with zero customer service.</p>
One more Rule 240 story here. FinnAir returning to JFK, connecting to Delta. Flight delayed, missed connection (Delta wouldn’t let us board because they claimed we didn’t have time to clear security). No vacancies at any of the hotels we called near JFK; we gave up after six tries.</p>
<p>We spent the night, after traveling all day from Helsinki, sprawled out on concrete benches (fortunately, we knew in which terminal to find them). We were lucky. There were lots of other people sprawled out on the floors. Hello, backache!</p>
<p>Delta told us Rule 240 only applies if you book the ENTIRE FLIGHT through the same airline (which, of course, we weren’t able to do).</p>
<p>On another trip, Delta demolished a brand new suitcase. That’s when we found out they’re not liable for that, either.</p>
<p>Good luck getting home, Binx! And welcome back!</p>
That’s what started this thread – when we tried, and they said we hadn’t paid enough for our tickets to use our FF miles for an upgrade.</p>
<p>
Magsmom - please tell me how!</p>
<p>Despite the venting, I’m really learning a lot on this thread! My H keeps consoling me, saying that I will be able to use my FF miles to take D on college visits, but it’s looking increasingly like that won’t happen, either, since we don’t have a year to plan them. It amazes me that some people know a year in advance when and where they’re going. My life is much more “surprising” than that. We even make jokes about the only reason to plan anything is so we know what we’re NOT going to be doing.</p>
<p>But I do appreciate all the commiserating, and - as usual - it’s nice to know the world isn’t out to get me - or at least, ONLY me. Thanks for the welcome back, too. 46 more days, not that I’m counting.</p>
<p>In my experience alot of getting what you want with Delta is the respresentative who you are dealing with - who are you dealing with in trying to upgrade? Computer? Agent in Germany? If you want to call the States I think I can dig up the direct local number for the Salt Lake office - this is the place I call when I have a problem. Salt Lake is a Delta hub and the people there seem to be less busy than other hub cities and very accomodating. </p>
<p>I don’t understand being told that your tickets were not expensive enough - I always get the cheapest ticket and then upgrade. The only time I have not been able to upgrade with FF miles is when first class was full. Once, on a international flight I did have to use my miles and pay $50 because it wasn’t Delta all the way- for me it was worth it. </p>
<p>As for the luggage - you used to be able to get away with having a little extra weight and even one/two extra bag. Even if I was on an international flight they would let me slide but I have never been able to get any special favors with extra bags/weight when flying TO the States. Most of the time I have found foreign customer service not as accomodating for seat assignments/luggage/upgrades <em>in general</em>. Last month I was checking in and the guy next to me was told that his bag was too heavy and he had to pay a charge. He was mad. Actually, furious since the agent told him he had to pay right then or she would not accept his bag. Unfortunately, I think you will probably have to go with the rules they have for bags unless you get an exceptionally nice check in agent.</p>
<p>My brother recently flew AirTran (never heard of it until he said he was arriving on AirTran- I thought he was flying cargo or something!!) Anyway - his flight got delayed due to weather. He (with wife and baby) missed connection to Denver and had to spend the night in Atlanta. He said that AirTran could not have been nicer. They paid for hotel and food. He thought that was great- but then when they checked in the next day he was told there was a note on his record that seats had been reassigned. He said he was almost ready to complain when she handed him 3 business class seats (they had 2 originally with baby on lap) and thanked him for being so pleasant the day before. </p>
<p>That probably would not have happened to me since I am notorious for eye rolling when I am inconvenienced! </p>
<p>And, he did tell me that he did not think that all passengers were offered a hotel and meals because alot of the same peopel were complaining the next day as they were getting on the flight.</p>
<p>As a former business traveler (40-45 weeks per year), I have a million airline stories, from the funny to the disgusting.</p>
<p>My second piece of advice - if you don’t get an acceptable explanation from the gate agent, get on your cell phone and call the airline and ask to speak to a supervisor. I travelled pre-cell phone and we would get on the payphones to call the 800 numbers. I used to travel with an OAG which has all the numbers, but you may want to be sure you have all the various phone numbers for your airline when you travel.</p>
The advice on that site is that you carry a copy of the airline’s rule (links on the bottom of that page) and firmly insist that they honor it. The author said the gate agents often don’t know the rule, which backs up the story of the person I know who used it.</p>
<p>You don’t need a year to plan FF trips even now. I managed to go cross county to SF on Delta 2 weeks ago, planning my trip about a month in advance.</p>
<p>One needs to plan farther in advance if one is flying overseas or wants to fly during popular times that are not blackout times. When I took my older S to Spain using FF points for both of us, we went right after Memorial Day, and I made our initial reservation in Nov. I am fairly sure that we were waitlisted for our preferred destination or we had to choose a nonpreferred city first, but ended up getting to go to the city that we wanted to.</p>
<p>We ended up flying East Coast to Switzerland to Spain, but heck, the tickets were free, and despite the long journey, I was glad to have them! We also didn’t sit side by side, but that was OK with me as that S was 6’, 250 lbs, and a sprawler!</p>
<p>I also flew using FF points first class to Alaska from the East Coast about 4 years ago. Again, I planned months ahead and probably flew a route (2 layovers) that many people would have turned their noses up at. But I was very happy: The ticket was free!</p>
<p>When it comes to airlines, my fave is Delta, and I’ve flown most airlines. I despise Northwest particularly since I understand their new way of making $ is to expect customers to pay extra for window and aisle seats. I also think that they’re now expecting customers to pay for pillows and blankets. I read this in the business section of the newspaper a couple of months ago, but I don’t know if Northwest stuck with these new policies or if customer complaints caused the airlines to drop the policies.</p>
<p>NSMOm, pillows and blankets. OMG! I do think you are right about FF points. You can use them at off times. Things are changing though. Isn’t what it used to be. :)</p>
<p>Yes, that’s another trick you have to learn–the intl airlines have a super low fare that doens’t accumulate miles. My travel agent isn’t allowed to book those. The miles fares are $100 more.</p>
<p>They are SOOO sneaky aren’t they? You might have your agent try to upgrade your original tickets??</p>
<p>Why I now hate flying (though I find it tolerable when I’m using FF points).</p>
<p>The below is from USA Today. (Incidentally, I was wrong: Air Canada. not Northwest, now charges for pillows and blankets. Northwest, however, does charge extra for window and aisle seats.)</p>
<p>"Airlines are now charging for services that were once free, noted an annual survey of airline quality released Monday. Among the items that some airlines are charging for: </p>
<p>Paper ticket vs. e-ticket (domestic, $20-$30; international, $50)
Telephone reservations by airline ($5-$10)
Changing a seat once booked (low-cost carriers, $25-$50; traditional airlines, $50)
Assigned seating ($10 per flight leg)
Fees for exit row, bulkhead, or aisle/window seating ($15 trial this summer)
Booking travel using frequent-flier award miles/points ($10-$50)
Switching a ticket to standby status ($25-plus)
Unaccompanied minor child ($40-plus each way)
Overweight bags ($25-$50 for any bag over 50 lbs.)
Extra bags ($40-$80 per bag beyond two checked per person)
Curbside check-in of bags ($2-$3 per bag)
Checked bags ($4-$7 per bag on international flights)
Food on board flights ($5-$10 per meal)
Soda ($1)
Snacks ($1)
Blankets ($1)
Pillows ($1)
Headsets ($1-$5)
In-cabin pets (under seat, $50-$100 each way) "</p>
Thanks for the welcome back, too. 46 more days, not that I’m counting.</p>
).</p>