One of my colleague’s parents really make use of his travel benefits. They are very industrious in figuring out the routings and even traveling on other airlines. Are your parents travelers? Or if you are the parents traveling, do you travel? If so, please tell us about your travels. Include where you’ve been, what you’ve done, any parents tips you can give, etc.
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My mother just tried to pass ride on United flight from IAD to JFK. The gate agent closed the doors without calling for stand-bys. Very disappointing when you’re trying to pass ride to see your daughter who is having a biopsy on her breast on Monday.
One must know the rules of flying standby. It is not for the faint of heart. Most of the time it is by seniorty of the employee. IE: on United, it is the employee, retiree, parent, other airline workers, their parents, buddy passes and the rest.(Or in some order)
If they don’t call for standby, then the plane is full and there is nothing they can do about it, except roll you over for the next flight.
It’s not that they don’t care.
My mother refuses to travel stand by. Can’t say I blame her. In some cases it’s cheaper to book online anyway instead of going through the headache.
When I started to work for Southwest Airlines, my mum was overjoyed with the idea of Space Available travel. She was even more thrilled with Zed fare on other airlines. She learned all the rules behind nonrev and zed travel. She has yet to be bumped by a bad choice of flight.
I processed paper pass requests for her nonrev travel (50 copies) and sent them to her. Mum lives in Anchorage, and as an MVP Gold Elite member of Alaska Airlines, she has no problem getting tickets from Anchorage to Seattle or Portland. Her job has her traveling round trip 3-4 times a week from Anchorage to Bethel, Fairbanks and Juneau, AK.
Once she made it to Seattle or Portland, she got on Southwest Airlines and managed to use all 50 copies of travel pass in 3 months. She has 13 brothers and sisters. Now that Southwest is e-nonrev, she makes all her own arrangements for travel on Southwest and only needs my assistance when traveling on other airlines.
Zed fare travel has allowed her to visit Germany, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Brazil, Thailand and Egypt.
It is rare to find mum at home now. She does all the research on which airlines she wants to fly, the schedules and stops, and sends me email with her Zed fare pass requests. I figure she is going to travel regularly until either I quit or she makes her transition.
My mother refuses to travel stand by. Can’t say I blame her. In some cases it’s cheaper to book online anyway instead of going through the headache.
Key is to be flexible. We traveled non-rev CVG – DEN on 6/15/10 and it became an adventure. Plenty of seats for non-rev pax CVG – DEN however they discovered a crack in the side windshield and eventually cancelled the flight. The scramble began to route folks to DEN. We sat patiently until all the rev pax were cared for then approaced the gate agent for assistance. He was wonderful and spent time and effort to find us the best way home. The routing took us through GRR Grand Rapids, MSP Minneaplois and into DEN Denver. My wife commented that we would have been better to have bought a ticket and not taken non-rev. So, I asked her, did we get to Denver any faster than those who had tickets since, at MSP we met with others from the canceled CVG flight who had come together from all over the country to make this flight. She finally agreed that patience and flexibilty are prime when traveling standby. We will continue to do so. Thanks to the many gate agents out there who are true professionals. I think many of them consider that we are parents and hope that theirs would be cared for in the same manner.
I flew non-rev and was sitting in a seat, with door literally closing and agent came on & pulled me off.
Opps- I am a parent.
Hi Sue,
That happens to the best of us. I was in Business Class once all settled in and had to grab my stuff and disembark. Two airlines and about 16 hours later I got home.
My Parents fly standby all the time. – And on S4′s (Delta) from LAX at that. They somehow make it out East all the time, at least a couple times a month. They are really flexible and used to how things are. On the 3rd of January they are heading to India for the first time. Proud of em, India is one of my favorite places, but not the easiest.
I am a parent – and I have made decent use of those benefits. Zed fares give you great flexibility. Several times I went to India that way, and enjoyed 1st class seating to Europe – then sat in the back of the plane for the crowded India flights! I recently met a woman traveling with her daughters who uses zed fare all the time – she buys a batch of tickets for each of her flight options, then returns what she doesn’t use. Her family has seen the world – the best part about working for the airlines! I really appreciate the privilege.
Awesome Shareena.
Thanks for sharing.
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As destructive as they are, the imagery from erupting volcanoes is really incredible.