I travel a lot for work so I have somethin approaching but never quite reaching a “fuckload” of Continental OnePass miles and Marriott Rewards points. The damn things seem to depreciate every year so I might as well redeem some. Frickin FF miles. The things are just damn hard to use and getting worse. Delta has just announced that they are EXCLUDING about 5% of their seats from ANY kind of award redemption (just about their entire inventory of really nice biz seats to any where you would actually want to go) and for 2008, Contintial just announced that if you want an Asia or Brazil unrestricted biz class award, it will now set you back THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MILES. For Brazil, that’s up from 180,000

Now I’m a OnePass and Marriott Paltnium member (highest tier) this is alledged to increase the availability of the standard awards. The Marriott stays were actually very easy to use and I was able to do everything online. 3 nights in the Manila Renaissance Makati City, 4 nights in the Cebu Marriott and 7 nights in the Pattaya Marriott Resort. Everything was available with a standard award, no “AnyTime” redemptions required and the Pattaya reward was actually a reduced “PointSaver” award. The only Hotel I actually have to pay for is Pacific Breeze in AC.

The airline tickets… fuck me…

This is MY birthday, right? So no coach class, I want BIZ class.

Standard awards, even the “enhanced inventory” for me, mister bigshoot platnium elite member is practically nill. What does seem to be available involves weird, multi-stop 35 hour itineraries on days I don’t want to travel. I swallow hard and check the “EasyPass” options. FUCK ME HARDER. CO only flies to Tokyo and Manila. BKK will require a “Partner” and the do not offer “EasyPass”. Well Northwest does BUT SAME FRICKIN AVAILABILITY at TWICE THE MILAGE. I’m reduced to calling every day and asking if any awards are availble. After MANY tries I finally get a biz class LAX to MNL and BKK to LAX return on EVA Air. 160,000 miles vs. 120,000 for a standard Biz, I hear that EVA biz is better that NWA so I feel better about that.

With the long haul done, time to get my puddle jumping taken care of. It seems that Cebu Pacific has the routes that I want, They have even announced a Clark BKK service, alas that was not to be. Anyway, I tried to purchase my tickets online, except, Cebu Pacific is “unable at this time to accept USA based Visa and certain MasterCards online”. So I fire up my Skype and call up their reservation line. Between the connection quality and the agents… uhm… abilities, it was a wonder that I was able to complete my entire itinerary, or so I thought. I got a confirming email for my Manila – Cebu – Clark segments. But no MNL – BKK. I call back and the fare that I was quoted was “no longer available” and the only thing left was a triple priced full fare. Have you ever askd a fillipina to actually think and act on their own? I remained Polite and Respectful but direct and firm in insisting that Cebu Pacific should honor the rate I was orginally quoted. Now I’m sure I was running afoul of some Pinoy cultual norm that was causing her to get so exasperated but she agreed that she would investigate the manner with the orginal agent. I received an email confirming my MNL – BKK segment at the rate I was orginally quoted.

Quite a bit of agravation over $100 given the retail value of my long haul flights and Hotels but I hate spending money that I shouldn’t of almost as much as Porker does.

Dude:
for Continental miles, try getting them to book you on Korea Airlines.
That layover in Tokyo sucks.

I was checking the Korean availability also. For for trans-pacific biz class, all airlines withhold availability of non-revenue award tikets. It is one of their main moneymaking business activities. Frequent Flyier programs are no longer about loyality but rather a revenue stream and they are managed as such. Since EVERY SINGLE MILE in my account come from my butt in a seat, it pisses me off to no end but since airlines are too hung up on the revenue possibilities of selling FF miles to credit card companies and the rest, the programs will degrade untll they neither inspire loyalty nor revenue.

Buy the cheapest seat and use you FF miles to upgrade to biz or first class.

Thats what i have to do to get the flights I want on United.
Jan

I have found buying and upgrading cheap economy seats to biz is no longer a viable strategy. Airlines see international biz class as a major moneymaker and they now require a SIGNIFICANT fee to upgrade deeply discounted coach tickets and make the availability NIL. On Continental, it's $450 EACH WAY ($900 RT) so that the upgrade fee can exceed the ticket price. This is ON TOP of the mileage required being nearly equal to a straight up biz class reward ticket.