It’s only a few days till the new year, and that’s both a good and bad thing. On the downside, my United elite qualifying mileage balance will drop from over 200,000 to ZERO. Yuck! On the plus side, I’ll get six fresh systemwide upgrades from United, and more importantly the quest for status begins once again.
Yesterday afternoon it finally hit me that I had no travel planned for next year, and that needed to change. I put a couple of tickets on hold, and this afternoon went to the airport to ticket them, since I had vouchers to burn. I decided to book a couple of pretty cool mileage runs. One includes the reconfigured United 767 on the outbound and Premium Service on the return, both of which are already confirmed in business class thanks to my confirmed regional upgrades. I booked another mileage run which has me on the reconfigured 767 both ways, which I’m looking forward to. I’m always a bit embarrassed to say I haven’t actually flown new UA C/F (although I’ve sat in the mock up, but it’s not the same thing), so with three flights planned on the bird, at least one has to work out…. right? I’ll definitely report back on my impressions, and of course will have plenty of pictures.
I’m actually flying four weekends in January, including a trip on Delta to New York (and I’m purposely routing through ATL to hop on an internationally configured 767), as well as a trip on Continental to Seattle (with a pretty cool thing set up there, which I can hopefully write a bit about after the fact). Here’s to hoping my upgrades clear!
After filling up January I’m not quite as depressed as before about January being right around the corner. Here’s to hoping that weather doesn’t make my travel plans too unrealistic….
Hey Paul,
Thanks for the question. Here's a post I made in the past about acquiring vouchers, which might be of interest to you:
https://onemileatatime.com/answering-a-few-reader-questions/
Also, here are a few tips for writing complaint letters, which might be relevant given the question:
https://onemileatatime.com/advice-on-writing-lettersnotes-to-the-airlines/
If you have any specific questions, please let me know, but mostly it's a combination of bumps, compensation from skykits, and compensation from customer service due to delays/onboard issues. In...
Hey Paul,
Thanks for the question. Here's a post I made in the past about acquiring vouchers, which might be of interest to you:
https://onemileatatime.com/answering-a-few-reader-questions/
Also, here are a few tips for writing complaint letters, which might be relevant given the question:
https://onemileatatime.com/advice-on-writing-lettersnotes-to-the-airlines/
If you have any specific questions, please let me know, but mostly it's a combination of bumps, compensation from skykits, and compensation from customer service due to delays/onboard issues. In this case I was using bump vouchers.
Lucky, you seem to have a continual stream of vouchers for travel. Can you shed some light on how you acquire these? Are they mostly from service issues, and if so do you have any tips on how to more effectively acquire them?
I'm ready for 2009..sort of..I have two MR's booked, but nothing as fancy as you've got. All normal domestic flights on domestic planes AND I have to sit on the waitlist right now despite using CR-1's on SFO-IAD-SFO.
As of now, I've got something like 13000 eqm's booked via MR's, and probably 25,000 eqm for personal travel to Europe. Who knows how much work travel I'll have, we got word there will be some...
I'm ready for 2009..sort of..I have two MR's booked, but nothing as fancy as you've got. All normal domestic flights on domestic planes AND I have to sit on the waitlist right now despite using CR-1's on SFO-IAD-SFO.
As of now, I've got something like 13000 eqm's booked via MR's, and probably 25,000 eqm for personal travel to Europe. Who knows how much work travel I'll have, we got word there will be some cutbacks.
That being said, I'm stoked at the opportunities for next year. I think it'll be fun to see what creative routings we can get. Hopefully we on the left coast will be able to start matching the cool routes that you can get :)
Thanks for this blog, it's fun to read and informative. Keep up the good work Ben, can't wait to see what you're writing about in '09.