Category: Travel

United’s new elite program

ssegraves

United started 2020 by implementing a “new” measure for elite qualification. They call them “Premier Qualifying Points” (PQPs) and “Premier Qualifying Flights” (PQFs). United’s claim is that this new system will make determining your qualification numbers easier to track.

We also wanted to get rid of factors like fare class multipliers, which made it harder to track your qualifying activity.

After about a month of flying with this new system implemented, I wanted to share my thoughts, likes, and dislikes of the new program.

Snowy morning at Newark.
I’ll be fairly blunt in my feelings, I think the move to PQPs by United has little to do with how hard it is to track your elite progress and more to do with how much money you spend on them. The old method was not difficult to track, in fact, it was quite simple. There were tables with how much you would earn and United would even show you how much a set of flights would earn during the booking process (they do this for PQPs as well). No, United is looking to thin the ranks of their 1K flyers and the easiest way to do that is to up the amount required to qualify. Distance flown during the year no longer matters, simply the dollars you spend on the airline.

The new way of tracking your progress is not easier, especially if you fly on United’s partners like Lufthansa or Air Canada. You have to figure out how many award miles those partner flights would earn, which is a task in and of itself, see this table a kind FlyerTalk member put together. It is slightly deceptive for United to tout the simplicity of the new program when it really isn’t all that simple.

The other part of United’s new system that I find disingenuous is the fact that for 1K status they require 54 flights or 6,000 more PQPs than the base requirement. 54 flights is a lot of flights and flyers get no bonus or multiplier for flights in a premium cabin. Meaning you could get 18,000 PQPs flying first class across the country every few weeks but not hit 54 flights. My guess is that this is intentional to force those types of flyers to spend more time flying United and their partners.

The good news is that just about every dollar (excluding taxes) spent on United and partners is eligible to earn PQPs. This includes award co-pays, paid upgrades, preferred seat purchases, and economy plus seating subscriptions. So at least you as a customer are being rewarded for the extra cash you spend on United. I don’t know that I would go out of my way to give United that extra cash, but if you are already flying Star Alliance and United then it is a small perk.

Overall, it’s easy to tell how I feel about United’s 2020 changes. I think the airline is focused solely on how much their customers spend and I question how sustainable that is if and when the economy takes a hit. How quickly can the airline turn around and revise the frequent flyer program to accommodate a fluctuating economy? United has had issues rolling out some of the perks of the program, namely the ability to use an increased number of PlusPoints to immediately upgrade an itinerary. It’s a feature that allows you, the traveler, to bypass others on the upgrade list by using more PlusPoints. United is waiting until February to roll this feature out and it’s unclear why. The airline could be having technical issues or, they could be trying to avoid having a rush of PlusPoints used as their validity of January 31, 2020 comes up. My gut says it’s the latter.

I am interested to see how United tweaks the program, if at all. Airlines seem to be chasing the bottom line and with their latest program changes, United seems to be at the front of the chase. People will continue to fly United because they need to get from point A to point B but I don’t know that loyalty beyond that will exist, especially as people realize they won’t requalify. I’d love to hear what you think about United’s program changes, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts.

Best Earbuds for Travel and Everyday Commuting?

ssegraves

I accidentally left my primary pair of headphones, the BeatsX, at home this week. I resorted to a second pair of earbuds that I keep in my bag but rarely use, the Soundcore Liberty Neos. Neither of these headphones are ideal and with the recent AirPod Pro release I got to thinking, what would be the perfect pair of headphones for me, a heavy traveling, daily subway commuting, talking on the phone user?

The BeatsX are very user friendly, there are controls that allow pause/play and volume, all on the cable that connects the two earbuds. The downsides I have with the BeatsX are the following:

  • The cable connecting the two headphones is a single point of failure. Any kind of fray inside the cable renders the headphones useless.
  • For long term use, they aren’t the most comfortable headphones. After a few hours, I have to remove them or I get a headache.
  • No active noise cancellation. The headphones use the seal between them and your ear to minimize how much outside sound you hear, but it isn’t the greatest and it makes you feel very isolated when walking.

The Soundcore Liberty Neos don’t have a cable between the headphones and the only actions you can perform without using your paired device are moving forward and backward a track. There are no volume controls on the earbuds themselves. However, they are very comfortable and I left them in my ears on an entire transcontinental flight recently without any kind of pain or discomfort during the flight.

This got me thinking though, are the new Airpod Pros worth an investment? What about the Powerbeats Pros? I have been intrigued by the Powerbeats Pro product simply because it’s a more secure in-ear earbud. At the same time, the Airpod Pros have noise cancelling functionality built-in and that is really attractive given all the time I spend on planes or in the subway. Neither of these headphones is cheap so it makes the choice a little more difficult. Ideally I would carry a single pair of headphones. Any suggestions on which ones those should be?

 

* This post contains affiliate links to products on Amazon. These links pay me if readers click them.

Airlines have still not perfected “spend”

ssegraves

Ever since a number of airlines have implemented a dollars or “spend” calculation into their elite statuses there have been complaints. The complaints have escalated as the required amount of spending has gone up for most levels over the last couple of years. My complaint is a little different in that I understand a need for dollars spent to be used in the awarding of elite status on the carriers, however, the systems that do the calculation are finicky and you, the traveler, have to be diligent in tracking the amount you have spent and what the airline has awarded you.

A few dollars here or there may not seem like a big impact but when you are traveling every week and maybe live in an area that sees frequent fare wars (lower fares), then those few dollars add up over time. A few of my coworkers are in this exact situation. They live in a location where there is a lot of competition and fares frequently reflect that. They also travel every week but even with easily earning elite status with miles flown, they are struggling to meet their airline’s spend requirements.

I recently had a work trip overseas. I was set to fly Portland-San Francisco-Munich-Prague. After arriving in San Francisco my connection to Munich was delayed and I would miss the final leg to Prague. I asked to be moved to San Francisco-Zurich-Prague and was accommodated, making it to my final destination only a little later than planned. After the trip, I was looking at my account activity on United and noticed that I received significantly fewer PQDs (Premier Qualifying Dollars) than what was on my receipt for the trip. I contacted United and they did “correct” the number but it still does not match what I would have originally earned. Knowing that I will earn the needed spend for elite status, I am not going to pursue this any further with United as it really isn’t worth my time, but without looking closely I would not have noticed that I was shorted.

The systems the airlines use for tracking all of their data are complex and the integration between those systems is even more complex, so as one system receives or creates incorrect data it is sent to other systems and the disparity becomes harder to track. For example, elite spend is calculated without fees or taxes associated to the fare. A $500 ticket may only generate $400 of elite spend. If that is somehow miscalculated as $340 then you missed out on $60 that now has to be reconciled in some manner. In some cases the airlines can manually correct the elite spend directly but in others they have to manipulate the underlying ticket.

For my ticket, what I believe happened is that when I was moved to San Francisco-Zurich, my ticket had to be refared, meaning they had to recalculate the value of the ticket and in doing so, moved me to a lower fare than my original ticket. I doubt this was intentional, they were just trying to get me on the flight, but the point is, in changing the ticket, the amount I paid for the ticket was no longer calculated correctly.

The moral of the story: pay attention to your accounts and don’t hesitate to contact the airlines when you see a discrepancy. If the airlines want to enforce spend as an elite qualifying criteria then you need to be diligent in making sure the values are correct.

Something doesn’t add up with this unaccompanied minor story

ssegraves

United at Newark
There is a story coming out today on a number of different news sites stating that United put a 14-year-old passenger on the wrong connecting flight. He was set to go to Stockholm on SAS but ended up on a Eurowings flight to Düsseldorf. Those two flights board next to each other and the gate agents are the same contract staff for both airlines

However, when I read through them, something does not add up.

From the Yahoo News! story:

A parent is blaming “the idiots” at United Airlines for putting his 14-year-old son on the wrong international flight, which would have taken him to Germany, instead of his intended destination, Sweden.

The young boy, Anton Berg, flew as an “unaccompanied minor” on June 30 with United Airlines from Raleigh, Durham, N.C. to Newark, N.J. From there, his connecting flight was supposed to take him directly to his destination, Stockholm, with Scandinavian Airlines, but he got on a flight to Dusseldorf, operated by Eurowings, instead.

So a 14-year-old traveling alone as an unaccompanied minor was put on the wrong connecting flight. Per the same article, United has apologized:

United Airlines has since refunded the $150 fee charged for directing the unaccompanied minor. In a statement provided to Yahoo Lifestyle, a representative said that the airline has “been in frequent contact with the young man’s family to confirm his safety and to apologize for this issue.”

What doesn’t add up is that the story and United’s unaccompanied minor policy don’t match. Add on top of that, the child was connecting onto a partner flight that was being serviced by a contract set of agents and things really get complicated.

From United’s website:

Our unaccompanied minor service is for children who are 5-14 years old and traveling without a parent, legal guardian or someone who is at least 18 years old. These young travelers also need to follow certain requirements for their safety:

  • Unaccompanied minors can only travel on nonstop United or United Express® flights. They can’t use our unaccompanied minor service on codeshare flights and other flights operated by our partner airlines.
  • United does not offer unaccompanied minor service connecting to or from other airlines’ flights.
  • Children younger than 5 can’t travel as unaccompanied minors, even if they’re flying with an older unaccompanied child.
  • Unaccompanied minor service is not available for children older than 14. Young adults ages 15 to 17 can travel alone on any United- or United Express®-operated flight.
  • It costs $150 each way for every two children traveling using the unaccompanied minor service.

The unaccompanied minor “service” is really a fee to make sure that your child makes it from your care to the care of whoever is picking them up from their destination. It is not an escort/babysitting service making sure your kid gets on the correct flight. In this particular case, it sounds like the parents skirted the rules of the program to try and get United to connect their son onto an SAS flight, which is not permitted for an unaccompanied minor (it says so directly in the policy). In fact, part of the reason the airlines don’t offer connections anymore is exactly this scenario, a potentially lost child somewhere in the process.

Once the minor was in the care of the contract agents for SAS and Eurowings, there was another breakdown where it was not understood what flight the child should be on. He was inadvertently directed to the Eurowings flight by their staff, not United’s.

The whole story comes down to the parents trying to be slick and skirt the unaccompanied minor rules and having it backfire. Rather than just roll with the punches they blame the airlines (and really focus on the wrong one in my opinion). The contract staff for the two European carriers screwed up and they need to fix whatever flaw they have that let them issue a boarding pass for the wrong flight.

Turkish Airlines’ new 787-9 damaged during a photo shoot

ssegraves

In case you missed it, Seth reported that Turkish Airlines’ brand new 787-9 was damaged during a photo shoot.

Reports suggest that the aircraft window melted out of its mount in the fuselage. How did it get so hot? Seems that the company was filming inside the plane and had it fitted inside and out with studio lighting to make that work. The heat from those lights caused the window to melt.

It seems like the back light was way too close to the fuselage and melted one of the electrochromatic windows. The photos are kind of crazy.

It is still not clear whether the actual carbon fiber fuselage was damaged in any way or if it was just the window.

Paint Me Unimpressed

ssegraves

Images of United’s new livery hit the internet last night before the official “reveal” today in Chicago. The new paint scheme drops the gold elements from the look and replaces them with different blues.


For all the hype that United was trying to generate around the new livery, overall it appears like a very minor change done poorly. Here are some quick thoughts:

  1. The “logo” is still the globe, just simplified. United and their partners in this branding had a chance to re-imagine the globe and give us something new, but for whatever reason, they doubled down on it.
  2. The blue looks “cheap”. The particular blue that United chose for their name and around the engines has a tone to it that looks odd. Maybe it is the light in the hanger, but the color seems like something I’d see on a bad ad for hair care products.
  3. There is a ton of white. The look is minimalist but it seems overly so.
  4. There is nothing that stands out. I think this is the thing that bothers me the most. There was a real opportunity to do something interesting and new but United went the opposite direction, playing it as safe as they could while getting a “new” look.

There was a large release by United a while back on new uniforms, onboard amenities, etc. that incorporated plum and other hues of purple and it is disappointing that with the new livery they steered clear of including those colors. At the end of the day though, it is just paint. I fly inside of the plane. What I would really like to see is United focus on their soft product and customer service. Start delivering on those things and I think people will forget what colors are painted on the plane and just remember it by the name and the service they receive.

What do you think?

The Madrid Ghost Plane

ssegraves

From CNN:

Officials from the Adolfo Suárez-Madrid Barajas airport are trying to find the owners of a plane that has been parked on the tarmac, without moving, for years.
Airport director Elena Mayoral submitted an official notice to the Boletín Oficial del Estado, the official gazette of the Kingdom of Spain, informing the nation of a plane in an “obvious state of abandonment” at the airport.

Once the official notice goes out, the owner has three months to get in touch with the airport otherwise the plane will be sold off at auction.

What United Should Prioritize Over Free DirecTV

ssegraves

United announced today that they will be offering free DirecTV service on all 211 Boeing 737s that have the television service.

Just in time for the Big Game, United Airlines today announced that effective immediately more than 100 channels of live television will now be free on 211 Boeing 737 United aircraft equipped with seat back TV, making viewing easy gate-to-gate. In addition to offering free live DIRECTV at more than 30,000 seats, United customers also have access to hundreds of movies and TV shows available on personal devices through the airline’s collection on the United app – offering customers thousands of hours of programming in total.

While it’s a great news release (American Airlines is doing something similar for the “big game”) it glosses over the fact that United is actively removing the DirecTV equipment from the 737s that are going in for new seats or heavy maintenance. I have not heard details but I do believe the plan is to go to an all personal device streaming setup eventually. This is really an interim step on the way to that goal.


What United really should be focused on is getting Wi-Fi working consistently on their domestic fleet. I have been on a number of flights the last few months where the Wi-Fi has either not worked or been so slow that it was not worth using. I rarely watch any of the live television programming while flying, opting instead to turn it to the inflight map channel. I use my time on planes to read or catch up on work and for the latter, I need working internet. The internet service domestically on United has been abysmal. The international planes, in my experience, have fewer Wi-Fi problems, though I have had a few long flights where the internet was not working from the beginning.

It is one reason I have steered clear of United’s year long Wi-Fi subscription. I am not going to invest cash in something that does not reliably work and that cannot be easily refunded on a per flight basis. A subscription service is great in theory for people who are frequent travelers and United’s pricing for it isn’t awful. But my guess is that the people who have purchased it have not been happy. While Delta and Alaska Wi-Fi on GoGo may not be the fastest, for the most part it works all of the time. That’s the reliability I and others want with United’s inflight internet.

United needs to focus their attention on some of the basic things that makes their product worth flying rather than trying to match Delta in hopes to lure a few more customers with shiny things. I want on-time performance, good schedules, working Wi-Fi, and friendly customer service. Everything else is icing on the cake.

Bartending in Antartica

ssegraves

From Atlas Obscura:

No one owned Club 90 South, and no one paid. Instead, people shared supplies they brought from home (as part of the allocated 125 pounds of luggage per person) or bought from the station store. Bartenders did not earn salaries—only kudos. Broughton started tending bar Fridays and Saturdays, and soon he spent most nights after dinner mixing cocktails and pouring a “disturbing number” of Prairie Fire shots, which Broughton made with tabasco and tequila. He served absinthes from the astrophysics team, Black Seal rum from a Bermudan at McMurdo Base, and Bundaberg rum from an Australian. Mixing his research job with his side hustle, Broughton made cocktails using liquid nitrogen, bringing the haute cuisine trend of molecular mixology to the bottom of the world.

Life at the bottom of the world sounds interesting, to say the least.

United unveils new uniforms

ssegraves

From Today in the Sky:

United Airlines employees will get their first look Wednesday at new uniforms that will soon roll out to all 70,000 of the carrier’s frontline workers.

The new line comes with a distinct look that includes colors like “Pacific Blue,” “Premium Purple,” and “Atlantic Amethyst” — all among a half-dozen hues that United first teased this past August.

I don’t quite understand the aquamarine color scheme and to be honest I am not a huge fan of the rest of the options either. The one style of men’s sports coat is strange, with silver stitching at the pockets, really makes it look dated.

What do you think?