Aircraft Swap Yields New First Class Award Seat Opportunity for Everyone
There are about two months left before United and Continental officially become a single airline, but in many ways that’s already happened as far as some seats go. Continental aircraft are now getting “Economy Plus” seats, bringing them in line with United configurations; the B757-200 fleet has them, with the rest of the roll-out slated for completion by January 2013.
The bigger story, however, is that there are now First Class seats on international Continental routes that didn’t have them before! That’s because United offers a First Class cabin, whereas Continental does not. From major Continental hub cities such as Houston and Newark, you will start to see United aircraft deployed, referred to in the industry as “aircraft repositioning”.
The major benefit is in the lag time between the advent of a three-cabin aircraft and the realization by frequent flyers. It spells “better award seat availability in First Class”.
[aside headline="What if You Don’t Have Any Miles?" alignment="alignright" width="half" headline_size="default"]The easy way to get miles, is to sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, which enables you to transfer credit card points to United. Or if you need to top up, you can buy up to 100,000 miles directly from United.[/aside]
Take the Newark-Brussels route for example: Newark is a Continental hub city, so most passengers won’t think to check for First Class award space. That’s a big mistake because the flight is now operated by a United aircraft, and First Class award seats are “plentiful” (see chart to the right), whereas Business Class seats are not. Award travel search has traditionally yielded results the other way around, given the air-line’s desire to have First Class always for sale (with a huge price tag) and the far greater supply of Business Class seats.
In August, for instance, Business Class only had four dates available for free award travel, but First Class had almost every day available.
If you have to make a connection anyway, this is one route worth looking at for the long-haul segment portion of your trip. Connecting flights beyond Brussels in Europe are at no extra charge, and are available on Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, and SWISS in Business Class.
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American’s Don’t-Miss Elite Buy-Back Opportunity
Through April 30, the carrier is offering AAdvantage Plati-num members the chance to buy back Platinum status. The cost is $619 for those who in 2011 earned at least 40,000 elite qualifying miles or points (or 48 qualifying segments), and $769 for those who did not. There’s a similar deal for AAdvantage Gold members: $409 for those who earned at least 20,000 elite qualifying miles or points (or 24 qualifying segments) in 2011 and $559 for those who did not.
Elite status is good through February 28, 2013. What’s new: American normally restricts buy-back to members who did not pay to extend their status the prior year. This year any Platinum or Gold member who earned at least two qualifying segments in 2011 can participate.
More info: