continental upgrades

[Dan]

Now honestly Dan,
IS it worth the extra miles? (now that you are married and are not a bochur anymore, I want to hear what you think? the truth!)

Of course its worth it.

People burn 25,000 miles on a coach ticket that they could buy for $250.  Or 40,000 miles to Hawaii that would cost $500.
But a BF ticket costs thousands of dollars and redeeming a few more miles for that is worth it any day.

I've flown with my wife in BF/BE 3 times over the past year.  It's worth every mile.

[steve2]

Of course its worth it.

People burn 25,000 miles on a coach ticket that they could buy for $250.  Or 40,000 miles to Hawaii that would cost $500.
But a BF ticket costs thousands of dollars and redeeming a few more miles for that is worth it any day.

I've flown with my wife in BF/BE 3 times over the past year.  It's worth every mile.

 hope you dont mind me disagreeing with Your assesstment but the part about a BF tkt costing $1000s is not really the case, Unless a person would have paid that amount for the tkt.Which some people do but the vast majority dont

 The TRUE savings is only what the coach tkt would have cost. How many Biz Class or FC tkts have you ever purchased, Me not a single one. Ive done a couple of H fares into BF on CO that cost me $200 more then the ElCheapo and when that was done there was no copay, but I never actually ever in my Life as of yet purchased a Biz or FC Fare that wasnt a Coach tkt

therefore anyone else who wouldnt purchase a Biz or FC tkt either,really is only saving whatever the Coach tkt would have cost them and not the price of the Biz or FC tkt which no way would they ever have purchased

 Take my 2 trips I mentioned above to London & Rome 80k together rather then 200k. Since I wasnt in Rome or flew a Motzei Shabbos the tkt was over $1k, LHR was alittle less since I flew on MS. and I still have 100s of 1000s of AA miles left in my acct. Would Biz have been more comfortable yea, 60k worth Nope ,IMO. Especially as for both trips we arrived early, heck Rome was almost 2 hrs early

 Bout all I lost out on is Bragging Rites that I flew Biz, well I couldnt care Id rather have the extra 120k to use for other trips and save the $$$ I would have paid for the tkts and not some $$ amount for a Biz tkt that I never would have paid for at all. If anything I gave up an aisle seat on my JFK-LHR flight to take the middle seat of the 5 in the middle section, the 2 people on the aisles werent too thrilled with me as now I had an empty seat on each side of me, and smiled the whole to LHR.

BTW same with Hotels, I dont see it that hey I got a Suite that would have cost 1500 Euro, but rather how many pts did I use and how much would the room I reserved would cost me. The cost of that room is what I saved and not the cost of what the Suite would have been if I reserved it from the beginning.

[jack]

If you fly no sweat (one of those annoying people that sit down fall asleep and wake up when it's time to get off) and either don't have to or you got no problem performing the next day than you might be right.  I have purchased a bf ticket to israel for an ultra short trip and was coming home early am and needed to go straight to work,  'twas really nice to get some shut eye.  It would've been even nicer if I could've got it on points instead of $$$$.

[Dan]

hope you dont mind me disagreeing with Your assesstment but the part about a BF tkt costing $1000s is not really the case, Unless a person would have paid that amount for the tkt.Which some people do but the vast majority dont

 The TRUE savings is only what the coach tkt would have cost. How many Biz Class or FC tkts have you ever purchased, Me not a single one. Ive done a couple of H fares into BF on CO that cost me $200 more then the ElCheapo and when that was done there was no copay, but I never actually ever in my Life as of yet purchased a Biz or FC Fare that wasnt a Coach tkt

therefore anyone else who wouldnt purchase a Biz or FC tkt either,really is only saving whatever the Coach tkt would have cost them and not the price of the Biz or FC tkt which no way would they ever have purchased

 Take my 2 trips I mentioned above to London & Rome 80k together rather then 200k. Since I wasnt in Rome or flew a Motzei Shabbos the tkt was over $1k, LHR was alittle less since I flew on MS. and I still have 100s of 1000s of AA miles left in my acct. Would Biz have been more comfortable yea, 60k worth Nope ,IMO. Especially as for both trips we arrived early, heck Rome was almost 2 hrs early

 Bout all I lost out on is Bragging Rites that I flew Biz, well I couldnt care Id rather have the extra 120k to use for other trips and save the $$$ I would have paid for the tkts and not some $$ amount for a Biz tkt that I never would have paid for at all. If anything I gave up an aisle seat on my JFK-LHR flight to take the middle seat of the 5 in the middle section, the 2 people on the aisles werent too thrilled with me as now I had an empty seat on each side of me, and smiled the whole to LHR.

BTW same with Hotels, I dont see it that hey I got a Suite that would have cost 1500 Euro, but rather how many pts did I use and how much would the room I reserved would cost me. The cost of that room is what I saved and not the cost of what the Suite would have been if I reserved it from the beginning.

That's the point, I would never pay thousands of dollars for a BF ticket, but I try to redeem my miles and points on trips that I could never otherwise afford.  It doesn't matter if I would evr pay for BF, what matters is that I'm in a seat that sells for thousands of dollars all for opening up a couple credit cards.

It's hard to get a good value for your miles in coach, and I almost always get 5 cents value for my miles flying BF.

[steve2]

That's the point, I would never pay thousands of dollars for a BF ticket, but I try to redeem my miles and points on trips that I could never otherwise afford.  It doesn't matter if I would evr pay for BF, what matters is that I'm in a seat that sells for thousands of dollars all for opening up a couple credit cards.

It's hard to get a good value for your miles in coach, and I almost always get 5 cents value for my miles flying BF.

 Its the way you value the 5 cents that I disagree with. Take this Hawaiian trip 75k x .05 = $3750 now  had you done it in Coach are you saying it would have cost you $3750 or more like under $1000. You want to look at what the Biz seat would have cost You, all Im saying is since you never would have purchased it all you saved was whatever the Coach seat would have cost you. Granted Biz is more comfortable but for savings wise alot of Us see it as whatever was kept in the pocket which means how much was a coach tkt.

 Now with UA I use the CR1s which for a 1K (me) usually clear , so I purchase an ElCheapo and fly in Biz, doesnt cost me any Miles or $$ to get up front and earn 22K in RDMs and 11K in EQMs. Or worse comes to worse Im in E+ with all the leg room I need

 As for "its hard to get a good value in Coach' I disagree there as well TLV need I say more, a Coach tkt usually comes in between .075-.12 per EQM an Excellent value for a free coach tkt ,IMO EZE during Jan & Feb is another almost as good a value as TLV

 Ive cashed in for Europe the past few yrs on a Coach tkt making a few stops CO always told me instead of cashing in the 50k I could purchase my tkt for usually over $3000

 Yes I also have cashed in for Biz like this past Sept to VIE simply cause DL wanted 100k in Biz or 130k in Coach a No-Brainer. Otherwise hello Coach yet I never said I saved whatever the Biz fare was to VIE, what I saved was whatever the Coach would have been. Thusly if a NY-HNL fare was back to $384 ai like I had last June (twice) then I wouldnt blow Miles on the tkt especially for Biz.

 We just view what the value of the $$ saved is, you see it as what ever you received would have cost you, I see it as what ever it would have been that you would paid out of pocket for. So you look at the price of the Biz tkt, I look at the price of the ElCheapo coach tkt. Say the Biz to Hawaii as flown was $2500 and coach was $450 you didnt save $2500 since by your admission you Never would have purchased such tkts, you would have saved $450 so you need to divide $450 into the # of Miles you spent.

 Now aside , did you get a good deal since you didnt pay for the tkts Yes, a better deal since they were Biz tkts 100%. did you save whatever the price of the Biz tkts would have cost You , Not at All.

 BTW CO14 is showing 18 out of 35 empty on your flight 5 UPed with Coach being wide open and like 1/2 full

[steve2]

If you fly no sweat (one of those annoying people that sit down fall asleep and wake up when it's time to get off) and either don't have to or you got no problem performing the next day than you might be right.  I have purchased a bf ticket to israel for an ultra short trip and was coming home early am and needed to go straight to work,  'twas really nice to get some shut eye.  It would've been even nicer if I could've got it on points instead of $$$$.

 OK now you are introducing a new factor to the Equation

 its like a person spends 2 hrs working out a cheap airfare, cheap car rental and cheap Hotel stays. In the end they saved $300 not bad , and great if the person wasnt gonna be doing anything but say watch TV. Oh by using those 2 hrs to save that $300 he didnt do work which he bills out at $500 an hr the guy didnt save $300 he lost $700.

 so if by flying Biz you are more productive when you land and can take care of biz I agree with you. But most people fly for leisure so its not a part of the equation I feel in most cases. The same applys if a stop over in Europe will cost you hrs to freshen up or mean having to extend your trip an extra day all that has to come into the equation

 Im probbaly going to do a MAD run , the flight to MAD leaves from EWR a short drive from where Im based,yet Im gonna fly to SEA and buy my MAD tkt as a SEA-MAD tkt. when I wa slooking to find an ElCheapo to SEA, BDL (Hartford) was the cheapest @ $218+ . JFK was $238 I wil book the JFK flight, why cause it takes 2 1/2 hrs to get to BDL, so the gas plus having to pay for parking (JFK is free) iis gonna work out to way more then $20

 So when figuring things out not everyone will have the same parameters. I usually end up playing Backgammon the whole flight and get very little sleep in, so where I sit doesnt really matter that much. Getting my 100k EQMs for the least amount spent is what My Game is all about, and its all pleasure not for Biz and my own Dime

[Mikeoracle]

JFK parking is free?

[steve2]

JFK parking is free?

 well not really as it will cost either $5 or $10 for the whole period that you are parked but there are a few Tricks, unlike LGA which is totally free

[Mikeoracle]

Care to share? I need to park at JFK for 4+ days in 2 weeks and am looking for ideas.

[steve2]

Care to share? I need to park at JFK for 4+ days in 2 weeks and am looking for ideas.

 ygm

[Dan]

Steve, we're obviously not going to agree on this point, so no point in continuing.

But c'mon, are you seriously comparing United First class to HNL with Continental's BusinessFirst??
Continental from IAH or EWR to HNL is light years better than UA's offering.

[steve2]

Steve, we're obviously not going to agree on this point, so no point in continuing.

But c'mon, are you seriously comparing United First class to HNL with Continental's BusinessFirst??
Continental from IAH or EWR to HNL is light years better than UA's offering.

 I wasnt saying UA was better especially since I dont get Uped to FC but to Biz

 I was saying if my choice is Biz on UA for a few hundred bucks or 85k Id rather spend the $$ and go UA Biz. that UA tkt will earn me EQMs and as a 1k 2x on the RDMs


 Ive done CO and UA over 6x to HNL, CO was in Coach and UA 1st time in coach after that Uped using CR1s. Never paid more then $410 out of NY and UA was during DEQM so it was less then .02 on a couple of the runs and earned 22k RDMs. Yea Id take that over a BF freebe anyday

 Its sort of like you are gonna buy a new Aveo for say $9k all of a sudden a relative says hes leaving the Country and you can have his Lexus 460 '09, would you say you saved $80k or the $9 that the Aveo was going to cost. Im sure youd say you saved the $9k you were going to spend, thats the samething with the tkts You saved whatever it would have been for the type of tkts you would have purchased. Now you can go on thinking and bragging that you saved 1000s of $$$ , and most people who have no idea about the Game will be in awe of You, those of us who know the Game very well, wont be at least on the savings part, for having scored BF seats Going to HNL yea not for the way back as you know your Flight was Empty and I would have come back in Coach saved the miles and have had a whole row to myself just as I had to SYD, my friend who used 135k for Biz said he should have done what I did. Heck I gave up my E+ seat and went to E- t`o hav e4 seats while so idiots paid extra for the UP to E+ an dsat in my seat. I did tell them they were in my seat and explained what I did and they were piffed that they blew their $$$ when the back was so empty

To each their own.

 BTW seems you are Chabad in that case most of what I said about hawaii and Shabbos doesnt apply to You, but would for most Non-Chabad people. they should ask their own rabbis about staying in Hawaii and not rely on Chabad,IMO

[jack]

FYI - I did not get upgraded on my continental flight:-(. 
I don't know what the hype is about continental - I would never pay an extra $ to fly continental again.  I would pay extra to fly jetblue over continental any day.
Was an old plane with no personal entertainment system, never mind the gogo everyone else has been talking about.
The seat was really tight (narrow and next to no leg room) and for someone that is 6' tall it would be downright painful.
I looked in to bus. class waiting for the washroom and was not impressed- no personal entertainment systems, the seats did not look all that great.

The only good was my luggage came out first (both pieces) with the elite tags hanging from them.

[elikay]

I have a friend flying ewr-tlv on CO and he's silver, I told him not to expect anything more than fancy tags. Is this correct? Are there any other perks for being elite on an intl flight? any remote chance of an upgrade?

[elikay]

Actually his wife is elite, but he could become, since this flight will put him over, but he's not sure if it will do anything for him.

[Dan]

I have a friend flying ewr-tlv on CO and he's silver, I told him not to expect anything more than fancy tags. Is this correct? Are there any other perks for being elite on an intl flight? any remote chance of an upgrade?

25% bonus miles.
Priority lines and baggage handling.
Elite seating area and free exit rows/bulkhead within 24 hours of the flight.
Extremely remote chance of an operational upgrade if coach is oversold and you butter up the right agent.

[steve2]

I have a friend flying ewr-tlv on CO and he's silver, I told him not to expect anything more than fancy tags. Is this correct? Are there any other perks for being elite on an intl flight? any remote chance of an upgrade?

 Upgrade and a Silver sure an Up is a Slam Dunk just they need to tell the agent checking them in they want BF and dont care how much more $$$ it will cost them, otherwise No Way, this is for Intl Routes where its BF up front

 The ElCheapo tkts it costs 30k in miles & $500 each way the less of an ElCheapo fare basis wise the less $$ needed but I think $250 is least it will be and its still 30k. a Y fare is no co-pay and 20k and its probably cheaper most time sto simply buy a BF tkt then a Y. B is also no copay but 30k

 heres COs chart; http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/apps/onepass/rewards/travel/rewardTravel.aspx

[Dan]

Its sort of like you are gonna buy a new Aveo for say $9k all of a sudden a relative says hes leaving the Country and you can have his Lexus 460 '09, would you say you saved $80k or the $9 that the Aveo was going to cost. Im sure youd say you saved the $9k you were going to spend

I'd say I got an $80K car for free.
Just like I'd say I got a $20K first class plane ticket to Zurich, Paris, Venice, and Israel for free on my trip earlier this year by playing the game.

Obviously I'll enjoy the Lexus 460 more than the Aveo, so to say that I saved $9K doesn't do it justice.  Granted I would never pay the $80K, but that doesn't detract from the $80K value.

[elikay]

just they need to tell the agent checking them in they want BF and dont care how much more $$$ it will cost them,

Will this get a free upgrade!? Or just priority on paid standby.

[steve2]

Will this get a free upgrade!? Or just priority on paid standby.

 let me try it this way, on CO with BF seats up front there are NO FREE UPs. bout all they can pray for is that Coach is way oversold and its running late and CO simply will take who ever is next in line and put them straight into BF, Dan says sweet talking helps, Im not sure it does.

 Basically if they want BF then they will have to ante up some miles and $$$ and hope that there arent any Plats or Golds wanting to do the same. Besides that no way they will see BF except when boarding and leaving the plane as they walk thru the BF smaller cabin to get into Coach

 just as I will be doing next Mon night as I had to change my plans and ended up buying a tkt in order to get the flights I needed when I needed them. But I need the miles for requalifying for UA 1K anyway but could have gotten it for alot less money,   due to a family med sit I wasnt sure Id be able to do the couple of TCs I needed to, so I figured better to have it done then end up not being able to do a Run and come up 10k short