Seattle Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
plane clicky
because I was just on one
ETA: this is assuming you fly coach, if you always sit in first class, you might as well click "I have my own plane" and we will all hate you lol
Re: plane clicky
this, except h and i both like aisle. since his legs are 10,000x's longer than mine, i let him have the aisle, and i sit in the middle.
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
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jumped ship to the new and improved nest. back to TB for baby boards.
This exactly, except H also likes the aisle, so I take the middle. We just booked flights last night and said screw it, and we both took aisle seats, one behind the other.
my parents do aisle seats across from each other, heh.
speaking of aisle/window, etc....
i flew southwest yesterday...where you pick your own seat. on the aisle on the other side of me, there were two.....i'm going to say samoan guys? large....heavy set gentlemen. at least 300lbs? one sat window, one sat aisle. *obviously* nobody wanted to sit in between them, but it was a booked flight, and they couldn't afford an empty seat.
the poor kid who got on the airplane last..............
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
honeymoon bio ♥ married bio ♥ planning bio
jumped ship to the new and improved nest. back to TB for baby boards.
ok see, I always thought H would want the aisle, but he says his knees always get hit and he would rather lean on the window. I wish he liked the aisle so we could sit across the aisle from each other (this is genius!), but he likes window and I like aisle and yes, I'm always the nice one and go middle. I guess it's ok because then I can lean on him, but I've suggested we just sit apart and it hurt his feelings I think (lol)
honestly, I like flying by myself
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oh man. also weird, on both flights yesterday, the person next to me (a somewhat larger person) wanted the armrest up! the one between us! how weird is that?
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We also flew Southwest and boarded as part of the A group. We went to sit in the emergency exit row and a lady had already claimed the aisle seat and threw a HUGE tantrum about "there are all these seats on the plan and you *HAVE* to ruin my day by picking *these* seats." Flight attendant let her go off sounding like an idiot and then reminded her it was a completely full flight and that if it weren't us, i'd be someone. B*tch offered up her copy of Rolling Stone as a peace offering after she realized she acted that way and got to enjoy sitting next to me for a few hours.
DH and I always buy the aisle and the window seat and sometimes we are lucky and have no one in between us.
We will also sometimes sit with someone in between us =/
Oh ETA: The last time we did this the guy who booked the middle seat would only sit it the aisle - which we booked so we made him sit between us... =p
wait, I don't get it - they bought the middle and then demanded that you switch?!
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They should get stuck in the middle - I am all business with travel and all about being comfortable
I politely asked if he would be willing to take the aisle seat so that DH and I could sit next to each other and he came back with "of course you want to give me the sh!tty one of your two seats." I just pointed out that DH has already puzzle pieced all his stuff under the seat in front of him near the window. I was ready to be done with it but the flight attendant came up and got involved. I was ready to just lean across him through the whole dam flight when I wanted to get something out of our stuff or from DH.
I wanted to the same thing when this happened!
oh, I thought you were one of the people that said you booked it like that on purpose. I would have planned it that way
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my currently-reading shelf:
Ha, I could talk about flying forever since it used to be my whole life. It's been a while since I flew without H, but when I flew solo for work (which was ALL the freaking time back when I had my job), it went like this:
Flights under 2 hours: window
Flights over 2 hours: aisle (bathroom access + I want to get up and walk around because I'm paranoid about DVT)
Honestly, though, I tend to fly first class - not because I pay for it but because once you hit top-tier elite status on an airline, you almost always clear for your bump to first class (so I certainly don't own my own plane!). I easily fly 30-40 round trips a year and I'd say on ~90% of them, my upgrade clears. And in first class I honestly don't care where I sit because it's 2-2 seating and so H takes the window or aisle and I take the other one. Alaska has a great policy that lets you upgrade one person flying with you at no charge when you're a top tier FF for them, so H always clears with me (he's also a top tier FF so that helps).
Honestly, the people you see in first class are rarely the people who pay top dollar for their ticket. I usually don't pay more than $100 one-way to fly to Seattle from SFO and I'm almost always up front, and I know most the people in coach probably paid more than I do. When you fly a lot, you also get your change fees waived entirely, so I always book tickets when there are $69 one-way sales and figure that if I decide not to go, I've got the credit for a year with no change fee so it's no loss to me, so I make sure I get super cheap tickets. I'm not even paying $100 one-way for my Thanksgiving and Christmas travel. You just have to fly a LOT to learn how to work the system, and once you do you'll get addicted to being top tier because the experience is just night-and-day different. I would literally book a cross-country flight for one night if needed to hit my elite status level if I were in jeopardy of not making it.
As a tip to anyone who travels a decent amount - if you're near (i.e. within 500-1000 miles) an "elite" level with an airline at the end of the year, ALWAYS call and ask if they'll bump you up to the elite level since you're close. 9 times out of 10 they will because then you're encouraged to keep traveling with them the following year. Airline loyalty programs are actually really valuable for the airlines and for their frequent fliers - I won't fly anyone not in the Alaska network, no matter how much it saves me.
I could go on and on and on about how to make your flying experience more enjoyable, how to maximize mileage accrual, how to use your mileage points for the best flights, how to change your tickets effectively when flights get cancelled, etc. It basically ruled my life at my last job, but it comes in handy now that I travel a lot with H to see family and whatnot.
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amanda, depends - you flew to Abu Dhabi, right? And I think you said you flew through Frankfurt, right? So I'm guessing you flew Lufthansa. They're partners with United and Continental. So, if you had a United mileage account, or a Continental mileage account, those miles you flew to Abu Dhabi could be credited toward that account and toward your elite status on United or Continental. You earn something called Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs as they are commonly referred to in the industry), and those base miles are what affect your tier status. You can earn these miles across many different airlines, and if you accrue them all in the same airline account it isn't too hard to get elite status, at least at some level (most airlines have a 25K minimum). It also isn't hard to accrue enough miles, over time, to actually use your frequent flier miles to fly internationally: I've flown to Buenos Aires (two tickets in business class); Tahiti (two tickets in business class); Prague (one ticket); and Athens (two tickets); and Paris (one ticket, last minute) - all on miles (about $60 a ticket after taxes and fees). So there are lots of benefits to opening a mileage plan with one airline and then flying within that network.
Anyway, I don't know the exact mileage numbers for a flight from Seattle to Abu Dhabi, but I would guess it's somewhere around 7,500 miles each way (assuming roughly 10 hours from Seattle to Frankfurt and 5 hours from Frankfurt to Abu Dhabi, and a constant in-air speed of 500 MPH). So, that would mean your round-trip ticket would net you ~15,000 EQMs with United or Continental. If you assume that 25,000 is the tier for the first level of elite status, you only need to fly 10K more miles in a year on United or their qualifying partners to hit their first-level of elite membership. That's 2 more round trips to the east coast... so not as hard as it seems.
I'm most familiar Alaska's mileage plan because that's who I use, and their plan is INCREDIBLE. It helps, too, because they're regional - they have a smaller pool of frequent fliers, so it's easier to get a seat in first class. On the larger airlines (United and Delta) there are more people competing for the same number of seats, so you usually have to be top-top-top tier to clear. Delta is notorious for not clearing people below Diamond (125,000 miles a year); on Alaska I hit the 50/75K miles a year and almost ALWAYS clear, so for me it's a better deal (and not all those miles are flown on Alaska).
If you fly a lot or decide to align yourself with one airline, it can also be beneficial to open a credit card to earn miles. H and I both have the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature cards - they cost $75 a year, but they also give you a $99 companion certificate to use. It basically means that you buy one ticket at any price, and your second ticket is $99. Because of that, H and I have flown to Hawaii three times in the past year for about $500 for two people (and again, we always get our upgrade so we fly to Hawaii and back in first class for $500 total). We figure the ticket cost is really $75 + $99, so about $175, and we just use that on any ticket that costs more than $175.
The airlines have done a really good job of partnering up with a bunch of other airlines, so the old headaches associated with mileage accrual are gone. Alaska is partners with Delta and American (domestic and international), and then KLM (Europe / Middle East), Air France (Europe), British Airways (Europe), Cathay Pacific (Asia), Korean Air (Asia), Quantas (Australia), Iceland Air (Europe), and LAN (South America). I can get just about anywhere in the world on an airline that will earn me FF miles and some of them earn me qualifying miles toward elite status as well. Also, I get priority status with their domestic airline partners (Delta and American) so that means first on-board, priority seating (exit row, bulkhead), first-class upgrades, free checked bags, first bags off the plane, priority screening lines at the airport, access to airport lounges, priority re-booking when flights get cancelled, etc.
Anyway, it's not as hard as it seems to reach an elite level (and then you often get bonus miles each time you fly), but you have to know what you're doing and figure out the mileage program that works best for you. Alaska's is the best one I've found for where I fly (I used to fly Boston, Chicago, and JFK all the time, and all three were served non-stop from San Fran by American and Delta so I was happy)... if you find yourself flying a lot, or even not that often, it's still worth looking into one so that you can earn enough miles for international travel (they start at about 50K).
Like I said... I could go on and on and on, as I've spent 4 years traveling a ton and so I pretty much learned the ins-and-outs of the airline industry and their various FF programs. In fact, on Saturday H quizzed me about what cities hub cities for what airlines, I'm that much of an aeronautical nerd.
LOL wow, that was like a book right there.
good to know, although I guess it's to late to get those miles, huh? I guess I'll look into it again when we decide if we're going to Korea in the spring. maybe I'll come back and bug you
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Would be happy to give you advice if you do.
Alternatively, it never hurts to sign up for the following FF accounts:
-Southwest (they have no partners)
-Virgin America (they have very limited partners but if you like flying them and you mainly just travel where they fly, they're good)
-One of Alaska, American, or Delta (preference for Alaska IMO if you're in the Seattle area)
-United or US Airways (United and Continental have merged, and US Airways is their domestic partner)
Having those four accounts should almost universally guarantee that any airline you fly will allow you to collect miles into one of those accounts (exceptions being Singapore Airlines, TAP [Portugal] and Emirates off the top of my head, but those airlines don't have a strong presence in the US so you're unlikely to end up booking on them except for specific destinations).
If you already have a United or Continental or US Airways account, you may be able to still claim the mileage for the Abu Dhabi flight, but if you have to open a new account I don't think you can. You could also check Lufthansa's policies to see if they'll let you retro-actively open an account and claim those miles.
If you already have an account with one of the partner airlines - they will credit your account if you still have proof of travel such as boarding passes and/or baggage claim tickets.
DH and I are very loyal to AK Airlines and due to our trip to Africa we signed up with Continental. That trip alone go us within 700 miles of a free ticket. And we'll be adding to that when we hit up Lithuania later this year.
Always remember - the frequent flyer memberships are free! Doesn't hurt to have them.
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