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Author
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Topic: Can Anybody Explain This?
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PITbeast
Post Captain
Member # 108
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posted
One day last week Mrs. PITbeast and I decided we'd had better make reservations for our July trip: RDU-TUS-SEA-RDU.
That day my dial-up connection sucked and her satellite connection was almost as bad. (We live way beyond the edge of the Earth; there's no high speed anything.)
We phoned AA reservations (Did you know you can still do that?) and told the agent what we wanted to do. She punched some keys and gave us this route:
RDU-DFW-TUS-DFW-SEA-ORD-RDU. All for $1100 per person.
I asked if we could be booked on AS (an AA partner) direct from TUS to SEA. She said no, if AA can get you where you want to go, you have to fly AA.
We thanked her and called Southwest. They could get us the reservations for only $744 per person. However, I lost track of the number of takeoffs, landings and plane changes.
Delta put us on hold for 40 minutes before we hung up.
I called AA back and talked to an agent who was able to get us book us RDU-DFW-TUS-DFW-SEA-ORD-RDU for only $740/per person. The next day when Mrs. PITbeast phoned back to give them credit card she found out the agent had booked the trip for September and that to change it to July would now cost $1633 per person.
I called AA one more time. I told the agent what we wanted to do and asked if we could use AA miles on Alaska between TUS and SEA. She checked and said only F seats were available @45,000 each. We agreed that sucked but she said she could get us two one way tickets on AS between TUS and SEA and if we took the red-eye out of SEA the tickets would cost only $722 per person and we got itinerary we wanted.
Now none of the agents I talked to prior to the last one spoke with thick accents so I know that AA hasn't outsourced the reservations offices to some Third World Hell Hole; so what is going on in reservations these days?
Posts: 208 | From: Mount Olive, NC
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ARH
Junior Poster
Member # 2540
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posted
Don't blame reservations.
I had similar pricing experience in May just trying to go STL-LAS for a short trip. Up until April, we had 2 daily R/T 757 non-stops to LAS (mostly full), now its 1 MD80 leaving at 0800. I don't remember the fares, but similar experience to yours. Only "good" deals were thru DFW at odd hours or layover DFW. Didn't want to spend the time waiting standby so bought tickets on SWA.
Not surprised your quoted route went thru DFW/ORD, and I'll bet most of flying out of RDU is on jungle jets!
IMHO American is "abandoning" domestic flying if it doesn't feed international.
Posts: 11 | From: STL
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PITbeast
Post Captain
Member # 108
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posted
RDU has its share of junglejets but they fly north from here: BOS, JFK, EWR, LGA, and DCA (Mrs PITbeast has logged a gazillion miles between here and DCA in the last few years). We generally wind up on an MD-Something when we travel but I often see a 737 or two parked on the ramp. There's also a daily 777 to Gatwick from here.
Posts: 208 | From: Mount Olive, NC
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Rocky Dollarhide
Post Captain
Member # 546
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posted
Grit your teeth and fly Southwest, pretend you are having fun, breath deeply for several hours and it will all be over. Or, charter your own plane and avoid ALL the trouble.
There is a world of difference outside the airline world!
R$
Posts: 119 | From: Aberdeen Golf Club
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Irish
Post Captain
Member # 722
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posted
Better yet, get an RV and tour this wonderful country!
Paul, from Moab, UT, been traveling since May 17th
Posts: 1361 | From: Hampton, NH and Naples, FL
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PITbeast
Post Captain
Member # 108
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posted
The point of my original post was the ambiguity one encounters when trying find out the price of a ticket. It seems as if the only ticket price one can be sure of the is the full-fare, refundable one. I'll bet those are purchased as frequently as those $3+ packages of M&M's that pass for meal service these days.
Speaking of food, on page 44 of the current issue of Farm Show magazine are the instructions for turning a 55gallon plastic drum into a goat feeder. It seems to me that if AAL would remove one row of seats and figure out how to anchor this thing to the floor and meet FAA 9g crash-survivability standards, they could have meal service again.
As for RVing around the country, I'd love to hit the road. Two problems, however: first of all, dogs keep showing up at the back door and they won't leave. Right now there are five (Bertha, Bruno, Brandy, Cougar, and Ed) of them (there will be six if we can't find out where the black one that showed up last night belongs). That's too many dogs for my next-door nephew to look after now that he has a driver's license, car, job, and a girlfriend. So we gotta stay home with the dogs.
The other problem is that Mrs. PITbeast has a few years to go before she can retire. She needs to keep working to support me in the manner to which I have become accustomed.
In the meantime, we'll pack a lunch and fly when we can. A couple more layovers in DFW and I can vote in Texas.
Posts: 208 | From: Mount Olive, NC
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L1011Ret
Post Captain
Member # 1792
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posted
Yesterday my spouse was on an AA flight from LGA to DFW for training as a recalled F/A. We arrived at LGA at 0400 hours for a 6:10 flight on Sunday morning. It was packed at AA's LGA ticket counter with about 200 pax lined in a long snaky line that barely moved. I was flabbergasted that AA had two flights to DFW Sunday morning at 6:10 and 6:30 that were both oversold (red on jetnet) with little help to process pax. Flying is not as much fun as it used to be3.
Posts: 416
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Glasspilot
Post Captain
Member # 390
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posted
quote:
Originally posted by L1011Ret:
two flights to DFW Sunday morning at 6:10 and 6:30 that were both oversold (red on jetnet) with little help to process pax. Flying is not as much fun as it used to be3.
Just one reason I just retired at 50.
Glasspilot
Posts: 263 | From: Outer Banks, NC
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PITbeast
Post Captain
Member # 108
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posted
TRIP REPORT:
Got back the other day from the trip which precipitated this thread; a few observations:
1. All the flights were full to, almost, overflowing and, I assume making money.
2. Whenever I travel by air I make a point of having at least one cup of coffee to see if airlines have finally developed the technology to make a decent cup. Not yet.
3. Ask for a soft drink on Alaska Airlines and you won't get the hole can; only what fits in the plastic cup.
4. When we got to our seats on the Saturday night SEA-DFW red-eye, Mrs. PITbeast's headrest fell off her seat and hit the floor as did the magazine holder on the bulkhead in front of her. (This was not her fault; she's a delicate thing around the house.) She observed me folding a blanket in eighths and using it to augment my seat's totally clapped out seat cushion. She asked me, "Do you suppose American is leasing this plane from Aeroflot?"
Pointing to the TWA logos on the beverage containers in the galley, I told her where/how AA got this plane and that it was practically new when they got it. Sic transit gloria mundi.
5. On a recent flight from ORD back to RDU we had an AA STL based crew. So I asked an FA on the SEA-DFW flight if any of the former TW flight attendants had been recalled yet. She said "no" but she heard that 100 were going to be recalled and sometime after that, 3000 were going to be hired. I said that I hoped more than 100 ex-TW FA's would come back and she said, "I hope none of them come back!!" (She was very emphatic.)
I couldn't help myself so I asked her why and was told "They all hate us!!" I couldn't respond to that so I decided to stir the pot and said, "Maybe they don't hate you; maybe they hate your union." Didn't get a comment.
6. There was something familiar about the agent working the gate for our flight so when I had a chance I asked her if she used to work the counter and the gates for TWA. She said "yes"; she had been recalled two months ago. She was glad to be back. And she said she thought she remembered Mrs. PITbeast and me because we used to catch the TW redeye from SEA to STL (what seems like) many years ago.
7. As for the real purpose of the trip: Mom's doing fine and our God-daughters wedding came off without a hitch except that it was raining in Seattle's Magnolia Park Saturday afternoon.
Posts: 208 | From: Mount Olive, NC
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Irish
Post Captain
Member # 722
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posted
Raining in Seattle?? Gasp!! ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Paul
Posts: 1361 | From: Hampton, NH and Naples, FL
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PITbeast
Post Captain
Member # 108
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posted
When her father told her that they could rent a tent for $600 she said, "Dad, this is Seattle. It rains here; we'll deal with it!!"
My concern was that the groom had so many pieces of metal punched through, stapled to, or welded onto his head that he would attract lightning. Luckily, we had only a soft drizzle.
Posts: 208 | From: Mount Olive, NC
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