frequent flyer miles

View from Delta flight 1133, Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. Unrelated: I was amused to read in some text regarding an X-prize space shot that the passengers would be able to "see the curvature of the earth and the blackness of space." You can see the curvature of the earth from the beach, and the blackness of space... at night!

I have been accumulating frequent flyer miles for quite some time (American Airlines tells me that my AAdvantage account was created on Tuesday, August 2, 1988, coincidentally exactly twenty years ago today), but until this week, I've never actually redeemed them for anything.

Then, on Monday, I decided to fly to Los Angeles. Frequent flyer miles are somewhat notoriously difficult to redeem, as the airlines, in their desperate times, pile ever more restrictions (and fees!) upon their use. However, I was quite pleasantly surprised to log into Delta's website and find that I could get a seat on a plane to Los Angeles the next day. As long as I was flexible with airports, I could get exactly the travel dates I desired. The ticket was not free—Delta charges a $75 "redemption fee" to redeem miles for a ticket less with less than three weeks notice. But given that short notice airfare was more than $600, it still felt like quite a deal to book a last-minute trip to Los Angeles for a total of $85 and 25,000 SkyMiles.

I found Delta's award-redemption website quite surprisingly flexible and easy-to-use (though it did crash once just before booking, and I had to start over.) They allow you to book one-way, open-jaw, and multi-city award tickets, which came as a surprise. (The last time I looked into the matter--with a different airline--you could only get round-trip tickets with miles.) As is typical with highly nonlinear airline pricing, however, one-way tickets were much more expensive (in miles required for redemption) than round-trip ones. However, there was no penalty for my "open jaw" ticket, which arrives in Los Angeles but then departs from Orange County. Also, I was tantalized to learn that for 140,000 miles, you can get a free (though who knows what fees are involved) six-stop 'round-the-world ticket!

Other airlines charge higher fees. It seems a bit backhanded for them to charge fees (up to ~$200) for what is supposed to be a free perk rewarding customer loyalty. But "legacy" airlines are as baroque as they are broke these days.

How to get miles? I believe I got enough miles for this flight just for signing up for the Delta-branded American Express credit card, which is also free. I have been cycling between airline-branded credit cards; most of these give a huge mileage bonus when you sign up; most have annual fees, but most are free for the first year, and I have always canceled the account before the first free was charged. Applying to grad school resulted in many miles (several all-expenses-paid cross-country school-visiting trips), and my current line of work sends me between Pasadena, Rochester, Washington (state), and Louisiana several times per year. But I think most of my miles have come from oddball bonuses rather than actually flying.

With airlines' current cost-cutting moves, one wonders for how much longer these miles will actually be worth anything.

(no subject)

I really like traveling through Los Angeles Union Station. It just seems so delightfully twentieth century.

Bree and I are currently relaxing at my parents' house in Orange County, having taken the train here from Los Angeles on Thursday. In the coming days I think we're going to steal my dad's Prius for a trip up to the Eastern Sierra, probably Devil's Postpile, and who knows where else.

Pictured above is Bree with some of the chickens and baby chicks that live here... they are really very cute. My mom bought some fertilized chicken eggs and snuck them into the hen's nest, and now the `mother' hen seems quite enamored of her foster chicks. (Further reading on furzicle's journal.)

market forces

In December I asked you, "in what year will we see fewer cars on California roads than in the previous year?"

According to the LA Times this has already happened: "Caltrans officials said Thursday that traffic on California freeways dropped 1.5% over last year -- the equivalent of a billion fewer miles traveled, said spokesman Derrick Alatorre."

Also: "Metrolink recorded its highest number of riders for a single day. More than 50,000 people boarded its trains Tuesday."