My wife and I travel a lot as a hobby - well over a dozen times a year since Covid lifted.
For the frequent traveler who is loyal to an airline, a lot of those problems go away.
We are Delta loyalists and both Platinum Medallion.
1. When we buy a main cabin seat, we get upgraded immediately to Comfort+ for free.
2. When we go to the airport, if we don’t use curbside check in (and tip), we get to use the Sky Priority Checkin line and have two free checked bags
3. We have TSA Pre-Check and Clear to skip the line
4. After check-in, we head straight to the Delta, Amex Centurion or Priority Pass lounge where we have plenty of seating free food and drinks (alcoholic and non alcoholic)
5. When boarding, we get to board early because of our C+ upgrade (Zone 3) or worse case Zone 4 and have plenty of overhead space if we need it and get to be situated early.
Related: Am I the only one that lives in a (mid size and prosperous US city) and does not have a preferred airline company because my choice of operator depends on destination and availability rather than choosing one among many airlines for a given destination and date? The city I live in rhymes with “Charleston”.
Poorly worded question - I’m glad you guys know how to travel well together and often. The only thing I miss about my college girlfriend was when we got an overnight delay in Denver and the crazed associate told us “I don’t fucking know” when we asked about the details of our hotel she said: “I mean this sucks but it’ll be okay hahaha”
I try to perpetuate that mindset nowadays lol. End monologue
If you don’t fly often, airline loyalty doesn’t matter. I just don’t hate myself enough to fly Southwest and deal with non assigned seats even though they do have the most non stop flights from our current airport
>does not have a preferred airline company because my choice of operator depends on destination and availability
That's certainly the line that can't be compromised, ultimately you fly because you wanna get somewhere. But finding and choosing favorite airline(s) has many perks that aren't easily quantifiable, enough that many frequent flyers choose to focus their patronage for those benefits.
I'm personally a Delta fanboi because Northwest was my childhood airline on family vacations. My Delta SkyMiles account goes all the way back to 1998 when my dad opened it for me as a kid, back then it was Northwest WorldPerks.
Small tangent story: Delta SkyMiles was instrumental in my getting an AMEX credit card as my second ever card with merely 6 months credit history as a literal newcomer nobody to the credit world. It's been my favorite card to carry ever since.
Boston isn't a United hub but I can get to most places with a fairly reasonable flight option from there. The main exceptions are Raleigh (which is short enough that I don't care much) and London for which I change planes rather than take a BA non-stop.
Yes, having lots of money makes life easier. I don't have the networking skills to be management, so I'll continue to travel once every three years and be lucky for that.
Clear just helps you get to the front of the TSA Precheck line and its airport dependent and time of day whether it’s any faster than regular TSA Precheck + DigitalID.
But we are talking about $85 for five years for PreCheck.
But as far as security, the only difference pre check makes is that you don’t have to take your belt and shoes off.
I mentioned earlier that newer scanners don’t require you to take electronics out of your bag whether or not you have PreCheck
PreCheck probably makes less of a difference than it used to. But, as you say, if you fly any amount, getting PreCheck (or Global Entry which comes with PreCheck) is a drop in the bucket in terms of money.
I think PreCheck probably goes faster too because people with PreCheck mostly know the drill.
I did have to take my laptop out of my bag flying out of JFK the year before last and they said you could only have one electronic in your bag even with TSA Precheck.
That hasn’t happen before or since. At that time I had a client laptop, my company’s laptop (working in consulting), my iPad, and an external USB powered portable monitor in my carryon.
Before TSA existed we could get through security without paying the extra $85. Why doesn't the TSA just pre-check everyone? It just feels like a scam to me.
It's just more examples of enshittification over the decades. Nevermind the checkin, the premiums for first class are absurd (and nowadays there's at least 4 different tiers of flight, not just 2), you don't get free snacks anymore, seating is smaller, etc. Those times of treating customers with respected ended quite a while ago (except during COVID of course. But that's mostly over).
>customers with respected ended quite a while ago (except during COVID of course. But that's mostly over).
I definitely didn't feel respected during covid. There was a mask rule, standard for the time, fine. But then they give out drinks, okay. They were extremely strict, you must sip your drink and have your mask on again within less than a second. Long sips, unacceptable. Pause in your sip, unacceptable, there needs to then be two sips with an intermediate remasking. The air staff were quite 1930s Germany as far as the rigor of their enforcement of this rule. This has all the charm and beside manner of a driver laying on their horn 200ms after the red light turns green. Quite bizarre, the mask fetish, when most passengers were vaccinated and there's this huge vector of spreading the disease called touching things with pathogens on their surface aka fomites.
Where was this? When I travelled here in Europe we could just take our mask off while eating/drinking. No second rule. That would indeed be super annoying.
What I find annoying these days are those people who theatrically mask up and then look at you like you're supposed to do the same. Luckily it's very uncommon in aviation now. A bit more in the metro but they can just walk elsewhere if they want.
Absolutely. Why have any charge at all? Why is the government expecting me to pay for it? Fuck the poor I guess, they wait in line.
Why should I have to pay at all? Why not make everyone going through security pay $5 every time to recoup the costs for the TSA through user fees?
And it's not like it's only $70-85 every five years, it's per person so I'll have to buy for my whole family. Quite a bit more than just $70! And in the end it's all bullshit anyways. Just a way to sort people willing to give up the money versus those who don't know, don't want to, or can't pay.
Why should I pay for your TSA Precheck? Let’s be real though, we are only talking about taking your shoes off and belt. It won’t kill you to do that. If you have a disability that doesn’t enable you to do either, I’m sure they will make an exception.
And kids up to 17 don’t need Precheck if flying with a parent
Are you really complaining about spending $70 once every five years to give me TSA Precheck? You won't even notice paying for my Precheck.
Why should I pay for your usage of the TSA? Why not have all $7.55B entirely funded by direct user fees, handing the TSA agents cash or tap a credit card while you go through the scanner? Why should I pay for your airports (often constructed with massive tax subsidies and grants)? Why should I pay for the highways you drive on to go to your airport?
> we are only talking about taking your shoes off and belt.
No, we're also talking about stereoscopic facial scans, high resolution millimeter wave scans of my body, yet another centralized government database tracking my movements, having to showcase all my valuables to all the other passersby by dumping all the electronics out of my bag, wasting my time, wasting our tax dollars, for pretty much no benefit. Ooh but I can skip the line if I surrender more biometrics and pay extra! How nice!
> If that’s your concern, why would you want TSA Precheck where you have to give the government your fingerprints and go through a background check?
I'd rather just have practically none of it because it's largely a waste of money and time and a major inconvenience while providing practically little real security.
> Not getting blown out the sky is a pretty big benefit.
Tons of other countries have far more basic security at airports. They're not constantly having planes blown out of the sky. Airlines operated for decades before the formation of the TSA and millimeter wave scanners and taking off our shoes and stereoscopic face scans and yet they were not getting blown out of the sky.
- Amex Delta Platinum
Card - $350 Annual Fee and you get a companion pass - buy one get one free round trip ticket anywhere in the US, Mexico, Central America, or the Caribbean and a $150 hotel credit.
- Amex Delta Business - the same benefits except a $200 hotel credit.
- Amex Delta Reserve - an up to first class companion ticket and a $200 Hotel credit + lounge access.
It takes $15000 MQDs to reach Platinum Medallion. But if I flew less, I would only care about Silver Medallion where you get sky priority Checkin and preferred exit row seats (extra legroom) for free.
Just by having those two Platinum cards would give you the $5K MQDs to get Silver. Either of those cards give you free checked bags. Medallion status gives you an extra checked bag.
You get 1 MQD for every dollar you spend on flights and $1 MQD for every $10 you spend on the Reserve or $20 you spend on the Platinum. You get $2500 MQDs for each of those cards.
I got the other $7500 MQDs last year between flights and credit card spend.
Me and my partner/friends travel with some privileges due to my work in air transport industry, so business class seats on trans-oceanic flights for 150$ or so
Still hate the experience in comparison to modern rail.
But security theatre is apparently necessary, see "golden age of hijacking" 1968-72: over 300 events in five years, that's a hijack a week!
As soon as they build a tunnel under the Atlantic or make widely available solar-electric "steamers" that can cross it in less than a week with four-figure ticket prices, I'll be thrilled to take that option.
Ditto for a high-speed rail network throughout the continental US.
Until then, it's simply unhelpful to try to shame people for not opting out of employer-mandated travel or limiting their vacation days to a 300-mile radius (or insisting that they spend multiple of those days driving).
> [...] limiting their vacation days to a 300-mile radius (or insisting that they spend multiple of those days driving).
Why? Why does everybody think that they've got the God-given right to fly thousands of miles away to just lie at a beach for 3 days and come back? Why don't they realize that they are probably already very fortunate in life and with that fotune comes some responsibility?
Maybe it's not helpful shaming them, but the more we de-normalize this behavior, the fewer people are going to do it.
How large of a percentage of your income do you give to help the less fortunate? Did you choose a career for the money or did you decide to choose a less lucrative career in a non profit?
What sacrifices are you making to the lifestyle you want to have “to save the earth”?
And no one can answer the question of how my flying in a plane that was already going to fly reduces emissions.
I could also clutch my pearls and say people who drive into work instead of choosing a job that allows them to work remotely and refusing to be in an office would help climate change.
Of course that would be silly and self serving. I bet everyone criticizing me would love to be in a position to have unlimited PTO, work remotely and be able to travel more.
Not that we are rich - we are 50, empty nesters, downsized our home and moved to a state tax free state along with other fixed cost saving moves
And no one can answer the question of how my flying in a plane that was already going to fly reduces emissions.
you can worry about your carbon footprint or not - your choice - but this is about as silly of a statement as they come. this is like being nazi in Auschwitz and going “well someone else would commit these heinous crimes so what’s the difference if I do it.” you do your part - that is what you are in control in and what you can decide on based on your beliefs. but to say “well shit, this plane gonna take off anyways so imma just jump onboard and take a couple
of seats that are available” is not an acceptable argument
It really doesn’t matter what I did as you were the one commenting on but I’ll amswer
Did you choose a job where you didn’t have to go to work and cause carbon emissions?
yes, I am a contractor and have been working from home-office since 2007
You purposefully chose a job where you decided to drive into work. Did you buy a house close enough to work to walk or ride a bike?
yes, I also chose a private school for my kid which is nearby and we bike to school weather-permitting roughly 75% of the time
Whet sacrifices have you personally made to reduce your carbon footprint?
I drive EV. My wife and I donate 10% of all our pre-tax earning significant portion of which goes to Oceana. I installed solar panels on my house long before it was even remotely economically feasible… We try to do our part, even in cases where it is a bit of theatre more so than actual benefit (recycling for instance)
What we don’t have is an expensive car - we bought a cheap new car that is less than half the median cost of a car in the US. We don’t have expensive housing - we downsized to a 1200 foot condo after our youngest graduated. We don’t have state taxes - we moved to state tax free Florida. We also don’t have any debt besides the condo that we put 30% down on. Our mortgage is much lower than the average mortgage.
In the grand scheme of things, our travel budget is less than 10% of our gross comp and I don’t work at BigTech (been there done that). Even half of that is offset by not having to pay state taxes which we did before we moved in 2022.
There is some 'startup' trying to bring modern versions of concorde planes, not really grokking the reasons it went out of business it seems.
As if rich people are not universally hated enough, lets show off to everybody by flying marginally faster and polluting way more in super cramped very loud tubes. Some technical challenges can be maybe addressed these days but not all of them. Unless folks fly half around the world time spent on airports takes away massive chunk of overall flight time anyway.
For the frequent traveler who is loyal to an airline, a lot of those problems go away.
We are Delta loyalists and both Platinum Medallion.
1. When we buy a main cabin seat, we get upgraded immediately to Comfort+ for free.
2. When we go to the airport, if we don’t use curbside check in (and tip), we get to use the Sky Priority Checkin line and have two free checked bags
3. We have TSA Pre-Check and Clear to skip the line
4. After check-in, we head straight to the Delta, Amex Centurion or Priority Pass lounge where we have plenty of seating free food and drinks (alcoholic and non alcoholic)
5. When boarding, we get to board early because of our C+ upgrade (Zone 3) or worse case Zone 4 and have plenty of overhead space if we need it and get to be situated early.