‘You’re in for a long journey,’ said Meg, my palm-reading seat companion from LA to Hong Kong, studying a particularly prominent line. This may seem a rather obvious prognostication considering it came at the start of a 15-hour flight. But she didn’t know the half of it.
Admittedly, I’m a miles addict. One of my top travel rules is ‘be loyal to one airline; accumulate miles’ (see Roadshow warrior, December 2002). Airlines love to advertise the benefits of this accumulation strategy, including free vacations to exotic destinations.
On the way to your exotic destination, the last thing you want to do is to be at the back of the bus. Problem is, the good seats are usually not available. For example, it seems American Airlines’ OneWorld partners have a very limited number of seats on their flights for ‘reward’ travel.
I sit now in Cathay Pacific’s Hong Kong lounge – one of the best airline lounges in the world. I arrived eight hours ago from LA. In six hours, I’ll board another 10-hour flight to Sydney.
But this journey really began last February when my partner and I started planning the trip of a lifetime. I’ve racked up almost 2 mn miles on American Airlines over the years. I have what one might refer to as ‘status’. But when it came time for the big payoff – our trip to Australia – AA all but failed to deliver.
Of course, you should expect some negotiation when planning a ‘reward’ sojourn. The previous year we’d spent a good five hours on the phone with AA scoring business class seats on a flight to Rio.
Now it’s December. Though there are far worse places to be laid over than Cathay’s lounge, the muzak has featured Barbra Streisand’s Christmas album three times in a row. This leads me to contemplate my true ‘status’.
I thought we would avoid any problem by calling ten months in advance to book our Australia flights. And since Qantas is touted as a primary OneWorld partner, it would be a cinch. Ha!
There were no seats in business or first class on Qantas for the two weeks before or after Christmas. None. So we would have to travel on another partner airline, thereby using up two – not one – big chunks of air miles.
All right, so what are miles for? But there were no seats available on any partner airline except in coach. To Australia? On miles? I don’t think so.
After three weeks of negotiating, the agent on our case, someone with a name like Charles Manson, said in a very flip voice, ‘You should take the Cathay option now before it is gone. Then, as time goes by, you can keep calling and we’ll see if we can work something else out.’
The Cathay option was Sydney via Hong Kong, with a 12-hour layover and – get this – flying on separate days. So my partner and I wouldn’t even be traveling together.
I was resigned to reluctant initial acceptance with a promise to continue negotiations. After over 40 calls to AA, Mr Manson either quit or began to duck my calls. So I had to explain the story to almost every agent in the AA system. ‘Oh no, it’s that Mr Molthrop again,’ I’m sure they were saying.
In October I sent a letter to the head of the rewards program. ‘Here’s the deal,’ I wrote. ‘Someone at American must have a relationship with someone at Cathay. Ask that person to make one phone call. Try this approach: “Hey, I’ll take you out for a nice dinner if you can just get one seat on these flights so these annoying but well-meaning and highly valuable customers can start their vacation of a lifetime together.”‘
The response was a form letter explaining that due to high travel volume, they were not always able to accommodate the wishes of their clients. Then, I got an e-mail reminding me that American Airlines ‘cares’. It came from a ‘we cAAre’ address. It reassured me that someone would watch over us; that if anything could be done to AAccommodate us, it would be done.
I called every day, up to the last day, hoping someone would budge at Cathay or AA. The two airlines just blamed each other.
Now, on a lonely ChristmAAs lAAyover, I AAm resigned to the reality of reward travel – fork over cAAsh for two extrAA nights at a hotel and use two very vAAluable AAmbiens on two very longhAAul flights.
Lagniappe*
The Regal Hotel connected to Hong Kong’s airport has day rates for the use of its health club. Massages are available if you want. And, if you’re lucky enough to be flying first class, check out the cabanas in Cathay Pacific’s Wing lounge – great big bathtubs on an indoor rock river. If you can block out the Barbra Streisand soundtrack, it’s really quite relaxing.
*Lagniappe: A French Creole word that means ‘a little extra’
