Air Travel

On MALAYSIA & SINGAPORE, February-March ’09. . .

My better half, Joan, and I both are United Mileage Plus members and use the United-branded Visa credit card from Chase. By concentrating our flying on Star Alliance members and using our United Visa card whenever possible, we have earned enough miles to be able to travel free to overseas destinations in business class as well as first class.

This is in response to the reader’s letter on code-share tickets (Feb. ’09, pg. 30). I would point out that if the reader had booked and purchased his airline tickets from a travel agency specializing in the country of his destination, he would not have encountered the problem of not being booked on the flights he attempted to book on the Internet.

The benefits of working with a specialized travel agency that has a contract with the major airlines servicing that destination are as follows:

In the letter “Weak Link re Code-share Tickets” (Feb. ’09, pg. 30), the writer’s problem with code-share tickets and seat assignment confirmations is by no means unique. Also, with a code-share ticket, unless you are paying attention you could go to the wrong airline to catch the flight. I offer the following guidance to prevent such occurrences.

Whenever a code-share ticket is involved, one needs to take the following steps (I will use the example given above, i.e., Orbitz + United + Air New Zealand):

A reader requested that ITN collect data from travelers to compare wait times at international airports. Here is the second batch of readers’ Q Ratings (see June ’08, pg. 46).

In the listings below, a perfect Q Rating score is zero, meaning there were no lines in which passengers had to wait. For each queue/line in which someone did have to stand — for check-in, tax payments, security screening, boarding, Customs — a point was subtracted. The DQ is for a departure and the AQ, an arrival.

by Jennifer Petoff, San Francisco, CA

My husband, Scott, and I visited Buenos Aires in April ’08. It was our first trip to South America and we wanted to make it memorable.

My husband and I took a 3-week tour of Laos in late November ’08. About a week before we were due to fly home on Dec. 3, citizens of Bangkok, Thailand, demonstrated their dissatisfaction with their government at the airport. No planes were able to fly in or out of the city.

I would like to add my comments to the experience that Daniel M. Mitchell had attempting to use frequent-flyer miles with United Airlines (“Frequent-flyer Seats Sparse,” Dec. ’08, pg. 25).

My wife and I had booked a round-trip cruise from Dover, England, for August-September ’09. The first day that flights were listed on the United website, we tried to obtain two business-class tickets for the round trip from Boston to London using 80,000 miles each.

Around Oct. 31, 2008, I went online and tried to get an award ticket on LAN Airlines from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to São Paulo, Brazil, using American Airlines AAdvantage miles.