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THIS WEEK'S JOHNNY JET 8/21/2002
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WHERE'S JOHNNY
JET ?
Didn't have a chance to read last week's newsletter?
Click here!
KEY:
BOLD
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I received so many questions this week from readers who worried
about their United Airline's miles that I decided to link a great
story so all of you can sleep well.
It's from SmarterLiving:
What happens to miles if United goes bankrupt?
Last week I left you all from Chicago. Amber Airplane was working the flight back to L.A. and she really wanted me to accompany her. I wanted to wait because her flight was full and I had a coveted upgrade on a later flight. (Which of course would ensure me of getting some good work done on my laptop and not to mention a nice meal in a phat seat.) Well.... like a good, I mean great, boyfriend that I am I changed my ticket and got the very last seat on the plane. Well, there won't be any pictures this time from this flight. Not because I got the worst seat in the house, but because I couldn't reach my camera and Amber Airplane was too embarrassed to take a picture of me. I scored a middle seat in the very last row of the plane. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? I really wanted her to take the picture because I was in between two huge guys and I literally felt, (I am sure I looked too), like a prisoner being transported. It was so tight back there that I couldn't even bring out my laptop, so I just sat there with my arms to my sides and my head shaking side to side in disbelief while I watched Spiderman. I can't remember the last time I was in the very last row of a plane, but I have to tell you take-off felt like an amusement park ride.
I was in L.A. for a whopping 3 whole days, but in those three days
I got a lot accomplished. In back to back days, I had lunch at two
of the top sporting events in Manhattan Beach. Amber and I went
out and watched
Lindsay Davenport play
at the LA Open and the following day, I rode my bike down to the
AVP tournament
to watch the world's number one team crush their opponent. You
have to love living in Southern California because there's always something
going on.
For dinner, (I don't know why food revolves around everything that
I do, but it seems like it does. Okay, I admit it, I'm a foodaholic.
I LOVE FOOD! all right, now let's move on :-) we invited some
of our
closest friends over
and Amber Airplane made a great meal.
Speaking of dinner.... I caught up with some old friends
from my recruiting days at the hip restaurant
Typhoon
. It's located at the Santa Monica airport,
right next to the
runway
so you can see the private planes take-off and land.
In fact, helicopters are also coming and going and would you believe
we watched some rich dude, (or his help), land a helicopter near
the restaurantand run in to pick up their take-out order? Now
that's my kind of lifestyle :-). In case you're interested, Typhoon,
(3221 Donald Douglas Loop, 310-390-6565), has a "Pan-Asian" menu with
lots of choices from the very tame to the quite adventurous. You
can get Chinese, Thai, or water bugs. Wait....Did I just say water
bugs? Yes, I did! Check out part of
their menu
and you will see some of the crazy dishes they serve. Mmm,
Mmm don't the Water Bugs Stuffed With Chicken look appetizing? Or
how about the Scorpions With Shrimp Toast? No? Do White
Sea Worms water your palate? I'm not making this stuff up! For
a second there, I had to shake my head and think am I in China or the U.S.
Can you believe people actually order that? We had to try something
just to say we did, so we ordered
the crickets
since they seemed to be the tamest. The waitress assured
us that we wouldn't get sick because these weren't
wild crickets
, these were farm raised in Louisiana and only fed apples.
Like that makes a big difference!
When I got home, I called my Dad to tell him about the crickets and
he told me he was going to be in Connecticut alone for the week. Since
Amber Airplane had to go away on business, I thought I would spend some
quality time with my Pops. I packed my bag and was off ten hours later.
When I checked in at my gate on Saturday morning the agent said,
"Are you traveling with family members?" I said, "No, why?" She
said there are two other people traveling under your same name. I looked
around the terminal and didn't see anyone I knew, so I asked the agent
to introduce me. It turned out they were long lost Italian relatives
who were around my age and had moved to L.A. a few years ago. You
could tell we were related because when we walked off the plane to baggage
claim our father's were waiting for us, just like they did in the old days.
It's cool to have Italian Dads.
I might as well end this newsletter with this week's unplanned theme:
Take a look at my
business class snack
, (You can check this airline meal out and others at
www.airlinemeals.net
), that United served on the flight to JFK. Would you believe this
is the second meal they served? The first was some crazy breakfast
dish and then they brought this snack out about an hour before we landed.
It seems silly to me that they serve two meals for a 4hour 30minute
flight. But hey, I'm not complaining as long as they don't go bankrupt
and I lose my miles.
READER AIR-eMAIL
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WHAT'S NEW IN
JOHNNY JET
"Guest Writers:
Elinor Garely: This is the perfect weekend
to visit with us at Turf Valley
GOOD TO KNOW!
QUESTION:
I have mileage just sitting the the mileage plus.
Should I just choose a destination on one of the partner carriers
and have a tkt issued or should I wait it out. I don't
want to loose my mileage after working so hard to get it.
If I have my ticket issued could I change dates and destinations. please
advise which way to turn. Thanks Lois E.
Since I have over 500,000 miles in my United Account I had
the same worries. So I contacted our good friend at Frequentflier.com.
Tim Winship who is the mileage guru gave us some great advice:
Over the past couple of months, I've seen this question many times.
There is a
lot of anxiety There is no easy answer.
First, if you use your miles for an award ticket
on a Mileage Plus partner airline, you should understand that partners
will only honor the ticket as long
as United remains in business. So in the
worse case scenario, if United liquidates, shuts down completely,
that partner ticket would almost certainly be
worthless.
As to whether you can change dates and destinations...
in most cases, yes, assuming of course there are award seats available
for the new itinerary. And
there will be a fee to make the change.
More generally, the only sure way to protect
the full value of your miles is to use them now, while United
is still flying.
Depending on how many miles you have, you might
want to insure them. AwardGuard (
http://www.privilegeflyer.com
) will insure the value of your miles -- up to
$7,500 worth of award tickets -- in major programs,
including United's. The cost: $119 for one year's coverage,
or $214 for two.
Another option: convert your United miles into
points in the Hilton HHonors program. Using the HHonors Reward
Exchange function, 20,000 Mileage Plus miles
can be exchanged for 40,000 HHonors points.
The process can be reversed as well, allowing you to convert
40,000 HHonors points into 7,000 United miles. As
you can see, there's a price for the transfers.
Having said all that, don't forget the "do nothing"
option. United faces challenges, to be sure. But for
every naysayer, there's someone who thinks
their prospects are good, and that Mileage Plus
miles won't disappear anytime soon.
What you do depends on your assessment of United's
chances for long-term survival. Six months ago, I would have
said their chances were good. Today, I
don't feel comfortable predicting one way or
the other.
Tim Winship
Editor & Publisher
FrequentFlier.com
"May Your Miles Never Expire"
http://frequentflier.com
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