Relaunching The Blog
I have been writing The Military Frequent Flyer for a little over 18 months now and I have learned a few things. With the knowledge that I gained at the recent Boarding Area Convention (BACon) and the type of readers’ questions, I wanted to reorganize this blog to better serve the readers. After all, I write this blog as a public service, not as a way to change my day job, so it is all about providing the information that serves my fellow veterans. Why now? Easy, for the next two weeks this will be one of the featured blogs on Boarding Area, so it seemed like a great time to reformat.
Many of the first lessons that I laid out were the basics of frequent flying, which I think people are really interested in. However, those lessons are buried way back beneath four dozen blog posts and hard to find. My perception is that the majority of people who visit the blog are in the basic to moderate experience category. The plan for the next two weeks will be to lay out everything that I know in a series of Boot Camp posts that will then be available as pages on the top of the blog and easily available to anyone who visits for the first time. I hope that will make this site more useful to people who did not follow me from the beginning. An Advance Course will follow for those interested in more sophisticated mileage and point gathering.
There have been some technical issues with the way my posts appear, but tech support from BA is working on a solution, so bear with me if things appear a little jagged or cut off. I hope that you will enjoy the new format and please let me know if you have suggestions. As an incentive to read my posts over the next two weeks, I will be holding a little contest. I will give the winner two of my United GPUs for use in upgrading an international flight. If you do not fly internationally, not to worry, I can give you two RPUs instead. One reminder is that you need to fly W fare bucket or higher to upgrade. To enter, simply comment to my posts. Max of one person per post. After the two week period ending 16 June, I will randomly pick a winner. Good luck and thanks for reading.
Is a government fare W or higher?
Tricky question. Government fares are technically G class, but you will find it very common that they are booked in another class. G fares are only upgradable within the U.S. and Northern South America. Here is the chart: http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/mileageplus/awards/upgrade/default.aspx?SID=DF186726E5C94876B8F6EBE60BBE41BC#regions.
I have never had an issue upgrading a Government fare, but it is possible.
Fare classes for government contract fares can vary wildly. Even on the same route you might have more than one, and you purchase the lowest available based on the lowest fare class bucket still open on that particular flight on that particular day. For example on a given United route, say, SFO to IAD, there is a W and a Y government fare. W is cheaper and is available if the flight is relatively open. Y is more expensive but generally if there is even just one ticket left for sale on the flight, it means Y is available and you can still get that fare.
For those looking for the difinitive guide on United fare classes, Frequently Flying has a recent blog on it: http://boardingarea.com/frequentlyflying/2013/06/05/list-and-description-of-all-united-airlines-fare-classes/
I’m definitely in that reader category (perhaps closer to moderate experience nowadays) but am always open to learning something new and sharing information. I used to read FT but found reading blogs on BoardingArea more helpful to me since it’s more user-friendly and the bloggers definitely “filter” the information to only include the items relevant to your readers (which saves us time!)
Looking forward to reading your boot camp posts. We are retired military and want to travel as cheaply and in style as much as we can.
Looking forward to your upcoming posts. Hotel and airline loyalty is a whole different ballgame for those of us in the military than it is for those in the private sector.
Looking forward to the relaunch.
Looking forward to the new look. I’ve enjoyed reading your work.
Love the JTR posts…thanks for what you do!
Looking forward to the upcoming posts to provide additional insight for us government travellers
I have enjoyed your posts.
I appreciate the government funded travel focus of your blog. Keep it up. Oh, and the updates on military discounts!
Just discovered your blog today; am looking forward to your upcoming posts.
As a government traveller, I really appreciate your insights and tips. Keep up the great work!