Airline Buddy Passes

[rickers353]

Does anyone know of any airlines that have buddy pass program?

The major airlines I would be able to fly on in my area are Delta, Southwest, Airtran, and American.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Buddy passes are generally for use by airline employee's friends and families. If you have to ask, you probably don't qualify.

Don't fall for the "online" sale option. When the airline finds out your ticket will be cancelled and your "seller" can be fired.


There was a poster a while back on Flyertalk.com who was stuck in some Caribbean country because Delta found out his "buddy" pass was a purchase and just cancelled the unused segments... AKA as his return to the US!

The airlines monitor these pretty tightly and seem to catch quite a few uses.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Even if you are lucky enough to have a friend/family member who works for the airline and can give you a buddy pass, flying on a buddy pass is not the greatest.. You are basically flying as a standby passenger. And you only get on the flight if there is a seat available for you once all the paying passengers have boarded.


I know of two people who had terrible experiences now that airlines are flying a full capacity. A Dad of one of my friends spent 3 days trying to fly home using a buddy pass. The other friend spent a whole day trying to get home and finally bought a one way ticket which cost her more than if she would have just bought a round trip ticket to begin with.

 

[rickers353]

I may have asked for the wrong thing.
Several years ago, T-Mobile ran a promotion where if you bought one ticket, you just had to pay taxes and fees on the other. Our family of 4 flew round trip form Cincy to Orlando for just over $600! DW is having major sticker shock looking at flights now.

Thanks.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

I may have asked for the wrong thing.
Several years ago, T-Mobile ran a promotion where if you bought one ticket, you just had to pay taxes and fees on the other. Our family of 4 flew round trip form Cincy to Orlando for just over $600! DW is having major sticker shock looking at flights now.

Thanks.

Those types of deals are getting rare, if they exist at all. I haven't heard of one, other than Credit Card based ones, for years.

The current deal seems to be tied to getting an airline based credit card. For example, I have a US Air card that has certificate that allows me to buy 2 companion tickets for $99 each (+taxes) so long as the base air fare of my ticket is over $250 (before taxes). I haven't been able to use mine in several years because they black-out so many dates near/around holidays.

I've seen other airlines offer the free companion thing at times, but you are usually required to buy a full-fare ticket, which usually makes it useless because 2 discounted/restricted fares are cheaper.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

I would highly recommend applying for the Southwest airline credit card. They are currently offering 50,000 points for new card holders. Check the site for the rules on getting the points though.

I did just look at the airfare from CMH to MCO and 3 people could fly for just a little over 30,000 points plus you have to pay the tax which was $15 for the flights I tested.

 

[ChristmasElf]

Buddy passes on airlines cost the airline employee money. A lot of people don't realize this.
Say you have a friend that works for an airline and he is willing to give you a ticket to say California. Whatever the rate for that ticket would have cost, the tax is the amount the pass cost him. So if the tax is $20, then he has $20 (usually deducted from his paycheck)
If the tax is $76, then that is what he would get deducted.


Seems like nothing is ever "free" anymore! lol

 

[rickers353]

I would highly recommend applying for the Southwest airline credit card. They are currently offering 50,000 points for new card holders. Check the site for the rules on getting the points though.

I did just look at the airfare from CMH to MCO and 3 people could fly for just a little over 30,000 points plus you have to pay the tax which was $15 for the flights I tested.

Thanks, I will look into that.

 

[Orlando Vic]

Even if you are lucky enough to have a friend/family member who works for the airline and can give you a buddy pass, flying on a buddy pass is not the greatest.. You are basically flying as a standby passenger. And you only get on the flight if there is a seat available for you once all the paying passengers have boarded.

After revenue passengers, come employees, retirees, employees' dependents and lastly buddy passes, space available of course.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

Thanks, I will look into that.

You can also earn a companion pass on Southwest. There are reports that it can earned with credit card bonuses, but I have no personal experience and, of course, your mileage may vary. -- Suzanne

 

[Greysword]

Yep, credit cards are the best way to get companion passes.

Option 1: annual pass
- Delta (DL) Platinum AMEX, Alaska Airline (AS) Bank of America, and the US Airways (US) Barclays co-branded cards offer companion passes.
- DL has a one year lag with no waiver of the annual fee, thus you won't get the companion certificate until you renew the card. However, this card provides the most benefits with a free bag per person (up to 9 including card holder), priority boarding, and a few others.

Finally, you could get a signup bonus of 25,000 slymiles after certain spend in three months. Delta award tickets are a bit tricky to find at low levels, but the card also offers the option to use the miles at $.01 a piece to offset the price of a regular ticket.

- AS provides the companion certificate right away with no waiver of the annual fee ($75) that costs $99+taxes/fees for the companion. Plus they have a signup bonus of 25,000 miles which is good for a round trip ticket. The card lacks in other amenities (like DL) and AS' network outside the West coast.

- US has a certificate that allows two people to fly with the cardholder for $99+tax/fees each and the annual fee ($89) is waived for the first year. However, US has some blackout dates, so you'll need to look into those. The card does offer 30,000 bonus miles, which can also be used on any Star Alliance partner (United, Air Canada). It offers priority boarding and check-in, too.

Option 2: Miles

If you have good credit and are responsible with money, you could play the credit card miles game. Many credit card firms (Chase, AMEX, Citi, Barclays, Capital One) offer their own and co-branded cards that come with bonus miles upon signup and after a certain spend (usually $500-$3,000 in three months). The Southwest Airlines card from Chase that was mentioned is one such card. These miles/points can then be used to purchase free tickets (+taxes/fees) to MCO.

I started last year and have all the above mention companion cards. While we have yet to use one (soon), DW and DD traveled to Disneyland for free in May (DL Skymiles flying on AS). Plus, we have over 50k Ultimate Rewards points from Chase that can be transferred to Southwest or United for travel (or British Airways for travel on American Airline (AA) or Amtrak). I am sitting on the 40k US miles, since they will soon merge with AA and will convert into those miles, which then can be used on AS ). Lots of free flight options.

If you are curious, google the points guy and boardingarea for their sites. Boarding Area.com is a series of great airline and hotel blogs in general.

I started researching for a low cost/free option for our annual pilgrimage to the Mouse, especially since we try to hit both parks in a year. The annual fee is worth it in comparison to the companion ticket benefit, and the additional signup miles provide one additional ticket on a trip.

In addition to airlines, I also got the Hyatt card from Chase, since it has an annual free night at a category 4 or lower hotel (i.e. Hyatt MCO) for the $75 annual fee. basically a night at the Hyatt MCO for $75 (or another Hyatt).

Good luck and happy research!

 

[WDW_Diane]

You can also earn a companion pass on Southwest. There are reports that it can earned with credit card bonuses, but I have no personal experience and, of course, your mileage may vary. -- Suzanne

You can't use points earned from a credit card bonus to go towards a Companion Pass on Southwest, unfortunately. Their website spells it all out.

 

[Greysword]

You can't use points earned from a credit card bonus to go towards a Companion Pass on Southwest, unfortunately. Their website spells it all out.

While likely true on the website's verbiage, the blog-o-sphere and FlyerTalk boards on miles and points seem to disagree.

Earning the Southwest Companion Pass

More recent conversations are on this page.

I didn't add this to my list, as it is more difficult to acquire the companion pass. In essence, the deal is that Chase runs 50,000 point offers frequently for their Southwest Airline co-branded cards. If someone signs up for the personal and business cards, is approved, and meets minimum spend on them, then they will receive 100,000 Southwest points, which is at the cusp of the 110,000 needed for the companion pass. That means 10,000 points need to be acquired via flying or via spend on the card. Since the cardholder already spent $4,000 to get the bonus, they are only 6,000 miles away from the companion pass (a coast-to-coast round trip with an additional short hop flight).

The beauty of the Southwest companion pass versus the others is that it is good for any seat at any time, even if the original ticket is flying on award points. With 100k points in the bank, the whole brood can fly multiple times for just $4,000.

YMMV, so be cautious and do your homework.