Airtran's Summer 2010 Schedule

[maciec]

I am hoping that they aren't going to release the schedule until the beginning of February because I need one more moth on my Airtran Visa to get enough miles for the 4 of us to fly. I am 2 short. If worse comes to worse, I will just buy the darn points, but I didn't want to.

 

[keishashadow]

I promise I am not making this all up and have a link to back up what I am saying.

I have 13 credits in my account. I called to see if the schedule would be extended to Sept. by Friday when 6 of my 13 credits would expire. She said no. So I asked what my options were. Here they are:

1. Pay to extend my vouchers. At $29 a credit that would be well over the price of what I would pay for a one way ticket.

2. Redeem credits for upgrade vouchers. These are redeemable for one year from the date that I cash in my credits for a voucher.

3. Book for a flight already open on the schedule and then when September opens call and ask them to change my flight. Problem here is that I have heard they quit doing this (on Flyertalk) and the website does say:


When you say you redeemed for a voucher in July and used it in August - did you get a voucher and then book your ticket in August or did you use your miles in July to book a flight in August?

Here is a link to the Aitran page explaining all of this:

http://www.aplusrewards.com/a_plus_news.aspx

thanks for posting this, i admit i haven't explored the website lately; but i know i never received any sort of notice re this major change to the program from AT or CC comany

What annoys me is typically out of PIT, there is very little offered in way of reward flights when the schedule is announced to either MCO or TPA. Only a couple of months prior do they start to slowly release seats for weekends; coupled w/inability to use vouchers to upgrade to business class everytime we've flown them =

guess i'll be donating additional points to charity if i can't use them under this restrictive system

 

[Anal Annie]

I promise I am not making this all up and have a link to back up what I am saying.

I have 13 credits in my account. I called to see if the schedule would be extended to Sept. by Friday when 6 of my 13 credits would expire. She said no. So I asked what my options were. Here they are:

1. Pay to extend my vouchers. At $29 a credit that would be well over the price of what I would pay for a one way ticket.

2. Redeem credits for upgrade vouchers. These are redeemable for one year from the date that I cash in my credits for a voucher.

This is what we did.

3. Book for a flight already open on the schedule and then when September opens call and ask them to change my flight. Problem here is that I have heard they quit doing this (on Flyertalk) and the website does say:


When you say you redeemed for a voucher in July and used it in August - did you get a voucher and then book your ticket in August or did you use your miles in July to book a flight in August?

On 7/14/09 I redeemed 4 A+ credits that were accrued on 2 round trips that were taken in 7/08 and in 5/09. At the time of redemption I selected that the voucher would be used for a free upgrade to Business Class, The voucher was good for 1 year from the date that I did this (it exp. 7/14/10). So again, at the time of the credit redemption I chose the option to use the voucher for a 1 Way Upgrade to Business Class as I knew I was flying on 8/16/09. I then redeemed this voucher on my 8/16/09 flight but I could've kept it until 7/14/10 if I'd wanted to.

Here is a link to the Aitran page explaining all of this:

http://www.aplusrewards.com/a_plus_news.aspx

I think perhaps the difference in the way I am looking at it compared to you is that this is the only way I've ever known the system to work with Air Tran. Therefore there has been no "change" in the policy to me in the way I interpret it. We only ever used them for the first time in July '08. But so as far as I knew, the only way it ever worked was that you always had to choose what you were redeeming the A+ credits for at the time of redemption for the voucher.

I currently have 2 credits sitting out there from our August '09 round trip. We are using them again 1 way in March which will give us a total of 3 credits. (We booked with SW for our trip DOWN as they were a lot cheaper.) I hope to be able to book Air Tran again for a flight this summer - so if we can use them GOING to our destination then we can accrue the 4th credit required to upgrade for our return flight. IF I do not manage to book them for our summer vacation, come August, I will redeem the 2 credits we have for vouchers that will be good until August 2011 and I will specify they will be used for an upgrade and hope we squeeze in another flight before the voucher expires. Since they haven't released their schedule for August yet I don't know what we're doing or who we're using. We're doing a Med cruise in 2011 so I don't know if we'll get a chance to use them or not...but I will certainly TRY!!!

 

[keishashadow]

ive enjoyed being able to stretch out acruing the points for 1 (then 2 years when they changed that policy) then obtaining a voucher near the end of aforementioned time period...

effectively, garnering 3 years' time to find a reward flight

oh well, least they didn't discontinue the program entirely; basically back to the 2 year period to commit to a flight now.

still, i don't understand how so many others report being able to garner upgrades, and ive struck out everytime i tried in the past (calling exactly 24 hours prior). Evidently, lots of elite flyers grabbing the seats 1st? Anybody have a secret strategy?

 

[Anal Annie]

ive enjoyed being able to stretch out acruing the points for 1 (then 2 years when they changed that policy) then obtaining a voucher near the end of aforementioned time period...

effectively, garnering 3 years' time to find a reward flight

oh well, least they didn't discontinue the program entirely; basically back to the 2 year period to commit to a flight now.

still, i don't understand how so many others report being able to garner upgrades, and ive struck out everytime i tried in the past (calling exactly 24 hours prior). Evidently, lots of elite flyers grabbing the seats 1st? Anybody have a secret strategy?

sent u a PM

 

[Starbrite]

I thought I was alone in waiting for the Airtran schedule.

We need to book for August. It's been a painful wait. The other airlines all have their schedules out....I've been tempted to snag a flight with them, but I always get really great deals with Airtran. The waiting is killing me!!!!

 

[DVCBELLE]

I think perhaps the difference in the way I am looking at it compared to you is that this is the only way I've ever known the system to work with Air Tran. Therefore there has been no "change" in the policy to me in the way I interpret it. We only ever used them for the first time in July '08. But so as far as I knew, the only way it ever worked was that you always had to choose what you were redeeming the A+ credits for at the time of redemption for the voucher.

I currently have 2 credits sitting out there from our August '09 round trip. We are using them again 1 way in March which will give us a total of 3 credits. (We booked with SW for our trip DOWN as they were a lot cheaper.) I hope to be able to book Air Tran again for a flight this summer - so if we can use them GOING to our destination then we can accrue the 4th credit required to upgrade for our return flight. IF I do not manage to book them for our summer vacation, come August, I will redeem the 2 credits we have for vouchers that will be good until August 2011 and I will specify they will be used for an upgrade and hope we squeeze in another flight before the voucher expires. Since they haven't released their schedule for August yet I don't know what we're doing or who we're using. We're doing a Med cruise in 2011 so I don't know if we'll get a chance to use them or not...but I will certainly TRY!!!

I said all along that you could use the points to get an upgrade voucher but not a flight voucher.

In the past - you could cash in 8 credits for a flight voucher that was good for one year - essentially giving you another year to use your credits which was the original suggestion given and what many people thought I wanted to do but was short 2 credits.

 

[keishashadow]

fyi

schedule is now out for end of july...

must say, the lowest prices i've paid in years (PIT to MIA)

 

[Aristocath]

Right now my flights are $97 each way from DFW to MCO. I'm going to hold out because I think they might drop to $74, at least on the outbound flight. I've got over 6 months. Sadly, the nonstop times don't work for me so we'll be going through Atlanta. Now I'm wondering if American will lower their prices.