4 ms·

You can use United miles to buy tickets on Thai, Lufthansa and ANA, all of which are superb. (I used my last lot on two first class tickets to Tokyo which woul

You can use United miles to buy tickets on Thai, Lufthansa and ANA, all of which are superb. (I used my last lot on two first class tickets to Tokyo which would have cost a lot more than $12k each if bought for cash.)

Tiksi 11y ago
Well then I suppose it might be worth it, I've had great experiences on Lufthansa the few times I've flown on it, one time the plane was entirely empty except for our group of 5 so we had a 747 to ourselves.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  I don't know if that's awesome or terrible. I can totally see the appeal of flying in an almost empty 747, but at least according to this source[1] that makes a truly shocking 1MPG between the five of you. I can't help thinking the world would be a bit better off if they'd just apologised, and put you on the next flight. [1] http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/question192.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/que...
  - benaiah 11y ago
    If airlines could do so, they would. It’s very expensive to fly an empty plane. But those planes are on a tight and inflexible schedule - they’d be flying even if no one boarded the plane at all.
  - mseebach 11y ago
    I think the hundreds of passengers waiting the board the aircraft at where ever that flight was going might have a problem with that. Sometimes the sizes of the passenger streams between two destinations aren't perfectly in balance. This is most clearly visible on shuttle services between a small and a large city - busy going to the large city in the morning and to the small city in the evening, and semi empty in the opposite directions. Also seasonal flights - the first flight of the season to depart the destination (and the last to arrive) will often be pretty lightly loaded. When that situation arises, you will need to reposition a less-than-full aircraft, otherwise your operations obviously falls apart. The GP clearly experienced an extreme case of this, but most likely that aircraft was being filled up at its next departure, and so needed to be there. This is obviously expensive for airlines, so they try all they can to fill up these flights - which explains that the cheapest tickets are often on times that will be slightly odd or inconvenient, at least to business travellers.
    - jlittel 11y ago
      My roommate is a flight attendant - he informed me of term for transporting passenger-less commercial planes: "ferrying".
  - Tiksi 11y ago
    The flight attendant told me the plane was fully booked on the next trip, it was replacing one that had to be taken in for maintenance at my destination or something along those lines (Its been a while, I don't remember the details), so it was either flying it empty or flying with us on it.
- ChrisArchitect 11y ago
  that is crazy ! I find that so hard to believe, it just seems so crazy. Maybe a chunk of the seats were sold but something happened like, airport shuttle buses broke down or got stuck and everyone missed the flight. Cringeworthy for the airline to have to fly that flight anyways heh
  - moondowner 11y ago
    I heard that airlines partner with companies like DHL and FedEx, and in cases like this they load more shipment packages in the storage space. That way they'll compensate the costs.
  - Tiksi 11y ago
    Yeah, I was pretty confused myself at the time. We started to taxi with an empty plane and I asked a flight attendant wtf was going on and if the plane was supposed to be moving. It was nice though, I put up all the arm rests in one of the rows of middle seats and laid down for a nap.
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    From the sound of it, it was going out to replace a plane that needed maintenance. Which is a thing that happens; just a couple weeks ago, IIRC, Delta had to pull a 747 out of a "boneyard" storage facility and fly it to Seoul to replace one that took a bunch of damage (mostly hailstones) from a thunderstorm. Also, schedules are built around keeping the plane in the air as much of the time as possible, which sometimes means there's a mostly-empty "positioning" flight to get a plane to where it needs to be to carry a full load. I know with US Airways, for example, you can sometimes randomly snag a seat on a widebody international plane between Philadelphia and Charlotte (usually coming out of maintenance and onto transatlantic service, or switching which hub the plane operates from), and on Delta you can occasionally fly a 747 domestically between Atlanta and Detroit (to get the 747 in position to fly from Detroit to destinations in Asia).
    - jrockway 11y ago
      AA does this too and they have a schedule: https://www.aacargo.com/downloads/schedule/widebody_USA_domestic_16jun15.pdf https://www.aacargo.com/downloads/schedule/widebody_USA_dome... I wanted to try first class on the 777 when it first came out, so I just connected in DFW for a PHX-ORD trip, and did the DFW-ORD segment on a 777. As it turns out, domestic flights are GREAT in big aircraft. (Though I do like the smaller A321Ts too. International-class accommodations, but a really small feeling, like a private plane.)
- matwood 11y ago
  I've had that on a few flights. Not quite as empty as you describe, but enough room where most in coach had 2-3 seats they could lay down in. Most often these have happened when taking vacations/business trips in the off season. Various places in Europe during the winter for example.
monksy 11y ago
I'll take your word on Thai, and ANA. But I would purposely avoid flying on LH. They've managed to screw me over so many times its not even funny. (I know they're in the same group) I would take LX (Swiss) over LH any day. When trying to help them in a bad situation on their end, they'll snap at you. (I.e. when they had a plane downgrade in FRA, I offered to be transferred to a UA metal flight on my way back to ORD.. their reaction "WHO TOLD YOU THIS!" [I was trying to help the person avoid involuntary bumping, worse.. I and my travel companion was on an award ticket.. even if it matter anyways]
- otherusername2 11y ago
  Airlines are like hard disk vendors or car manufacturers. Everybody has their anecdotal evidence that the particular one they hate is indeed the worst.
ubernostrum 11y ago
Though Lufthansa is known to severely restrict the ability to redeem Star Alliance partner miles for premium seats. Back when US Airways (which is where I have my status) was in Star, that was a consistent complaint. Now we're in oneworld with the AA merger, the complaint is British Airways' ridiculous "fuel surcharge" which makes a premium-class mileage-award ticket still cost the same amount of cash as an actual economy-class ticket.
- biggc 11y ago
  I don't think they have any control over that. It's likely to do with Heathrow or UK regulations.
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    Booking a business-class or first-class award, on a US airline, to Heathrow, does not incur the massive "fuel surcharge". And as far as I'm aware, even booking on other British airlines (like Virgin Atlantic) does not incur the charge. It's only on BA.

Tiksi 11y ago

Well then I suppose it might be worth it, I've had great experiences on Lufthansa the few times I've flown on it, one time the plane was entirely empty except for our group of 5 so we had a 747 to ourselves.

jon-wood 11y ago
I don't know if that's awesome or terrible. I can totally see the appeal of flying in an almost empty 747, but at least according to this source[1] that makes a truly shocking 1MPG between the five of you. I can't help thinking the world would be a bit better off if they'd just apologised, and put you on the next flight. [1] http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/question192.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/que...
- benaiah 11y ago
  If airlines could do so, they would. It’s very expensive to fly an empty plane. But those planes are on a tight and inflexible schedule - they’d be flying even if no one boarded the plane at all.
- mseebach 11y ago
  I think the hundreds of passengers waiting the board the aircraft at where ever that flight was going might have a problem with that. Sometimes the sizes of the passenger streams between two destinations aren't perfectly in balance. This is most clearly visible on shuttle services between a small and a large city - busy going to the large city in the morning and to the small city in the evening, and semi empty in the opposite directions. Also seasonal flights - the first flight of the season to depart the destination (and the last to arrive) will often be pretty lightly loaded. When that situation arises, you will need to reposition a less-than-full aircraft, otherwise your operations obviously falls apart. The GP clearly experienced an extreme case of this, but most likely that aircraft was being filled up at its next departure, and so needed to be there. This is obviously expensive for airlines, so they try all they can to fill up these flights - which explains that the cheapest tickets are often on times that will be slightly odd or inconvenient, at least to business travellers.
  - jlittel 11y ago
    My roommate is a flight attendant - he informed me of term for transporting passenger-less commercial planes: "ferrying".
- Tiksi 11y ago
  The flight attendant told me the plane was fully booked on the next trip, it was replacing one that had to be taken in for maintenance at my destination or something along those lines (Its been a while, I don't remember the details), so it was either flying it empty or flying with us on it.
ChrisArchitect 11y ago
that is crazy ! I find that so hard to believe, it just seems so crazy. Maybe a chunk of the seats were sold but something happened like, airport shuttle buses broke down or got stuck and everyone missed the flight. Cringeworthy for the airline to have to fly that flight anyways heh
- moondowner 11y ago
  I heard that airlines partner with companies like DHL and FedEx, and in cases like this they load more shipment packages in the storage space. That way they'll compensate the costs.
- Tiksi 11y ago
  Yeah, I was pretty confused myself at the time. We started to taxi with an empty plane and I asked a flight attendant wtf was going on and if the plane was supposed to be moving. It was nice though, I put up all the arm rests in one of the rows of middle seats and laid down for a nap.
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  From the sound of it, it was going out to replace a plane that needed maintenance. Which is a thing that happens; just a couple weeks ago, IIRC, Delta had to pull a 747 out of a "boneyard" storage facility and fly it to Seoul to replace one that took a bunch of damage (mostly hailstones) from a thunderstorm. Also, schedules are built around keeping the plane in the air as much of the time as possible, which sometimes means there's a mostly-empty "positioning" flight to get a plane to where it needs to be to carry a full load. I know with US Airways, for example, you can sometimes randomly snag a seat on a widebody international plane between Philadelphia and Charlotte (usually coming out of maintenance and onto transatlantic service, or switching which hub the plane operates from), and on Delta you can occasionally fly a 747 domestically between Atlanta and Detroit (to get the 747 in position to fly from Detroit to destinations in Asia).
  - jrockway 11y ago
    AA does this too and they have a schedule: https://www.aacargo.com/downloads/schedule/widebody_USA_domestic_16jun15.pdf https://www.aacargo.com/downloads/schedule/widebody_USA_dome... I wanted to try first class on the 777 when it first came out, so I just connected in DFW for a PHX-ORD trip, and did the DFW-ORD segment on a 777. As it turns out, domestic flights are GREAT in big aircraft. (Though I do like the smaller A321Ts too. International-class accommodations, but a really small feeling, like a private plane.)
matwood 11y ago
I've had that on a few flights. Not quite as empty as you describe, but enough room where most in coach had 2-3 seats they could lay down in. Most often these have happened when taking vacations/business trips in the off season. Various places in Europe during the winter for example.

monksy 11y ago

I'll take your word on Thai, and ANA. But I would purposely avoid flying on LH. They've managed to screw me over so many times its not even funny. (I know they're in the same group) I would take LX (Swiss) over LH any day. When trying to help them in a bad situation on their end, they'll snap at you. (I.e. when they had a plane downgrade in FRA, I offered to be transferred to a UA metal flight on my way back to ORD.. their reaction "WHO TOLD YOU THIS!" [I was trying to help the person avoid involuntary bumping, worse.. I and my travel companion was on an award ticket.. even if it matter anyways]

otherusername2 11y ago
Airlines are like hard disk vendors or car manufacturers. Everybody has their anecdotal evidence that the particular one they hate is indeed the worst.

ubernostrum 11y ago

Though Lufthansa is known to severely restrict the ability to redeem Star Alliance partner miles for premium seats. Back when US Airways (which is where I have my status) was in Star, that was a consistent complaint. Now we're in oneworld with the AA merger, the complaint is British Airways' ridiculous "fuel surcharge" which makes a premium-class mileage-award ticket still cost the same amount of cash as an actual economy-class ticket.

biggc 11y ago
I don't think they have any control over that. It's likely to do with Heathrow or UK regulations.
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  Booking a business-class or first-class award, on a US airline, to Heathrow, does not incur the massive "fuel surcharge". And as far as I'm aware, even booking on other British airlines (like Virgin Atlantic) does not incur the charge. It's only on BA.