Airline Benefits
- Thread starter B767
- Start date
It's not always free. Some airlines have a service charge per mile, and some charge an additional fee for first class. Some airlines charge a per year fee, then do not charge an additional per flight fee.
Spouse and dependent children are of course included, sometimes parents get a set number of passes per year too. For everybody else, some airlines allow you to write what is known as buddy passes. Personally, I love my friends and family far too much to allow them to travel standby on buddy passes. On a buddy pass, you're bottom of the barrel as far as standby priority, and with load factors as high as they are lately, non-reving is tough. Buddy passes are rarely free, taxes and fees are required to be paid. Some buddy pass riders are under the delusion that since they paid these fees, that they are fare-paying passengers, they are NOT!
Use Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, CheapTickets, LastMinuteFares.com, etc to find fares that rival the cost of a buddy pass and it's a confirmed ticket.
Spouse and dependent children are of course included, sometimes parents get a set number of passes per year too. For everybody else, some airlines allow you to write what is known as buddy passes. Personally, I love my friends and family far too much to allow them to travel standby on buddy passes. On a buddy pass, you're bottom of the barrel as far as standby priority, and with load factors as high as they are lately, non-reving is tough. Buddy passes are rarely free, taxes and fees are required to be paid. Some buddy pass riders are under the delusion that since they paid these fees, that they are fare-paying passengers, they are NOT!
Use Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, CheapTickets, LastMinuteFares.com, etc to find fares that rival the cost of a buddy pass and it's a confirmed ticket.
sorrygottarunway
Well-Known Member
Amen to that Amber! I was trying to find a price for my college roomate on thehub.usairways and found that the orbitz price was about $80 cheaper, with the added benefit that you now are giving the airline responsiblity for getting you there in one piece 
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
The Airways system is changing shorly to mileage buddy passes. They may actually be worth it once that happens. In the mean time, spouses and children travel free. Parents pay $15 a direction plus tax (generally around $50 total per trip) and "regeristered guests" pay tax on the walkup coach fare. Actually, they don't pay. It comes directly out of your paycheck and then depending on the type of relationship you have with them you make them pay it back somehow.:nana2:
Unfortunatly (or maybe fortunatly) I don't have a registered guest right now
Unfortunatly (or maybe fortunatly) I don't have a registered guest right now
Cav
Former Maddog Whisperer
Buddy passes are a huge rip off. Why bother? I don't even offer them to people because I don't want to be responsible in any way for getting someone stuck someplace. Pass riding for families is a pretty good deal although with loads as high as they are these days it's not as good of a deal as it once was.
stultus
New Member
BobDDuck said:
Not to mention that you are taxed on a percentage of the full fare ticket as income. May sure to add that in when you are calculating the...ahhhem...repayment
Our passes for employee, spouse, kids and parents are $10.00 each way plus $2.50 PFC per leg for domestic coach. First class and international are quite a bit more. A while back I figured that a RT in business class from the US to London would run in the neighborhood of $500 with tax and all. Cheap for a shot at a nice seat to Europe, but cheap is relative--that's a good chunk of your monthly take-home pay for a lot of airline employees.
As far as buddy passes go...everyone I've met has asked, but I'll only give you one if I don't want to see you for a while
kellwolf
Piece of Trash
Totally depends on the airline. At 9E, it's weird b/c the pilot deal is different than everyone else. We still have to pay the $50 some odd a year, but 9E flights are free. Everyone else doesn't have to pay the yearly fee, but they have to pay for each flight. Jumpseating is free no matter what, though.
XJT was a fee per ticket, but SWA was totally free. Never had to pay a fee or a per ticket fee at SWA, which not only rocked, it's very, very rare in the industry. Most of the time, you're looking at benes for you, your wife and dependent children and one set of parents (ie natural parents, one nat and on e step-parent, etc). If you're not married, you can normally claim a buddy to get your passes, but you have to stick with the same person for a year or so. So, you can't say it's your brother one month, your sister another month, your aunt the next, etc.
Buddy passes are normally a) a rip off and b) a total headache when your "buddy" gets bumped from a flight, pitches a holy fit, and YOUR pass privileges get nixed. Most of the time, you can buy a ticket for less (at least on CAL and DAL) and NOT have to fly strand-by.
The taxable thing is only at certain airlines it seems. I don't think we get it taxed as income here, and that wasn't the case at XJT or SWA either.
XJT was a fee per ticket, but SWA was totally free. Never had to pay a fee or a per ticket fee at SWA, which not only rocked, it's very, very rare in the industry. Most of the time, you're looking at benes for you, your wife and dependent children and one set of parents (ie natural parents, one nat and on e step-parent, etc). If you're not married, you can normally claim a buddy to get your passes, but you have to stick with the same person for a year or so. So, you can't say it's your brother one month, your sister another month, your aunt the next, etc.
Buddy passes are normally a) a rip off and b) a total headache when your "buddy" gets bumped from a flight, pitches a holy fit, and YOUR pass privileges get nixed. Most of the time, you can buy a ticket for less (at least on CAL and DAL) and NOT have to fly strand-by.
The taxable thing is only at certain airlines it seems. I don't think we get it taxed as income here, and that wasn't the case at XJT or SWA either.
OldTownPilot
Well-Known Member
At Comair as a CSA I get unlimited FREE S3 travel and 6 S2 priority days and free international. 6 buddy passes a year, I did use one but that person was traveling with me and I knew he could behave. Parents is 18 free S3B days. Companion pays yield fare and is unlimited. We do pay a $50 dollar charege once per year.
wheelsup
Well-Known Member
stultus said:
Under the US Airways system, you pay the buddy fares upfront (either on the HUB or at the ticket counter), they don't get tacked onto your income.
When I worked for Mesa, their buddy passes were free of charge, but it was only on a mesa aircraft (operating under any certificate was OK though).
Any others could chime in here too; benefits are an imporant aspect of the compensation IMO.
CapnJim
Well-Known Member
The only really nice travel benefits are jumpseating in the back of CAL, but that really only benefits me.
The Vacation Passes are nice, but only if you can get first class on an intercontinental flight, but even that's tough because the flights are so overbooked lately.
The Vacation Passes are nice, but only if you can get first class on an intercontinental flight, but even that's tough because the flights are so overbooked lately.
pilot602
If specified, this will replace the title that
wheelsup said:I'm not really sure what you mean by your post. Why can't I use the travel benefits? They are darn good, you can bet I use them. 80 seats open to London tonight, 55 to St. Thomas...take your pick
With flights being fuller than ever before your chance of using non-rev (non-pilots, because we can jumpseat) is less and less thereby negating the usefulness of the "benefit" and as as uch if you can't use it it's not a benefit.
OldTownPilot
Well-Known Member
Well I have not been bumped from a flight since I was hired in may. But that is not that many trips. Been close though, And been rerouted from my origional plans and took an earlier flight.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
wheelsup said:
I don't know where you are trying to go in the Airways system, but almost every place I try to go I end up in a jump seat. The major routes are open for the most part but try getting to a second tier city. Dayton has 5 flights a day to Charlotte. 3 70 seaters and 2 50 seaters. I'm trying to come back from Charlotte on the 8th of this month and there are 3 seats open between all 5 flights.