US Airways (Piedmont) Flight Benefits

jayd1038

Well-Known Member
Got a job as a cross-trained ramper and ticket counter.

I am sure I will figure this all out in time in orientation and all, but I can't help be curious until then. So I have some questions:

What priority do I fly on US Airways? AA? How about my parents and registered guest? Do I get same priority as any other US Airways emplyee who actually working mainline and not regional, and is it FCFS or seniority?

Can anyone explain a little better how the cost is for my parents or registered guests? Something about my parents pay a certain amount per leg, and registered guest something about 90% of fare price, then they pay 25% of that or something?

Do my parents and guest get international privileges too?

Do I get buddy passes, and how many each quarter?

When can I access the flight benefits? (I go to orientation Tuesday)

For me on international travel, for who we have a codeshare with (so say BA), do I still fly free on them with taxes of course, or is it zed fare?

Most info I read on this is pre-merger or right in the thick of it so I am not totally sure how things are since then. Thank you in advance!
 
They will give you all of this in orientation. They just changed it again this summer.

The way I read it is that active Piedmont employees travel at the same status as active US or AA employees. It appears that Piedmont parents travel one level below the mainline retirees.

You can travel on your effective date of hire on US or AA. There is a waiting period for other airlines. (ZED)

Your eligible family members must be signed up in the system in order to use non rev travel. There is some paperwork involved and it takes a few days to get it through. They will tell you about this in orientation.

Also, when you have family on your travel list or give out a buddy pass, you are responsible for anything that those family or friends do. So you must read them the riot act before you put them on your travel list or give them a buddy pass. Anything they do that causes problems for the airline can result in your non rev travel being canceled. Airlines don't have a sense of humor when buddy pass folks start raising hell at the gate (or posting on facebook) because there are no seats left.

Joe
 
Thanks for you help! Yeah I am going to super careful about my buddy pass benefits. Only people who are even going to know I have them is my family, as far as any friends or acquaintances are concerned I don't get buddy passes as part time hahaha. So essentially only my brother and sister will have any access to them and they will be lectured by me without question lol.
 
Real talk, I don't even tell people I have buddy passes. Just don't do it. Non-Reving is a skill acquired over many mistakes. Also of note check in time matters on US Airways now for the same priority group. If there are 7 SD2Es and 5 seats, the 5 who check in first get the seats, it's no longer based on seniority. If you can at all set alarms on your cell phone 24 hours and 3 minutes prior to the desired flight so you remember to check in (I already got left at the gate once on something that I totally could have gotten on because of this).
 
So essentially only my brother and sister will have any access to them and they will be lectured by me without question lol.
Well you can add your parents no problem, but you only get one registered companion...and I don't know what they're called on the US side but for American it's D3 (buddy passes) and good luck getting on a flight using one of those. Honestly I tell my brother, sister, and all my friends that they are much better off buying a ticket. It's just about the same price too!
 
I am excited to learn that check in time matters for sure. I get why senior people would be irritated by that, but for me it works well since I am good and quick with computers and have a lot of experience checking in (albeit on SWA) 24 hours ahead of time.

Seems like flying international (off peak like now) is pretty easy to get on looking at the loads from a pax end (93 open on CLT to LHR at 1800) for the most part anyhow?

I need updated info and opinions of non rev travel now, when to go when not to, where to try to go where to stick away from etc. I get some things like being flexible, avoiding peak times etc, but a lot of info i read is a few years old and I know things change fast in the aviation world.
 
Is there ever a good time to nonrev through LHR? If there is, I've never found it..
 
Is there ever a good time to nonrev through LHR? If there is, I've never found it..

Well I generally only go over to Europe in the winter, the loads hold /there are generally seats and it tends to work out pretty well. Generally summer is for motorcycles, camping and staying home with friends. Winter is the time to go out and explore the world, especially since I'm junior and that's what I get for vacation after bid anyway.

I need updated info and opinions of non rev travel now, when to go when not to, where to try to go where to stick away from etc. I get some things like being flexible, avoiding peak times etc, but a lot of info i read is a few years old and I know things change fast in the aviation world.

My advice, avoid travelling on weekends, there's about 30-50% less flights sat/sun depending on the market.

Try and go early, you can bet people who aren't used to waking up are going to oversleep their alarms for the 5:50 am.

Try not to connect, I will drive up to 3 hours to get a direct flight and non connect. There's nothing worse than having 6 seats when you takeoff then checking after you land and it went down to -2.

Know the market where you're going, probably best not to head down to Daytona when the Daytona 500 is going or Augusta, GA when the Masters is happening etc etc.

Avoid travelling in inclement weather with a high likelihood of cancellations. Cancellations can wreak havoc on non revs for like 3-6 days after the initial weather event, especially if it happens in CLT, ATL or ORD.

Those are some of my tips, otherwise just experiment and see what works.
 
From what I understand my parents and my registered companion fly same priority as me when they are with me at least. That;s what my station manager told me anyhow.
 
From what I understand my parents and my registered companion fly same priority as me when they are with me at least. That;s what my station manager told me anyhow.

Only if you are physically travelling with them on the same flights.
 
Only if you are physically travelling with them on the same flights.

Right, which honestly will be the case almost every single time I'd imagine. My g/f is my registered companion and she has a super hectic school schedule and will only travel when with me, and my dad has a lot of health issues so they won't travel much either and definitely would only with me since my father has pretty bad dementia and there is no way my mom would try to deal with him and an airport and traveling by herself.

One thing that I think will honestly make life a tad bit easier for me is my airport is pretty small, and I live 5 min from the airport, so it's nothing for me to go to the airport, get shut down and go home, and I park like 20 ft from the terminal so I don't have it as bad in that case as some ppl at big airport do with shuttles and all that stuff.
 
One thing that I think will honestly make life a tad bit easier for me is my airport is pretty small, and I live 5 min from the airport, so it's nothing for me to go to the airport, get shut down and go home, and I park like 20 ft from the terminal so I don't have it as bad in that case as some ppl at big airport do with shuttles and all that stuff.

The problem then is that you can't actually get anywhere from your local airport except the AA/US hubs. Be prepared to make it out of your local station to the hub and then get shut down there and have to head back home... assuming there are still flights with seats. When I was based in Dayton a lot of times I'd just head down to PHL and then see what Europe destination had seats, get cleared for that, scramble and book one night's lodging wherever I was going so I knew I'd have a place to go once I landed and then figure the rest out on the fly. Same sort of deal for the Caribbean, although lodging was sometimes tougher down there. As long as there are no visa requirements (none in Europe right now) that system works pretty well.
 
The problem then is that you can't actually get anywhere from your local airport except the AA/US hubs. Be prepared to make it out of your local station to the hub and then get shut down there and have to head back home... assuming there are still flights with seats. When I was based in Dayton a lot of times I'd just head down to PHL and then see what Europe destination had seats, get cleared for that, scramble and book one night's lodging wherever I was going so I knew I'd have a place to go once I landed and then figure the rest out on the fly. Same sort of deal for the Caribbean, although lodging was sometimes tougher down there. As long as there are no visa requirements (none in Europe right now) that system works pretty well.

Good point. I'm pretty flexible on where I go seeing as I have never even left the continent before haha. Plus if needed since travel around Europe can be had pretty cheap, if I want to go to say Rome but can't get a flight to there I can try and find a different city in Europe to get over there and then book a Ryanair or Easyjet revenue and get there. Also just learning when to go will help. Like right now I can see a CLT-CDG flight leaving 35 min from now with easily 65 seats open. Yes I know things change and so on, but that looks like something that would be pretty easy to get on IF I were in fact in CLT etc.

Just in the bit I have read I can see it can a lot of times be a hassle, you have to be prepared with a credit card just in case, but hopefully through trial and error and learning from more experienced non-revers I can do some cool things. I am super excited to see the world and regardless of the hassle sometimes to me it's totally worth the shot!
 
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A couple more thoughts since we are going around the non rev block.

1. Bad weather can actually help non revs if you are in a hub and the bad weather is somewhere else. The reason is because there usually will be passengers that will not make it to the hub with enough time to make the connecting flight. (aka: mis-connects)

2. Friday nights, Sunday nights and Monday mornings are the hardest times to non-rev. Business travelers are trying to get to their appointments or back home from their appointments.

3. If you are traveling as a group, often there will not be enough seats. Decide ahead of time what you are going to do if there is only one or two seats with 4 of you going.

4. Generally the earlier the flight--the more chances you have to get on the flight except for the first flight out.

5. LHR has never been easy to non rev in and out of. You can get stuck there and the hotel airports are expensive just like everything else in the New York area.

6. A flight cancellation will absolutely kill your chances on that route for the entire day. There aren't enough empty seats (that day) to get the revenue passengers on let alone the non revs.

7. Because of the merger, the non rev program has been changed more this year than any other year over the past ten. It is still taking a bit of getting used to.

8. It can actually be easier to travel in first or business when non reving international. The reason is because the airline does not give away first class upgrades on international travel. First class is an expensive seat on an international flight. There always seem to be some first class seats open on international flights.

9. You generally can not get first class seats on domestic flights because the airline gives away so many first class upgrades.

Joe
 
I left one other thing out.

10. It is very difficult to non-rev between hubs. A lot of employees live out of base and often they live in one of the former hubs they used to be based in. So trying to non-rev between hubs (or former hubs) can be impossible at times.

Joe
 
What Joe said is very very true...I've sat in ORD for like 8hrs once trying to get to DFW.
 
Good advice that I will be sure to keep in mind.

Just thought of something. So say my g/f and I are trying to go to idk say LHR. She pays a little since she is my registered guest to get from CAK to CLT or wherever. If for some reason we don't get on from CLT to LHR ZED or own metal and have to go back home, she will have technically wasted some money (I know she'd get ZED back) in the effort since she has to pay a little to fly CAK to CLT and CLT to CAK regardless of it she makes it to LHR or not correct? That would suck haha. I guess that's more reason why to have backups and also.

Also, can you list non-rev for more than one flight to different destinations? Not break the rules by buying a refundable ticket and using it to leverage non-rev, but say you are open to LHR or FCO, could you list for two completely diff places at the same time and see how it works out?
 
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You're only going to pay for actual legs flown. If you have ZED to LHR and can't get on, you'll get that fare refunded. You can list on flights to separate destinations, but they want you to try an not do that, so as not to take up space on the standby list for those who are actually going on those particular flights. It can also confuse the kiosk(res system) when checking in. The best thing to do is list for one flight and if you don't make it, just have the gate agent of help desk move you to the new flight.
 
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