This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ For Frequent Fliers, Airline Upgrades Make Life a Lot Easier September 16, 2003 By JOE SHARKEY AS a rule, I dislike anniversary stories, partly because I remember being required as a young reporter to approach complete strangers and try to get them to make an engaging comment about, say, the 35th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. So when I set off last Thursday for a last-minute trip to Fort Myers, Fla., I wasn't planning to write a Sept. 11 column. Still, as someone who got on a plane the first day the air space reopened after the terrorist attacks in 2001, I am impressed by the profound changes that have taken place, and not all of them for the worse, since 9/11. Yes, to reduce costs, the airlines are parking big planes in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, and putting far fewer seats in the air than they did two years ago. With planes more crowded than ever, if you're flying coach, your chances of being stuck in a middle seat are greater than ever. Yesterday, to underscore the widely accepted proposition that business travel in particular has become a curse, a top Microsoft Corporation executive, Anoop Gupta, was scheduled to fly to Boston, Chicago and San Francisco to hold consecutive news conferences. The topic was a new Microsoft survey that found, among other things, that 72 percent of 600 frequent business travelers polled said that taking a business trip was at least as stressful as going to the dentist, and 56 percent said it was at least as stressful as doing their taxes. Microsoft, not coincidentally, is promoting a new Web conferencing service called Microsoft Office Live Meeting that it says will enable companies to reduce business travel. For my own perspective on a business trip that began Thursday and ended late Sunday night, take Cleveland (please). Buying my usual cheap fare, I flew my usual carrier, Continental Airlines, from its hub in Newark nonstop to Fort Myers, with a return trip that required a stopover at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. There I settled into the comfortable Continental Presidents Club to wait for my connection, which was delayed for several hours by bad weather and by runway work at Newark. Airline clubs - memberships typically cost $400 to $500 a year - are invaluable to frequent fliers. They offer a comfortable place to work or loaf, with free drinks and snacks, not to mention employees at the counter who will cheerfully help you with connections or ticket problems. But for some reason, they won't let you bring food into the Presidents Club. "The odor and the cleanup are the problem," a clerk at the reception counter explained when I asked why. (Never mind that you can bring any food you want onto an airplane and stink it up). Anyway, I hustled down the concourse to a nondescript food counter, and settled into a chair near a dim departure gate to have my dinner - potato soup that tested like Ivory Snow, and a half sandwich that appeared to have been cooked in water. Food craziness aside, though, I hereby state a heresy as I report on my recent business trip. While air travel has become more onerous across the board, for many frequent fliers, it has become more pleasant. That's because we fly a lot and we're members of airline frequent-flier elite programs. Because of those programs, a lot of us are flying on cheap tickets but also managing to travel pretty high on the hog. On my trip from Fort Myers to Cleveland, for example I was upgraded - as I routinely am because my frequent-flier status is at Continental's highest Platinum Elite level - from a cheap coach seat to first class. In fact, chances are that most seats in a domestic first-class cabin are occupied by business travelers flying on coach tickets. This year, for example, I will probably travel about 120,000 miles by air, and over 75,000 of those miles will be on cheap fares on Continental, the biggest carrier at Newark, my home airport. You need to fly at least 75,000 miles in a year to achieve the highest elite status levels on most airlines. Yesterday, incidentally, Continental openly addressed the new realities that have split air travelers into basically two classes - elite and nonelite. Continental decided that being elite was such a selling point that it would offer elite status for a day to travelers who avoid the cheapest fare and instead opt to pay for the top coach fare. In a news conference, Continental's chief executive, Gordon M. Bethune, laid out a package of new perks for all elite fliers. But to me, the most interesting part is the granting of one-day-only elite status to anyone who pays top coach fare. "We're going to call those people elite for the day," Mr. Bethune said. That means they'll get priority boarding, like regular elite members, and other benefits, including being placed on the standby list (behind regular elite members) for upgrades to first class. I asked Mr. Bethune if it was realistic to think that a passenger on the last rung of the upgrade pecking order would actually get that upgrade. "Today, there's a good chance, because things just aren't full" in the first-class cabin, even after regular elite members are upgraded, he said. The idea, he said, is to encourage passengers to shell out for the higher fares. But it's also to mollify those who already do pay them (usually because they're traveling on last-minute deadlines) and resent knowing that they probably paid three times the fare of the passenger in the aisle seat next to them. "Elite for the day" at least alleviates one notorious coach-section fear, the dread middle seat. Pay the top fare at Continental now and forget about that worry for the day. "No middle seat assignment, that's a guarantee," Mr. Bethune said. On the Road appears each Tuesday. E-mail: jsharkey@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/business/16road.html?ex=1064718028&ei=1&en=aa083652102000f5 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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