You can often get confirmed tickets and if you book a standby, confirmed staff travel tickets are regularly released so it could possibly convert into a confirmed. I'm an easyjet captain and would of course love one of these schemes, our staff travel is pretty good tbf. Of course, staff travel swaps would probably account for most of those circumstances anyway but it would certainly be a net loss for easyjet. If the VA guy is using easyjet twice a week, that's potentially a massive loss in revenue at easyjet. The Virgin guy could reasonbly commute on easyjet easyjet staff travel (upto 2 flights a week?) but for the easyjet guy, it would just be for a holiday maybe once a year on Virgin. many would want a Virgin Atlantic/Easyjet travel swap. I understand that but there is no loss to either airline giving out standby tickets.That's not true, there could easily be quite a large imbalance between loss of revenue.įor example. I can also see your point of view, believe me, I just thought it was kind of harsh to say it has no value. I guess the value in ID90 tickets is there for this kind of approach. If I end up arriving a day later, too bad but no real money "lost" in my view. In terms of hotels, I either budget for whatever period I am planning to stay and/or book stays with free cancellation until shortly before arrival. A bit more expensive but a bit more certainty as well. We do also have a few partners that allow "confirmed" ID tickets. That did mean a 5-hour wait, but that is what the flexibility is for. I had an overbooked flight once due to an earlier flight getting cancelled. But I have not yet encountered a completely full flight once. We wanted that certainty to help us enjoy the trip.Not retired, I just plan my vacation with a buffer day or maximum two on each end and usually plan travel via airports with scheduled traffic from multiple of the airlines that we have agreements with (not too hard to do, without detours mostly). We have travelled right around the world on confirmed tickets booked well in advance at a good price when we did have staff travel (with one of the major Alliances - there's a clue!) available to us, Many asked us if we were going to use staff travel and we said that we were specifically ruling that out because we didn't want to risk wasting time and money with the uncertainty. Īre you retired? Just wondering how the flexibility fits in with time available.įor us the certainty of a confirmed seat is worth the price (and often cheaper if you end up with unplanned hotel costs added on top of your staff travel ticket cost). If you apply your careful planning to the ID tickets you can usually go a much longer way for the same or less money. Even low-cost long-haul carriers couldn't beat those prices. You have to be a bit more flexible for sure, but to say it has no real value. Recently I flew halfway around the world for €70 on a full service carrier and back in business for €200 (normal price €3800 or thereabouts). In 4 years with ID travel available to me I've saved thousands of euros for myself and even traveling with friends. ID90s are now just far too unreliable to have any real value.You must have had some bad staff travel agreements or have been traveling on underserved routes that were always full. If you plan carefully, cheap seats are available. Having spent 11 hrs on a cabin-crew jump-seat and many nervous hours wondering if I would get a seat, for a price that is the same as, if not more than, the cost of a confirmed seat booked 'on-line', that cheap confirmed seat is "worth" far, far more than any ID90 ticket. Airlines are doing everything that they can to fill seats with confirmed bookings so the chances of getting a 'spare seat' are very rare. I have made very, very little use of airline staff travel when I have had it available to me for the simple reason that it is so very unreliable.
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