Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Singing the Non-Rev Blues
Victor sent along a New York Times article about how airline employee travel is getting harder. It was a pretty interesting read, but none of it was news to me. We have already been thinking about our summer travel plans, and there are quite a few places that are already nearly impossible for us, due to higher than normal ticket sales to Europe. It will be tough getting to Europe this summer, but we may be able to work around it. Trying to fly standby is pretty stressful, though, especially when you think about hotels (booking at the last minute, cancelling if you don't get on the flight, cancellation fees, no rooms left at your destination city, etc.) and work (worrying if you will get stuck and won't make it back to work on time).
The fact of the matter is that Victor could be making thousands more if he wasn't working at an airline. Probably tens of thousands. Airline employees are notoriously underpaid, and the airlines use these travel perks as a compensation for that underpayment. So it sucks when we can't take advantage of the benefit, but it's great that people are buying the tickets, because Victor's company stays in business. It's kind of a double-edged sword.
One thing in the NYT article that I do want to clear up: we don't fly for free. We still pay a fee, although a minimal fee, which is (I think) the amount of the taxes for a full-price ticket. Victor, correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, while we do get to fly first class to Europe, for example, we still end up paying several hundreds of dollars for those seats. Much, much less than a real first class ticket, but it is definitely a misconception that we travel for free. And we love to travel so much that we end up spending a significant sum of money each year on non-rev charges. Which sucks because Victor doesn't make that much for a financial analyst. Yep, vicious circle!
And I know it would be way cheaper if we didn't try for first class/business class on long flights. But we want to take advantage of premium seats while we can even remotely afford them.
Victor sent along a New York Times article about how airline employee travel is getting harder. It was a pretty interesting read, but none of it was news to me. We have already been thinking about our summer travel plans, and there are quite a few places that are already nearly impossible for us, due to higher than normal ticket sales to Europe. It will be tough getting to Europe this summer, but we may be able to work around it. Trying to fly standby is pretty stressful, though, especially when you think about hotels (booking at the last minute, cancelling if you don't get on the flight, cancellation fees, no rooms left at your destination city, etc.) and work (worrying if you will get stuck and won't make it back to work on time).
The fact of the matter is that Victor could be making thousands more if he wasn't working at an airline. Probably tens of thousands. Airline employees are notoriously underpaid, and the airlines use these travel perks as a compensation for that underpayment. So it sucks when we can't take advantage of the benefit, but it's great that people are buying the tickets, because Victor's company stays in business. It's kind of a double-edged sword.
One thing in the NYT article that I do want to clear up: we don't fly for free. We still pay a fee, although a minimal fee, which is (I think) the amount of the taxes for a full-price ticket. Victor, correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, while we do get to fly first class to Europe, for example, we still end up paying several hundreds of dollars for those seats. Much, much less than a real first class ticket, but it is definitely a misconception that we travel for free. And we love to travel so much that we end up spending a significant sum of money each year on non-rev charges. Which sucks because Victor doesn't make that much for a financial analyst. Yep, vicious circle!
And I know it would be way cheaper if we didn't try for first class/business class on long flights. But we want to take advantage of premium seats while we can even remotely afford them.
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