William P. Hobby Airport

[Slick Vik]

Delta did it in January. To keep the highest level you need to spend $15,000 plus the miles. So screw you, you probably not fly.

Hello that is for 2014.

 

You're seriously defending United? And I hit million miler status this year.

[nativehoustonion]

Same here. Elite has been long gone. Why are you complaining? My friend is a Gold member with BA there highest level. They get no regional upgrades and global premier upgrades. They do not get comp upgrades. He works for Oracle and said we spoil our members. Next year I can spend $10,000 to keep my 1K status plus the miles to qualify for 2015. I just love the new planes.

[asubrt]

Delta did it in January. To keep the highest level you need to spend $15,000 plus the miles. So screw you, you probably not fly.

Hello that is for 2014.

 

What the heck is your deal with insulting people based on how much/where they fly? Who cares if someone doesn't fly often or flies in economy class? It's not a competition man, no one gives a crap if you solely fly in BusinessFirst on the 787 or whatever you are implying.

[nativehoustonion]

Please accept my apology. I'm not insulting customers in economy. But it is competition with all the airlines. WN sold Air Tran planes to Delta Airlines, and they are shutting down Comair. Southwest does not have first class. One first class customer is the same amount for 5 in economy. I did not mean to insult our forum.

[nativehoustonion]

Great!

[Slick Vik]

Great!

Yea it's pretty smooth there's a noticeable difference also the lighting is nice and bigger overhead space

[Slick Vik]

Please accept my apology. I'm not insulting customers in economy. But it is competition with all the airlines. WN sold Air Tran planes to Delta Airlines, and they are shutting down Comair. Southwest does not have first class. One first class customer is the same amount for 5 in economy. I did not mean to insult our forum.

AirTran elites are pretty mad that southwest has no first class. What's interesting is that you have to have assigned seating for international flights and that's not southwest's policy.

[Nate99]

I'm guessing the 767's and the few 747's they still have will be sold off as soon as they get new 787's and A350's in the door.

 

Taking a perk away from your good and frequent customers is not something people are going to receive warmly. But it's not like they have the financial health to hand out perks, so if it is the differnce between etherial travel rewards and a plane that works, I guess I'll take the latter.

 

$15,000 is roughly 40 average domestic fares. Unless you are travelling very expensive routes it looks like they only want First Class customers to get the elite treatment.

 

If it's on time and they have a space for my bag in the overhead, that's all I hope for any more.

[nativehoustonion]

A lot Of Premier members complain because there are over 50 standbys for the upgrade list on my last flight. This gentleman told me he had 120,000 premier qualification miles. All his flights were on Lufthansa Airlines. You also need 4 flight segments with United so he lost his status. He should have enrolled in Miles and More with Lufthansa. He did not read the Premier benefits on united.com. To receive 1K status for 2014-2015 you need the miles and spend $10 thousand. I think they are trying to ween the non premier members. My friend in the UK gold with BA said we are too spoiled.

[Andrew Broadfoot]

Great!

Yea it's pretty smooth there's a noticeable difference also the lighting is nice and bigger overhead space

How are the windows?

[mfastx]

I'm a regular Boston-Houston flyer, and I've been hoping that United would put one of their new planes on that route.  Unfortunately, I'm usually stuck with an older 737-500/800/900 or the good ol' 757-200, lol. 

 

Now that JetBlue AND Southwest is now offering nonstop HOU-BOS, I might have to switch over.  Unless United's prices drops dramatically. 

[nativehoustonion]

I like the 737-800 and 900.  I really like the 737-900ER with the new lights.  Almost all of the 737-500 are retired as United receives new planes.

[Slick Vik]

I like the 737-800 and 900.  I really like the 737-900ER with the new lights.  Almost all of the 737-500 are retired as United receives new planes.

 

Me too. I took one last week up to Vancouver. Coming down though I took an ancient Airbus, was a huge difference.

[nativehoustonion]

I know I cannot stand the old United's Airbus yuk.  The CRJ are also awful, but they will replace with new Embraer 17, 76 seats next year. 

[Slick Vik]

Flyertalk meetup on 7/12 at Goode Co BBQ. Basically people that are gurus on getting travel miles, points, etc.

 

http://first2board.com/giddyforpoints/houston-bbq-meetup/

[Hartmann]

Will you be there? My attendance all depends on whether or not I get stuck at LaGuardia again.

[Slick Vik]

Will you be there? My attendance all depends on whether or not I get stuck at LaGuardia again.

Will try, last time was stuck at love field

[Slick Vik]

Reminder this is tonight

[Slick Vik]

Checked it out was definitely a cool event people were very nice and had a lot of information

[Chi-Char-Hou-Dal]

HAIF,

 

I saw on flyer talk a poster commented on a once real deal connector between IAH and HOU

 

any truth to this? How long did it take ect? My buddy got diverted tonight to BPT - Beaumont and started reading threads about the new bus service there.

 

TY

 

L

 

[august948]

You mean like an airplane hop from IAH to HOU? Bet you could find someone to do that for you, but no idea what they might charge. Still, it'd be the fastest way to get from one to another.

[jt16]

I did it once. The flight was cheaper from HOU-IAH-CLE instead of direct IAH-CLE. It took about twenty minutes. This was about fifteen years ago. When I asked why they had the flight I was told something about logging hours but I'm not sure if that was right.

[ToryGattis]

Long ago, this was how Continental competed with Southwest for customers in the southern part of the Houston metro, especially the NASA business.  I think they ran a shuttle plane from Ellington to IAH too?  Don't remember the one from Hobby, but I'm not surprised.  Back when fuel was cheap and they had commuter prop planes that weren't being fully utilized, it was pretty marginal cost to send them as ferries down to the southern airports trying to pull in customers that might otherwise just hop on Southwest.

[Houston19514]

Yes, for some time, Continental had service from HOU to IAH.  They also had Ellington-IAH service at one time.  At Tory said, it was for the purpose of serving customers from the southern part of the metro/competing with Southwest.  I took the IAH-HOU flight once or twice.  It was fun!  It went around to the west and of course never climbed very high, so it was a cool airplane tour of Houston.

[Slick Vik]

I remember the Ellington-IAH route well.

[Andrew Broadfoot]

I flew on the Continental ATR-42 out of Hobby to IAH several times as well as the Embrear 120 out of EFD to IAH. The terminal at EFD looked like two mobile homes stuck together. Years before this there was a dedicated Continental DC9 that flew from HOU to IAH called Houston Proud I believe. There should be some pictures on the web. While we are here, anyone remember the old Clear Lake metro port? Metro Airlines Twin Otter service to IAH?

[KinkaidAlum]

The service was actually run by Emerald Airlines for Continental on DC9s as the "Houston Proud Express."

 

In the late 80s, Emerald had as many as 7 daily round  trips between HOU and IAH. I believe around 1990, Continental took over the service and began use prop planes (ATRs) and eventually moved the service to Ellington before killing it altogether.

[skwatra]

I took the puddle hopper from Ellington to IAH several times, I believe service ended in 2003. Several of us at Boeing/NASA wrote letters to Continental, stating we would pay higher fares (often EFD-IAH-LAX was the same price as IAH-LAX) since parking was free, no POV mileage to pay, time saved etc for NASA. I think the reasoning was cost of operations out of EFD made it not worth it to Continental.

 

I loved it, you show up 20 minutes before your flight, park right there, go through security and you're at IAH 30 minutes later and already at your gate.

[JLWM8609]

The IAH-HOU service was discontinued around 05 if memory serves correctly. It would usually be operated with a CoEx EMB-120 or an ATR-42. Sometimes, there would be a mainline 737on the route since CO had a 737 maintenance base at HOU, and it would help to reposition the 737 by putting it on a HOU-IAH leg.

[Chi-Char-Hou-Dal]

Crazy stuff - thanks for the info!