Greetings from … Fargo?
It seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time: Get one of those United Airlines Mileage Plus Visa cards, charge college tuition on it and rack up frequent flyer miles.
Our kids would get college degrees; my wife and I would get one free ticket to London.
In one sense, it has worked out perfectly. Our son graduated several years ago and our daughter graduates in June. The last tuition payment has gone winging its way to Western Washington University.
Yeah, well, too bad nothing else will be winging its way anywhere.
After hours spent on the United Mileage Plus Web site, I don’t feel like a frequent flyer. I feel like a frequent failure.
I cannot find a flight. I’ve been naive, apparently, because for some reason I assumed that after accumulating enough miles for a European flight, all I had to do was, you know, book it. (That snorting sound you hear is the sound of airline executives, stifling their laughter).
We spent a pleasant winter, poring over guidebooks, nailing down a two-week opening in our calendars. We decided on mid-May – a pleasant time of year, but not peak season – and I proceeded to book our “Saver Award” flight.
Here’s what the computer screen said: “There are no flights that meet your request.”
Hmm. So I changed the dates a little bit, since the screen said that sometimes you have to be flexible and fly mid-week, for instance. Hey, we’re nothing if not flexible.
“There are no flights that meet your request.”
OK. Maybe the problem was flying out of Spokane. I didn’t want to drive to Seattle, but I could if I had to. Flexible is my middle name.
“There are no flights that meet your request.”
All right. I knew that sometimes more seats can open up within a couple of months of the flight, so I waited a few weeks and tried again.
“There are no flights that meet your request.”
Gradually, a horrible realization began to dawn on me.
“Honey,” I said to Carol. “I’m beginning to think there are no flights that meet our request.”
Fortunately, the word “flexible” is chiseled above our front door.
We would postpone our London trip and use our frequent flyer miles for another trip this spring. With mounting excitement, I realized that we could get TWO free tickets inside the continental U.S., as opposed to only one for Europe. It would be a better deal all around.
We got out the atlas and settled on the one place we most wanted to see within the continental U.S.: Alaska.
So I got on the Web site and tried to book tickets to Anchorage. For once, it did not say, “There are no flights that meet your request.”
It said, “Your request could not be processed.”
Somehow, that sounded even worse.
In a state of increasing hysteria, we started typing in random United destinations, just to see if we could find something, anything:
Lynchburg, Va.: “There are no flights that meet your request.”
Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.: “There are no flights that meet your request.”
Las Vegas: “There are no flights that meet your request.”
McCook, Neb: “Your request could not be processed.”
Krakow, Poland: “Your request could not be processed.”
This shouldn’t have come as a shock. These old-line frequent flyer programs are becoming notorious for the difficulty of redemption. The New York Times just ran a headline on Sunday which read, “Fliers finding mileage points go only so far.” It said people are having to spend far more miles to get unrestricted bookings.
Well, to get enough miles for that, we’ll have to bear two more kids, raise them and send them to college. We’re just not up to it.
Meanwhile, we’ve decided to get one of those credit cards good for any airline, with no restrictions. Watch out, London – we’ll be there in 2015!
Meanwhile, I should mention that we finally found a flight we can use on our May dates. It’s to Fargo, N.D., but there’s a catch (besides the fact that it’s Fargo). You see, the flight is outbound. For the inbound flight, it said, “There are no flights that meet your request.”
In other words, we can go to Fargo, but we can never leave. We’ll send you a postcard.