I earn a lot of FF miles through deviations, even just domestic deviations, but I focus on one airline. I deviate enough that I'm a million miler on Delta, and make diamond status every year. It is a great benefit, especially with free club membership, and they even drove me on the ramp from one airplane to another recently, since I had a close connection. Impressive, Delta!

Nobody can tell you a reasonable expected amount, since nobody will know how many miles you will fly. Some people never go commercial, and earn zero, others earn hundreds of thousands of miles. Much of it is up to you. I can tell you our kids fly on FF miles and I never buy them a ticket. They also get gold status and get free upgrades sometimes.

As far as using your credit card and getting reimbursed, you are supposed to use the company credit card unless that's not an option. So the only way you'd probably end up using your own credit card is if you didn't have your company card available, there was something wrong with it, or if you were buying a few months in advance, or didn't know that the company would reimburse you for sure. Not something to worry about if you're not even with FedEx yet, that's trivia.

 

I wouldn't factor that in to any decision making (way too in the weeds for a career) but yes - I've been EXP at AA all through deviation travel the last 5 years and that's not unusual. No, you use a company credit card - this is a big company, we don't use personal cards for expenses.

 

Thank you!

 

Additionally, you can go into your company travel profile and input all your frequent flyer numbers. When the company books you a ticket (regular or deviation), your numbers are attached automatically.

 

My family and I used to use our travel benefits frequently at my old legacy. Even as a max level FF member at a legacy every year, we no longer travel anywhere near as often as we used to. When we do, if it's reasonably short domestic flying, we usually buy tickets. Using FF miles to fly a family of five 1000 miles and back usually doesn't generate the same "bang for the buck" that saving those miles for international travel does.

FF miles really don't boil down to "luck". Most airlines worldwide all us to establish a FF account like anyone else and get credit for our flights. There used to be some issues with certain airlines balking on giving us credit because we were getting discounted tickets through our corporate travel department. I've not heard of that being an issue with the 3 big legacies in the US or most of their alliance partners any longer. The only airline I still hear about this being an issue with is Alaska. Last I checked, they allow me to accrue AA points on them, but won't in their own FF program (which is fine with me since I target AA for my miles anyway).

The amount of FF miles is going to be highly dependent on your situation. Are you able to stick with one airline exclusively or does available travel bank, prices and destination force you hop from airline to airline each month. If you're deviating on the front and back of trips twice a month, that's 4 flights each month. If they're only 1000 mile flights and you do that all year, you're going to have 48 segments (in coach) and 48,000 miles. That will probably get you some status at any airline, but hardly max you out at their top level. On the other hand, 4 or 5 international first or business class deadheads to Asia from the US will probably get you close to the highest FF level (at least at AA) depending on class of cabin and bonus miles. Get those every month and you're going to rake in some serious FF miles fast.

Normally tickets are purchased through our corporate travel department. Payment happens through them and actually doesn't technically go on our corporate credit card issued by FedEx. We just get a record of the ticket cost in our expense report and it is charged against our travel bank for that month. Those tickets are always refundable and can be cancelled by a simple phone call or even on-line via our pilot website. We have the option to go directly to the airlines in question and purchase from them directly using our corporate card if we can get the ticket cheaper that way. That may be just because the ticket is cheaper there (rare) or that we are willing to risk a non-refundable ticket to stay on budget.

If you're used to very frequent pass travel with a 121 employer, you probably won't get the same level of use out of your FF miles. Taking the family on a vacation once a year or getting kids to college and back now and then - yes. Being able to hop on a flight every other weekend to pop in on the grandparents on a whim may eat up the FF miles pretty quickly. From what I hear, standby travel benefits are getting frustrating due to the loads at most airlines. The nice thing about the FF tickets is they're positive space - but even those can be unavailable depending on lead time, destination and time of year.

 

This got us in hot water a few years ago with some airlines. I can't remember the details, just the practice of booking a ticket through your home city and onto another destination to get a lower fare and then bailing in your home city. In a way I think airlines do it to themselves with their pricing structure but nonetheless it was an issue a few years ago.

We as a group don't want to ruin the perks of our DH travel by gaming the system. We have a lot of new hires now and I am reading many questions that seem like common knowledge to those of us that have been here for a while.

Another issue, while I'm thinking about it, that will get you and us into hot water is booking a ticket through Global Travel for a flight and then taking the jumpseat at the last minute on the same flight to save bank money. You effectively screw the airline last minute out of a revenue seat and ride on them for free. The airline will know and they will notify the company. Please don't repeat history.

 

Hadn't heard that, but okay. I've never done it myself. Hard to see what the beef is since the seats are paid for whether there's an a$$ in them or not - but point taken.

The jumpseat thing is huge and worth reiterating. Lots of new blood may not get the distinction depending on their background. The simple rule is never, ever jumpseat on a flight where you have a ticket. Jumpseat use that denies that airline revenue is a big violation. Another reason is there may be a fellow pilot trying to commute and after they give your seat to another customer and you're in the cockpit, he's got no way to get to work. Pax guys that give up their company DH seat and take the jumpseat to get another customer on create the same problems and undermine their CBA.

I say buy a ticket and commute reasonably stress free. If you have to jumpseat offline when you have a DH, use another airline than the one scheduled for the DH. Jumpseating on a different flight (same airline) is a bit of a grey area for some, but not me. If they want to look, the airline can see a cancelled ticket that day with your name on it and jumpseat use the same day. Bad juju.

 

New guy here.

What happens to unused deviation bank money from July? Is it usable in August?

Reading the contract it sounds like 1/2 of it is.

 

I don't agree that jumpseating on a different flight and the same airline is a bit of a grey area. I think it's clear. You should never jumpseat on a flight you have a purchased ticket for, but nothing else is banned, for even discouraged. Why would a pax airline do a search to see if you were jumpseating on a different flight with them that day, and what could they even complain about that for? Now I actually rarely even jumpseat on a pax airline, usually just FedEx, but I don't see this as a grey area in any way.

 

I have no idea what a pax airline might happen to notice with regards to the use of their jumpseats.

FedEx is obviously a major corporate customer with well understood needs to position flight crews globally. US carriers offer them a discount to do this.

1. The global travel department buys a ticket for a FedEx pilot from A to B.
2. That ticket gets cancelled.
3. The same pilot utilize his jumpseat privileges that same day to fly the same route, just on a different flight.

It doesn't seem that difficult for a sensible person to connect the dots. Will an airline notice? I have no idea. If they did, what would they complain about? I think that's obvious.

But, this isn't about what a particular airline may or may not notice. It's a simple personal decision concerning use of jumpseat privileges. I don't think it's grey either. I think it's black, you think it's white. The fact that we're having this discussion seems to indicate that it's neither.