I used to fly a lot and as such I had around 100,000 NWA miles left in my account (I have used a bunch but I still had 100,000 left). When it was time to plan for ISDC 2009 I needed to do this on the cheap, so I went with my banked miles to get tickets on Northwest Airlines.
For those who don’t know me, I really, really dislike Northwest Airlines. The service is awful, the planes are old and crappy, the tickets are expensive and the overall experience is just plain bad. Alas in order to keep costs down this is a necessary evil, so NWA for us it is!
It is the night before our flights and we’re packing our luggage. Since we’ll be recording ISDC we have to bring a bunch of gear like cameras and whatnot. NWA has an *insane* $15.00 first bag fee, $25.00 second bag fee and a $125.00 third bag fee! So If I want to check 3 bags by myself it will cost me $165.00 in each direction just to get my luggage there! In our scenario we’re really only looking at $55 each way (or an additional $110 total) to get our bags there, but still! I thought you guys were merging with Delta so these wretched rules would go away! Nope.
My inexpensive trip, after all the stupid NWA fees and whatnot, will now cost me $315.00 plus 80,000 banked miles for the two of us to fly from MSP to MCO. Not that expensive, but I could have purchased SunCountry tickets for $200.00 round trip for the two of us, and that includes all of our baggage!
Well, I guess this is less of a story of how Northwest sucks and more a story of how I should have listened to my own advice. I knew they were bad going in, I just didn’t think that even with my miles it would end up costing me more. Here’s hoping that SunCountry can stay around in these hard economic times because I’m going to be flying them a lot more from now on. Oh, and they have really great service and airplanes too. Cheaper, better and nicer. What was I thinking buying NWA tickets???
Northwest Airlines: The worst way to start your trip.