If you're near DC or visit the nation's capital often, you're in for a treat. United Airlines is giving away free tickets to anyone who flies two roundtrips to or from DC within the next year. Fly more, get better free tickets -- up to an around-the-world ticket for road warriors who fly 12 roundtrips.
What's best is that almost all fares qualify for this promotion. United's Web fares qualify, as do fare sales and pretty much everything sold through major online travel agencies. Only tickets sold on Priceline, Hotwire, by some international airfare consolidators and on government fares miss the cut.
There are a few restrictions. To qualify, each roundtrip you take must cost at least $100 before tax. You must be a resident of the U.S. or Canada. You must fly on planes operated by United, not on codeshares (like those US Airways flights sold through United). And you must register in advance at www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,50823,00.html.
Two roundtrips on United gets you a "regional" ticket, good for a trip of 800 miles each way anywhere within the US and Canada. For residents of Hawaii and Alaska, that means a ticket to Washington State, Oregon or California.
Four roundtrips gets you a domestic ticket to anywhere in the US and Canada except Hawaii. (Hawaiians can use the domestic ticket to get to the mainland, though.) Six roundtrips gets you a ticket to Hawaii or the Caribbean. Eight gets you a ticket to anywhere United or its Star Alliance partners fly, anywhere in the world.
Fly 12 roundtrips, and you get a round-the-world ticket with unlimited stops.
[Don't try to fly the 12 roundtrips just to get the RTW ticket. At a minimum of $130/roundtrip after tax, it'll end up costing you more than $1,500. For that price, you can just buy an ordinary RTW ticket from Air Brokers (www.airbrokers.com).]
One warning, though: the free tickets you get will be frequent-flier reward tickets, so you probably won't be able to use them at popular times or to go to popular destinations. And you must use your free ticket by the end of 2005.
Why is United suddenly being so generous? After all, their last couple of free-ticket promotions were lousy for leisure travelers, with far too many restrictions.
Here's a hint: www.flyi.com. Formerly known as United Express, the new Independence Air taking off from Washington Dulles Airport on June 16 will bring lower, simpler fares to dozens of destinations (or so they say.) Combined with Southwest's success at Baltimore-Washington International Airport and inroads by JetBlue, Spirit and Frontier, United is understandably feeling a little stressed.
We say, take advantage of their stress for all it's worth. United has an unmatched national and international network. If you plan to fly even twice to or from DC within the next year, sign up for this plan and think about flying United even if it costs a few bucks more than the competition.