On the Road: Looking for Better Treatment When Boarding

Others I spoke to said that they were looking closely at promotions that came in the mail for airline-branded credit cards. They said they were interested in cards that charged an annual fee and provided, along with the usual frequent-flier award miles for using the card, new perks like priority boarding or free checked bags. Those perks used to be available mostly to elite-status fliers only.

Does grasping for elite status, or vying for various other perks, still make sense when airplanes are often full and those once-dependable upgrades to first class from a cheap coach ticket are harder to come by?

Yes, I think it does, and I say that as someone without elite status on any airline. I’m now looking to perhaps switch a few credit cards around to get better treatment, especially at boarding.

Some motivation was provided just a few weeks ago at a UnitedContinental departure gate at the Newark airport. When boarding began, more than half of the passengers in the gate area stood up and formed lines as the agent announced the priority-boarding procedures.

Here is the order in which the myriad ranks and peerages are awarded priority boarding on UnitedContinental:

The first to board are passengers needing special assistance, uniformed military personnel and those with “Global Services” rank, which is United’s invitation-only, highest-status level for its top-spending customers. Then come first class, “1-K,” Presidential Platinum and Platinum and business class passengers. After them are those holding Premier Executive, Gold Elite, Star Alliance Gold, Premier, Silver Elite and Star Alliance Silver status.

Next come those who paid extra at booking for “premier line” priority. After that are passengers who booked using a United MileagePlus Explorer or Continental OnePass Plus credit card. Then families with children under 4 are invited.

Finally, after this long procession of privilege had squeezed down the Jetway, the forlorn handful of us without any priority were summoned with the call of “general boarding.” The gate agent eyed us as if we were potential stowaways when we trudged by with our boarding passes in hand.

“You want an apple?” a woman behind me asked in an unmistakable Queens accent, digging into her bag and pulling one out. I accepted gratefully, feeling suddenly less wretched because someone had extended kindness to a fellow traveler bound for the dreariest depths of steerage.

All the other major airlines now have these byzantine boarding processes, with the exception of Southwest. (Southwest simply sells a priority boarding pass in advance of a flight, for $10). It is all part of the airlines’ efforts to sell status perks beyond those offered by traditional elite mileage programs.

Priority boarding, in particular, has increasing value because planes are almost always full, and overhead bin space often fills up before the last humble ranks of nonpriority passengers board. Those passengers are then required to hand over their carry-on bags, which are whisked away to be “gate-checked” — often without time to remember that reading material is tucked inside.

We have all been complaining about the fees to check bags, which brought in an extra $3.4 billion for domestic carriers in 2010. But checked bags actually account for only about 20 percent of the so-called ancillary revenue that airlines now depend on to make a profit. Most ancillary fee revenue — more than 50 percent — comes from deals airlines have with various credit cards branded under the airline name, said Jay Sorensen, the president of IdeaWorks, a consulting firm.

Worldwide, airlines collected about $32.5 billion in ancillary revenue last year, up 44 percent from 2010, according to a report by IdeaWorks and Amadeus, the global reservations company.

“There are a growing number of ways they can extract money from you over and above the fare,” Mr. Sorensen said.

Hence, if I want priority boarding without having elite status, I have a feasible choice: drop the American Express Platinum card I use for travel, which has a $450 annual fee, but no priority boarding rights. Instead, I can pay the smaller fees for various airline-branded cards that offer priority boarding and other perks.

Or there is the less feasible option: I could dig out my old military fatigues from Vietnam and sneakily try to board first along with the military-in-uniform crowd. This, however, would require me to drop a few pounds.

O.K., 30 pounds. It’s been a long time.

E-mail: jsharkey@nytimes.com

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a147822f36f4c2f952d10501369ae8fb