@too-much-time wrote:
@CreditScholar wrote:
@enharu wrote:
@too-much-time wrote:
I'm looking for an airline credit card that offers not only priority boarding, but priority deplaning as well. Who, after a long and tiring journey, wants to watch the aisle's front person at any given time, squeezed by fellow passengers from all sides, at a painstakingly slow pace retrieve from the distant above his shifted over-sized carry-on suitcase and personal item from the crowded overhead bin at a time when all the rows ahead are fully empty, just to be repeated over and over again and ever steadily more annoying? There must be such a card yearning to slap yet another fee on us!
Buy a suite / first / business class ticket. Problem solved.
Still can't tolerate having to wait for other first class passengers? Get a private jet.
+1. The only real way to have priority deplaning is to fly in a premium cabin. In many cases you'll board and exit from a completely different door than those in cattle class.
But what if what's good for the passenger is good for the carrier? I would imagine that the carrier would applaud the plane being emptied as quickly as possible. Time is money after all. And if they could combine that with fees for priority deplaning, it's a double win! To deplane more efficiently, people need physical space to take down their luggage right when the bell rings. If say aisle seat passengers in even numbered rows were to start, they could run along without any delay, then the next seat closer to the window until the row is empty.
If that's the system and you happen to like a window seat halfway down the plane, you might be wiling to pay a $2 fee to sit in an even numbered row at the time you purchase your ticket and pick your seat. I don't think if it's so far-fetched. When I flew United the other day, I noticed you could pay extra to have your checked items transported to your local destination, so that you could skip waiting at the baggage carousel, a perk that may well be included on your airline card soon. The sky's the limit!
You could also say that it wouldn't be such a problem if people in the cattle class stopped acting as cattle. I remember a time when people lined up nicely to enter the various doors of your everyday local commute train. Now it's every man for himself. Maybe people just didn't mind standing up so much and now they do. Of course if they weren't so eager at the crowded grocery store sample stands, the urge might also be less pressing while boarding the train, lol.
None of this is helped by the upcoming holiday season. Drivers are already so flustered that the rate of cars moving in the opposite direction in parking lots has gone up, as has the number of shopping carts left in the middle of aisles. Maybe it really is hopeless, maybe after all first class is the only way to go. Unless the airline places regulators at strategic points down the aisle. But that wouldn't work, as they'd be in the way.
Most people who travel are clueless when it comes to these sorts of things, and there's always plenty of idiots who take way too much time getting their oversized carry-ons down from the overhead compartments because they were too cheap to check their bags in.
I remember being on one flight from SFO-LAX where this complete tart (for lack of a better word) stood blocking the entire isle for 5 minutes trying to get a suitcase (that probably weighed no more than 15 pounds) down. She didn't want to get her hands dirty or break a nail, so she looked around and said very loudly "I need a big strong man to help me with this!". My fiancee walked over, took her suitcase down with one hand and said to her "In Australia we have a term for people like you... useless b****es." If she wasn't so obviously fishing (and perhaps was better looking), someone else might have actually helped her. The sad part was there were maybe 75 other people behind her, all waiting for her to get her carry-on down.
Many airlines already do this sort of thing by charging passengers extra for certain seats (isle, window, emergency exit rows, etc.) It's a lot more than $2 (maybe more like $50 in some cases), but if getting out earlier is that important to you then pay the extra amount and take an isle seat. Chances are that it'll be a lot quicker to de-plane if you're in an isle seat closer to the front than if you're in a middle or window seat near the back.
Having people deplane first with a certain credit card would simply be too difficult and time-intensive to do on every flight. It'd be a logistical hassle that they can avoid via other alternatives. You'd have people with credit cards sitting in window seats having to climb over the others to get to the isle, flight attendants would have to waste time checking that those actually deplaning first are those who have the credit card, etc.
Some airlines (such as UA) offer paid annual subscriptions for E+. If you fly that frequently where it matters, then that might be something else to consider.
EX 798, EQ 789, TU 784
American Express Platinum (NPSL) || Bank of America Privileges with Travel Rewards Visa Signature - $23,200 CL
Barclays American Airlines Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard - $20,000 CL || Chase IHG Rewards World Mastercard - $25,000 CL
Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa Signature - $12,700 CL || Chase United MileagePlus Club World Elite MasterCard - $26,500 CL
Citibank Hilton Reserve Visa Signature - $20,000 CL || J.P. Morgan Ritz Carlton Visa Signature - $23,500 CL
and this cannot be solved by Premium cabin or credit cards.
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