One of the amazing perks of being married to a pilot is taking advantage of the flight benefits. You get to fly anywhere in the world at heavily discounted prices depending on the agreement your husband's airline has with the airline you're trying to fly on. Every airline is different and has different rules so being prepared is key. The major downfall of being able to fly this way is that you have to fly standby. No guaranteed seat. We have been stranded and it has been a nail biter on more than one occasion but overall we've gotten pretty lucky so far.
A few weeks ago my husband and I returned from 10 days in Australia! I'll go over our trip in a few posts simply because there was so much to see and do. We were able to get on our first choice for almost every flight and we flew a lot getting there and then getting around the country as well. We almost didn't make our flight from LAX to SYD because of a visa issue that we spent close to two hours sorting out with a very patient and amazing gate agent. We almost didn't make our flight from SYD to Melbourne because of a very tight security protocol and a small bottle of sunscreen we forgot we had purchased in Sydney. Our flight from SYD to LAX was cancelled, displacing us and 200+ paying passengers. We didn't make three more flights after that due to the cancellation causing us to get a little creative. After spending the entire day in the airport we took a late night flight to Honolulu, hopped the very next flight out to LAX and then finally returned to SEA after 32 hours of traveling!
While it was stressful and cost us a little bit of time, non-revving is the only reason we could afford to go to Australia at all. We flew SEA-LAX-SYD-MEL-CNS-SYD-HNL-LAX-SEA and we never would have been able to afford all of those flights! Allowing for extra time is key and know your other options and where those gates are because you could be waiting for hours and it could come down to changing flights at the last minute and running to your gate. Also, keep in mind that the fastest route to your destination might not be the most direct route. When we took the flight from SYD to Honolulu we had grand ideas in our head about being able to take a direct flight from Honolulu to Seattle because there are so many of those! When we arrived we found that our chances of getting on any of those direct flights were slim and we had much better odds going from Honolulu to LAX and then from LAX to Seattle. It took longer but we would've rather gotten on the flights we knew we could then sit around and set ourselves up to get stranded.
Non-revving requires a lot of flexibility and I am a major planner. So instead of having one plan and panicking when it falls through, I have several. When your first plan doesn't work out you could miss out on your second plan trying to look up the next flight because it might be leaving minutes after the first one. Knowing all of your options and having them all written down will keep the stress level down!
P.S. Overseas they call you staffers or staff travel instead of non-revs :)
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