I’ve already blogged about an aborted and frustrating attempt to redeem US Airways’ Take Flight Certificates issued to my husband and I when we volunteed to give up our seats on a overbooked flight last October. The premise was that we’d give up our seats to someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach their destination that day and, in return, we’d fly out the next day and get a free round-trip ticket to use on a flight sometime during the following year.

All sounds just great but trying to redeem the Take Flight Certificate is essentially impossible.

• Reservations have to be made via phone and the reservation agents I’ve talked to so far don’t know what the “Take Flight Certificate” is even though it clearly states to advise the agent it’s being used.
• Once the agent recognizes that it’s a free ticket voucher, each and every flight that fits within a specific schedule does not have any seats available. It doesn’t matter how far out a reservation is requested, there will NOT be any seats available — trust me, I’m on hold right now, having tried to find a flight within a three month window.
• IF a flight should be found, the Take Flight Certificate must be taken to an airport within 24 hours to be exchanged for the ticket. Don’t go without having gone through the telephone experience because the certificate isn’t worth the paper it’s written on when used at the airport. I know, I’ve already tried it.
• Only certain flights will have seats that qualify for the Take Flight Certificate. I haven’t figured out which flights these are but they don’t seem to be any convenient flights. I’m sure not many of these certificates actually get redeemed and that’s what US Airways is counting on when they hand them out.

About 20 minutes ago I placed a call to US Airways reservations to try to redeem these vouchers once again. First I was on hold for 10 minutes. Then the man who answered my call didn’t understand what the Take Flight Certificate was. Finally, once he determined that it was a “free flight voucher” he checked on the flights I wanted to book and, despite the online planes being empty, he said there were no seats available.

I asked him to check the day before. Same thing. No seats. I asked him to check the same flights for all of August and September. He transferred my call back into “hold for the next agent” mode. I’ve been on hold for 7 minutes so far.

The certificate is valid for either a round-trip ticket within the U.S. or $200 applied toward a ticket. But, here’s the catch:

• There are NO round-trip flights available.
• The $200 must be applied to tickets purchased AT a US Airways ticketing location NOT to tickets booked online. Online I can get a fairly decent price using the $200 credit. At a ticket location, the price is more than $200 over the online price. It’s a no-brainer.

Well, after about 10 minutes, a woman picked up the line. I told her what I was trying to do and I’m now on hold again. “Hate” might be too strong a word as to what I’m feeling right now but it seems to fit.

I just checked the timer on my phone and I’ve actually been on this “call” for the past 46:32 minutes!

It’s now been 1 hour and 20 minutes on this call. The fourth person I’ve talked to has done a search of all the flight possibilities within a two month timeframe and no seats for free vouchers are available. The cost to buy tickets on the flights I want is $446 per ticket. Applying the $200 voucher credit brings the per ticket cost to $246 which is more than the online cost of $212 per ticket. So, to use the voucher means driving an hour and a half to the airport, paying $34 per ticket more than buying online, then driving an hour and a half back home. I really don’t think so.

Taking a different approach, and looking for a flight elsewhere, I’m on hold as she confirms that we can use our free vouchers for a different flight during September.

Well, after a call that lasted 1 hour and 48 minutes, I now have a reservation that is good for the next 48 hours. Within 48 hours, we must drive to the airport and redeem our vouchers for tickets for a flight that wasn’t planned but seems to be the only one that will actually allow us to use these “free” vouchers before they expire.

It took six people almost two hours to put this together. I do feel sorry for the reservation agents who took the time to listen to actually help. The others had little or no empathy but the last two, particularly the woman who had to deal with me after three others had passed me along, after 45 minutes on “hold.”

I can guarantee that we will never give up a seat again for the promise of a free flight. The Take Flight Certificate is a sham, a con. It cannot be redeemed for a flight of choice — not the redeemer’s choice. It can only be used on less popular flights, at times their planes are going to have open seats.