News and notes from around the interweb:
- US Customs and Border Patrol accepts donations. (I’d definitely rather tip housekeeping at Marriotts)
- A US Airways flight was delayed because a box of live crabs spilled out in the cargo hold during flight.
- Some Chase cards treating online Serve reloads as cash advances. They’re not wrong…
- The Forward Cabin likes the American Airlines buy-on-board Chicken Cobb sandwich. So do I.
- Scott Mayerowitz covers the fascinating case of Marriott’s big fine over blocking guests use of their own wifi. This was at the Gaylord Opryland, and convention exhibitors there pay hundreds of dollars for wifi so the hotel didn’t want them using their own. The actual FCC order is here.
- The ultimate teenage girl travel accessory (HT: Alan H.)
- Also from Alan, an excellent blow by blow account of the meltdown of Chicago air traffic control and Thailand wants to develop a program for tourists to wear trackable ID tags.
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No reports yet of actually being charged a cash advance fee. All that is happening , and maybe has been happening before without people noticing, is the cash advance limit is dropping while the charge is pending, but all reports including my own experience on 10/1 with the UA Explorer personal is that it ends up posting as a sale. What may be new is if you set cash advance limit low, Serve is now getting card issuer denied for many Chase cards. I lowered my UA to $100 today, did a $200 load and it was denied. Next I will bump the CA limit back up and try another. People calling Chase is really not productive.
I don’t think Serve reloads were affecting cash advance limits before. I have had my Chase Freedom set to $0 cash advance limit for several months and have not had any problems loading to Serve over the last several months until yesterday.
I love the irony of AA having an acceptable sandwich for sale in coach when the first class little snack sandwiches in the snack basket are utterly disgusting.
The Thailand article is really a non-issue and a waste of 5 mins of my life. I go to Thailand fairly regularly so I looked it up. See link:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/30/thailand-tourists-issued-identification-wristbands-ministe
BTW I wouldn’t use the daily mail as a news source – it’s viewed as a red-top (formerly just tabloid before proper newspapers changed their format to tabloid)
The Marriott settlement agreement provides that their $600,000 fine can be paid by credit card. 🙂
I was on an early morning commuter flight long ago (1985) leaving from ORF and some guys showed up with a burlap sack with crabs in it (no security on small planes like that back then, until you hit the hub airport). They asked the flight attendant whether they could keep it in the galley with her so that it would not get the carpet wet and she agreed. During the flight, she was busy…the flight was full, and she obviously forgot who left them, so get gets on the PA and and says, “Would the gentlemen who gave me the crabs in Norfolk please ring your flight attendant call button” We all looked at each other and laughed, she turned red, and no one picked up the crabs from the galley after we landed.
I agree with Thomas – hard to understand how AA can provide and acceptable sandwich in coach and then provide the swill that they do in 1st. Just check out the pics and comments on Lucky’s post on this matter.