Monthly Archives for June 2002.
The TV program Who Wants to be a Millionaire? required would-be contestants to call in on a touch tone telephone to qualify for the show. A federal appeals court ruled that the touch tone telephone procedure may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
A friend asked me today whether I knew about iDine. Of course, I know all about it — it’s great. Here’s how it works. It’s free. You sign up. You go to restaurants. You earn 10 miles for each dollar that you spend at restaurants that are on their list — including miles for tax and tip. You can choose to earn miles on Alaska, American, America West, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, or USAirways. The whole system is automatic. You register your credit card, and the points post automatically when you pay your bill with that card. The only limitation is that you are generally only able to earn miles at a particular restaurant once per month. However, there’s a way around this constraint… a glitch in their system. Just sign up different credit cards…
The easiest 10,000 miles of my life. Northwest Airlines‘ promotion: “Fly Free Faster” — You need to click here to register. After you register, you need to qualify. You can take a Northwest flight, sign up for MCI long distance, or get a Northwest Visa. Each of these activities, naturally, earns bonus points. Now that you’ve qualified, you need to have activity with five partners. It can be any five — and you can even duplicate them. Five iDine restaurants qualify as five partners. A single towel purchased from JC Penney via the Northwest Mall works as a partner… Transferring points from Goldpoints or Starwood count. It’s easy! You have until July 31 to complete all activity.
On Monday I noted that the E.U. was considering banning happy hours in bars. Now they’re considering banning packs of less than twenty cigarettes.
No new content on Tuesday. I’ll be out of town until mid-morning on Wednesday, at which point I promise to get heavier on the free travel and light on my own ill-informed opinions.
New reasons to dislike the European Union The EU wants to ban coffee shops in the Netherlands in which hashish and marijuana may be legally consumed. The EU is considering banning all happy hours throughout Europe. Seriously. Socialists in the EU parliament argue that happy hours are used by big bars to drive their smaller competitors (“who can’t afford to lower prices”) out of business.
The (London) Independent reports that the Venezuelan military may stage a new coup by July 5. The Democratically-elected socialist Hugo Chavez will be hard-pressed to make a case to the world for outrage. Chavez himself staged a failed coup in 1992 before being voted-in as President in 1998.
My very first link. My friend Sasha over at The Volokh Conspiracy provides the very first linking to this site by crediting me for sending him a link. If you made it to my site from there, welcome! I hope you come back… maybe I even warrant a bookmark?
Lloyd Grove reports on “Six Degrees of Fred Thompson” .. Former representative Ben Jones (D-Ga.), who played Cooter on “The Dukes of Hazzard” and is now running for Congress from Virginia, was in “Primary Colors” with John Travolta, who was in “Pulp Fiction” with Bruce Willis, who was in “Die Hard 2” with Fred Thompson. “The Price is Right” host Bob Barker lobbied for better treatment of circus elephants with Kim Basinger, the estranged wife of Alec Baldwin, who starred in “The Hunt for Red October” with Fred Thompson. Fred Thompson’s web also involves Denzel Washington, Lou Diamond Phillips and Benji.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
