Dan R. passes along comments Mitt Romney made at a fundraiser. Romney’s wife, Ann, was in attendance, and the candidate spoke of the concern he had for her when her plane had to make an emergency landing Friday en route to Santa Monica because of an electrical malfunction. “I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney said. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for September 2012.
United.com’s “Expert Mode” is Back!
So-called “Expert Mode” at United.com has returned. That’s the functionality which lets customers see how many seats are available in each ‘fare bucket’ on a given flight, including for award and upgrade space. And it’s what United took away and then caved in the face of sigificant consumer protests and agreed to bring back. When logged in at United.com you can choose to enable expert mode here. Then once you’ve opted-in, when you search for a flight you can click on the highlighted “fare class” in blue to see detail for that flight. The cheapest fares are generally listed down farthest in the list. And the ‘special’ fare classes are: ‘R’ is upgrade from coach to the next highest cabin (‘RN’ is the bucket that elites can use, generally the two buckets are equal) ‘ON’…
New Addition to My Laptop Travel Bag: External Battery Charger
Earlier in the year I wrote about the (mostly) technology that’s in my laptop bag. So I thought I’d share that I’ve added something to the list. Which is sort of the wrong direction, I’d always rather be taking things out and lightening the load. Fortunately with my Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer bag, which unclips to go through the security checkpoint flat instead of having to take my laptop out of the bag when I don’t get to use Precheck, I have an absolute shoulder strap which stretches to make the bag feel substantially lighter. With my belated move from a Blackberry to the new Samsung Galaxy S3, one of the major tradeoffs is battery life. When I’m working out of my office and not on travel, the battery lasts me a full day without…
Conde’ Nast’s 25th Anniversary Gala & Visionaries Awards
I was fortunate to be invited to attend Conde’ Nast Traveler‘s 25th anniversary gala honoring 12 visionaries who work to make the world a better place, and also presenting their World Savers Awards to travel companies that combine social work of a variety of kinds with their hospitality efforts. I imagine the invite was extended because I’ve been on Conde’ Nast‘s list of world’s top travel specialists (for my award booking service) since 2010. Wendy Perrin further invited me to the VIP reception. Unfortunately my flight’s diversion to Connecticut due to insufficient fuel meant that I wouldn’t make it for the VIP event or even cocktails before the start of the evening’s ceremonies. And by the time I arrived, the place was packed. So I got only the briefest glimpses of Olivia Wilde, Richard Branson,…
Avis Sued for Sexual Orientation Discrimination Over its Rental Rates
Eugene Volokh notes that the lawsuit Evenchik v. Avis Rent a Car Systems is moving forward. The plaintiff claims that Avis charged her more to rent a car because she isn’t gay. According to the Complaint, Plaintiff rented a car from AVIS in July 2011, in the County of San Diego, California. She was charged $311.36. According to the Complaint, at that time AVIS gave large price discounts to members of two groups: the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association and the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Plaintiff is not a member of either group. The Complaint further alleges that AVIS did not give her the gay and lesbian group member price discount. Plaintiff alleges that California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act … prohibits a business from discriminating between its customers on the basis…
Diversions, Delays, and Mechanicals All to Fly 213 Miles
Last week I got to visit the American Airlines Flagship Lounge at JFK for two different meals. Which is never what I’m looking to do. Especially when it means that travel is taking a bit longer than it’s supposed to, and which is uniquely inconvenient when you’re doing what’s supposed to be an out-and-back trip. But spending a delay in a first class lounge, even a domestic one, is a pretty good way to while away a delay. It’s easy to stay productive, there’s snacks available, and relative quiet. Plus in a domestic lounge I’m always uncomfortable leaving backs behind or personal items strewn about while using the facilities, in a first class lounge I generally have no such concerns. Turning back the clock a day, though, I was heading up to New York last…
Horizon Air Relocates its Lost and Found Center to a Home in Portland
Passed along without comment. Police say a Nevada man who lost his iPad on an airplane used an app called Find My iPad to locate it inside the Oregon home of a flight attendant. …The flight attendant for Horizon Air allegedly told officers that a passenger brought her the tablet saying it was found on a seat. She said she never used the iPad and planned to turn it over to airline officials, but police found some of her personal information on it including her husband’s birthday.
Talking Miles and Points on the Radio this Morning
I expect to be on Rudy Maxa’s World nationally syndicated radio program this morning around 10:18am Eastern time talking about how to handle miles and points in death and divorce (fun times!). In addition I’ll be talking these same topics on Rudy’s KFWB 980AM Los Angeles show around 12:30pm Eastern. Listen in if you’d like.
American’s Commitment to Elite Members: One Hour Delays Entitle Re-routing Even on Other Airlines or Refund
American’s operational challenges (i.e. pilots deciding to stick it to customers) have been garnering lots of media attention in recent days. They’ve just sent out an email under the signature of AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin that I much like. I’ll skip the boilerplate intro and then reproduce sections along with my commentary below: Prior to recent issues, American has been running an extremely good operation, with reliability measures at their best levels in many years. The recent delays are due to the increase in maintenance write-ups by our pilots, many right at the time of departure. Our maintenance teams are responding appropriately to such reports, which may cause interruptions in our schedules. I know you will agree that nothing is more important than running a safe and reliable operation. Ensuring the safety of our customers…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 21, 2012
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Lucky reports that British Airways Avios has stopped adding fuel surcharges to award redemptions on Air Berlin which flies New York, Miami, and Los Angeles to Berlin as well as Ft. Myers, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and Vancouver to Dusseldorf. Great cheap way across the Atlantic using British Airways points. Frequent Miler Highlights the MyVanilla Pin-based debit card that’s now available for online ordering. You can use this card instead of an American Express gift card to earn 5 miles per dollar on all of your spending. As a debit card, you can use it to pay taxes at a very small fee. As a pin-based debit card, you should be able to use it to purchase postal money orders (which you deposit in your…
