Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for December 2017.

Four Online Shopping Bonuses, Four Thousand Miles

by Gary Leff

Dec 11 2017

I do as much of my shopping online as possible to earn shopping portal bonuses, you go online and click a link to a store to earn a rebate for the purchases you’ll make anyway. There are other ways to do this of course, for instance the MileagePlus X app lets you earn United miles for in-store purchases at participating merchants. But online is generally best.

Several times during the year however there will be bonuses that each of the major shopping portal offers. Want to know why they all have similar offers around the same time? Here’s some of the inner workings of mileage-earning shopping portals.

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UK’s Total Capitulation on Brexit Deal Saves British Airways

by Gary Leff

Dec 11 2017

Pro-Brexit forces in the UK have nearly completely folded in coming up with a transition deal.

The ‘win’ was saying they’d leave the EU, but in practice it won’t happen for many years (and the transition period could always get extended) while in the meantime they’re going to pay the EU, subject themselves to European regulation, and get a trade agreement.

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United and American Discounting Their Miles Through End of Year

by Gary Leff

airline seat
Dec 10 2017

We used to think of miles as worth 2 cents apiece. That was a simplistic calculation, 25,000 miles paid for a $500 domestic ticket more or less. The truth is miles with several airlines used to be worth far more than 2 cents apiece. They’d sell you miles for 3.5 cents, and credit card signup bonuses were commonly 5000 miles (if anything at all).

Airlines have so devalued their miles that most aren’t worth anywhere close to 2 cents anymore, although the specific value of each currency varies. As a result, in order to get the same juice in consumer behavior as because, it’s necessary to…

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Government Withdraws Plan to Regulate What You See When You Search for Airfare

by Gary Leff

Dec 10 2017

In January the Department of Transportation published a ‘supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking’ on their existing rulemaking docket from 2014 regarding transparency of ancillary fees.

DOT proposed to that fees for first and second checked bag and carry on bag be disclosed “wherever fare and schedule information is provided to consumers” and this would have to be provided “at the first point in a search process where a fare is listed in connection with a specific flight itinerary, adjacent to the fare.”

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Woman Kicked Off Flight for Breastfeeding Her Crying 2 Year Old

by Gary Leff

spirit plane
Dec 10 2017

A woman traveling with her elderly parents and her two year old was kicked off a Spirit Airlines flight. Spirit says it’s for failing to follow crewmember instructions. But the crux of the matter is what were those crewmember instructions.

Since it was Spirit Airlines, the flight was delayed. She “unbuckled her child and began breastfeeding since the plane was still boarding” and her son was hungry.

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