News and notes from around the interweb:
- Air France KLM Flying Blue can now book Garuda Indonesia first class awards
- Fraud crackdown at Air Canada Aeroplan a lot of accounts engaged in shenanigans seem to have had the plug pulled on them. Amex transfers into accounts whose names don’t match (!), and then using those points to book last minute business class tickets for other people, seems to be a huge flag.
For the past couple of months creation of new family sharing accounts has been suspended due to fraud.
- Customs officials seize giraffe poop at MSP airport; passenger wanted to turn it into a necklace
- U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: “A man is a man and a woman is a woman, that’s just common sense”
British Airways: “hold my pint.”
FFS-
British Airways new non binary uniforms: pic.twitter.com/2U6wVIDobC
— Patricia (@Patricia344130) October 5, 2023
- “Pet smuggled onboard in a handbag along with a rat runs free on flight from Bangkok, with aircrew bitten as terrified flyers cower on seats”
- China Eastern plans to fly to 3 Delta hubs Seattle, Boston, and Atlanta. The Seattle flight is one Delta already operates, so unless Delta plans to leave the market then this can’t be good for the Atlanta-based carrier (too much capacity).
Delta owns a stake in China Eastern, and had huge plans for Shanghai, but those have been backburnered and Delta has been building its partnership (where it has a joint venture) with Korean for Asia connections.
Non binary, what a fraud of a term. 99.99999% of the population is binary, Everyone who calls themselves that is just in denial of reality and mentally ill. Finally politicians are waking up to the fact that the VAST majority of people disagree with far left woke delusional nonsense.
Has anyone gone to the Twitter feed on this post? It’s hysterically funny. More comments about the person who has the ability to stand on one leg and serve drinks during turbulence than anything else.
Gary not sure that BA photo is real
Good on Mark Nasr and “CO Insider” for cracking down on the fraud
Gary – any insight on Delta blocking awards on China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines? If/when it will be restored? This has been going on for months, at least, I think stretching into last year. Air France shows awards so they do exist.
Delta agents, as usual, blame the other airline. One partner ticketing desk agent that seemed good listed the airlines Delta currently can long sell and China Eastern is off that. That is blanket all flights not getting results on Delta, not like the selective routes blocking you see Delta do with other partners. China Southern and Xiamen Airlines awards do show up so also not a blanket China thing.
As I am based on Seattle, I am happy to see China Eastern fill some of the gap left by Hainan Airlines and Xiamen Airlines not returning. Would also like to see China Airlines add service along with Starlux announced to be coming. Delta is so diminished in Asia that it would be nice though out of character for Delta to play nice with more of its erstwhile partners.
China Airlines can neatly approximate the Northwest footprint that Delta let wither and then abandoned. All those Filipinos and Vietnamese we saw transiting Taipei last month on China Airlines we used to see with us transiting Tokyo Narita on their Northwest connections. Lately Delta has been making some effort at Tokyo Haneda connections to Vietnam Airlines with signage and Vietnamese announcements in Seattle and dedicated transit staff and signage off the plane in Haneda.
I am not much in the market for TPAC revenue tickets these days and the JV with KE is nearly useless for award tickets except some intra-Asia.
Delta does seem to have addressed the phantom Korean Air award space issue that had been running for over a year. I’ve recently seen and been able to book intra-Asia awards.
@ Gary — Very glad to see this crackdown by Air Canada.
“British Airways new non binary uniforms:..”
Pass the puke bag, Alice.
Having never scored an award tix using Aeroplan am impressed some not only can but allegedly use it as a vehicle for fraud!
@ Mantis @ Woofie — Why does nonbinary thing bother you so? Let people be themselves and don’t worry about it. I doesn’t affect you.
@Gene bigots gonna bigot
@Mantis: If 99.99999% of the population is binary, that means only around 350 people in the entire United States are non-binary. Why would you get so worked up over something that, by your own numbers, affects so few people?
Air Canada inspired by AF-KL or relying upon the same people and/or “anti-fraud” ideas to benefit the company at the expense of even ordinary consumers honestly playing the frequent flyer program game? Wouldn’t be a surprise if so.
BA needs to track down this jokester and sue them for defamation. We know it must be fake since no one is that dumb.
As a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, I recall having friends who don’t fit neatly into the two made up categories of being male or female. It’s great that one can now choose to be neither.