News and notes from around the interweb:
- AT&T customer gets $19,500 roaming bill for two days of accidental data use (HT: Paul H) AT&T wouldn’t adjust the charge:
An AT&T customer traveling internationally racked up $19,500 in data charges over two days — roughly $110 per minute, or $6,500 per hour. According to a post on Reddit’s r/ATT forum, the customer had removed AT&T’s $12-per-day International Day Pass before the trip, planning to use local SIMs and wifi instead. But they left their AT&T eSIM active for the first day after landing. By the time they noticed, one line had hit $18,600, and the other was suspended after crossing $1,000.
AT&T charges $2,000 per gigabyte for international data without the Day Pass. The customer calculated they were billed $900 for every eight minutes of use.
- Maybe this is why United’s business class catering is so bad – CEO Scott Kirby doesn’t eat the food.
Kirby skips his own catering
byu/Puzzleheaded_Wear472 inunitedairlines - Wyndham status matches are back with easy terms
- United Airlines serving 2019 The Mascot Cabernet Sauvignon in business class Quite the prestige bottle for an airline that now has one of the best business class wine programs in the world. With this bottle, One Mile at a Time writes “move over Emirates.”
Honestly, though, this cab seems likely to come across drier and more astringent than it does on the ground. Low humidity in the pressurized cabin is going to suppress the aroma, which makes the tannins and acidity seem more prominent. That makes a big, tannic red a risky choice. I’d serve this cooler than room temperature to keep the alcohol from standing out so much. Still, pair this with United’s fatty beef and it could be quite nice.
- Hotels and ICE. What act are we on now?
BREAKING: An independently owned Marriott hotel in Bloomington, MN confirms to @FoxNews they have ID'd & fired an employee who doxxed ICE agents by leaking their names, emails, and surveillance images of them as they checked in at the front desk. The images appeared in an… pic.twitter.com/SgsFMEOtN3
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 8, 2026
- Clean. Your. Planes.
Wow. This @AmericanAir plane is pretty disgusting. Looks like a lot of spillage over a long period of time that hasn’t ever been cleaned. This is flight 1429, DFW > FLL. Tail number N903AA. pic.twitter.com/EfJKxah7oE
— Damon Vinci (@23XIsquirrel) January 10, 2026
- New Bilt card designs.
On the BILT sleuthing, shout-out to @sullim4, who’s the new G.O.A.T. on Reddit and at DoC. Designs actually look nice. The product changes are still trash, but, heh, nice-lookin’ cards…
I expect AT&T to advertise, “Save $19,500 on international data roaming fees when you buy the AT&T international $12 day pass. Choose AT&T for the best deals on America’s fastest and most reliable network.”
I used to have a AT&T cellphone account. It was the one that cost the most yearly so I dumped it several years ago. I don’t miss it one bit. The customer service was the most difficult to deal with. My fiber service is still with AT&T and that is ok.
Getting a local sim is usually pretty easy in the foreign airports I have been in. It should have been a top priority for the AT&T customer. Of course, with a T-Mobile account instead, they may have had a better result.
That’s the reason I switched out of AT&T. Was going to do extended International travel, and ATT wanted $xx/day per phone (x4 people) for their ‘international plan’ which would be charged for the entire extended trip and didn’t even include everything! This was years ago. Switched to T-mobile which has free data in 258(?) countries for slower speeds. T-mobile also pushes a daily international plan for higher speed service, but I don’t need that. Haven’t looked back since, and don’t need to deal with e-sims or hotspots.