A New Scam That Can Steal Thousands From Families While Passengers Are Inflight

by Gary Leff

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News notes from around the interweb:

  • The 5 annual elite qualifying nights from the World Of Hyatt Credit Card have posted to member accounts. This is an annual thing for existing cardmembers, of course if you get the card now or during the year you’ll receive the 5 nights as well.

    In addition every $5000 spent generates an additional 2 qualifying nights (you can earn Globalist status on spend alone) and $15,000 spent earns a category 1-4 free night award in addition to the points you earn for your spending (and in addition to the annual category 1-4 night you receive each year after card renewal).

  • Thread. New scary realistic scam, all the more likely to hit travelers that family members can’t get in touch with while they’re in the air. Be careful out there.

    A cop calls the passenger’s mother, says they’ve been in an accident while texting and driving. The person they hit is in critical condition, so the air passenger is being taken into custody. They transfer the call to the person’s ‘public defender’ who says the person traveling asked to keep it all quiet. They need $2800 for bail. And while up in the air they cannot be reached…

  • China Eastern has put angled flat seats on a Boeing 737 (HT: One Mile at a Time)

  • Air France KLM Infant Award Tickets Are Cheaper Than Most People Think I just booked a transatlantic flight on KLM and added a lap infant. The published fare for my route includes $1200 carrier-imposed surcharge (YR) and an additional $28 surcharge (YQ) however Flying Blue charged $403.80 in surcharges each for our roundtrip business class award tickets (plus $80.21 taxes). So not the full surcharges on awards.

    The infant fare though is what surprised me. Flying Blue charges 10% of a paid fare (plus taxes) for travel with an infant. But they do not add surcharges, even a percentage of surcharges, to infant tickets.

  • Denver airport is building 39 new gates a majority of which are going to United. Two new outdoor patios are being built.

    [N]ew outdoor spaces are being added to the end of each of the concourses.

    The A and C concourses will get one outdoor patio each, and B concourse will have one on both the east and west side, she said.

    The first one will be finished by the end of 2020 while the others will be done by the end of 2021.

    Williams said each will have views of the mountains or prairies, a pet relief area and fire pits.

  • The old sex toy in the carry on bag prank. (HT: Flyertalk)

    Sex toy in the luggage (his face tho) from r/youseeingthisshit

About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. I hope the extra B gates in Denver reduce the number of flights that get sent to A or C concourse…in my first two years of heavy flying with United I was 100% out of B gates and this past year I’ve had maybe 10-20% in different concourses. Screws up my mojo

  3. “A surprise,” Mike! Such as FBI agents who present them their “prize” of “tickets” to a years-long “vacation” in a Correctional Institution!

  4. We see that all the time here. IRS calls says they are going to arrest unless you pay. My 82 yr old mother told them to come arrest her, just make sure they use the handcuffs with the fur on it. Girl in my office got an email to send check to vendor from the owner. Got second email asking if it was sent out. She replied yes it is on your desk.

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