News and notes from around the interweb:
- American Airlines frequent flyer shocked by unexplained flight ban This Executive Platinum member’s ban seems to have only lasted a day.
When the ticket scanner turned red as Keith White tried to board his flight from Philadelphia to Dallas, he was surprised.
He’d checked in successfully online the night before, so he assumed it was a glitch, possibly related to his first-class upgrade. But the gate agents seemed flustered.
“Then he called the supervisor over, and she relayed that I have a travel block against me and that I could not board that flight. If I needed to get home, it had to be on a different carrier,” said White, remembering that day. “And she said, ‘Somebody will call you.’”
- Intoxicated Karen Tries To Board Delta Air Lines Flight With 5 Carry-on Bags, Ends Badly. A visibly intoxicated woman, determined to board a Delta Air Lines flight at at New York JFK Terminal 4 wound up in a confrontation with the gate agent. She appears to have attempted to force her way onto the flight by declaring, “I’m an American citizen!” But that’s not a shibboleth for getting on an airplane. She also appears to have had five carry-on bags. (HT: Live and Let’s Fly)
The woman became angry and launched into an extended tirade against the gate agent, repeatedly exclaiming, “I have to file a complaint over him!” And as things go louder, police were called, she was handcuffed, and she… continued her disruptive behavior.
- The Teamsters President is complaining about high credit card interest rates paid by his members – he wants President Trump to push for rate limits – while they’re the same rates charged by the Teamsters co-brand credit card marketed as a benefit to members. (HT: @crucker)
Teamsters president Sean O'Brien said, “You’ve got a lot of our members, our constituents, who are paying 28, 29% on credit cards that they’ll never be able to pay off.”
The Teamsters-branded credit card charges up to 27.49%.
And the union makes millions from it.
More in pic.twitter.com/WBxHHhqI4l
— Dominic Pino (@DominicJPino) February 4, 2025
- United Airlines looks to add gates at O’Hare as it revs up more growth
- Listen to me on the ‘No Show’ travel industry podcast.
- Over 900 people successfully earned 1 million SAS EuroBonus miles by flying at 15 least SkyTeam airlines. Most were new to the program. 92% of credited flights were in economy (otherwise the economics of buying tickets to earn the miles didn’t work). South Koreans were 30% of the success group, following by 14% from the U.S., 12% from Japan, and 9% from China. Oddly 6% were from North Korea but surely that can’t actually be possible?
Obviously a false positive on that “travel block.” Airlines should not be legally allowed to ban passengers. Air travel is an essential service and the freedom of movement is a human right.
If I’m ever banned from a flight, I’m dropping my pants – and a deuce – right then and there at the gate. Just as a heads up, my diet is high in fiber.
I wonder if he has the same name as someone who did something bad.
@Gary — That’s not a ‘gotcha’ against unions that the Mr. Pino thinks it is. Most co-branded cards have to rely on the financial institutions which charge those usurious rates. One of the few potential bi-partisan pieces of legislation this cycle is the cap on credit card interest rates at 10%, proposed by polar-opposites, Senators Sanders and Hawley. We’ll see how that goes.
How did someone get through TSA with five bags? Unless she purchased three of them after going through Security.
2025: People complain about high credit card interest rates.
2026: Congress imposes interest rate ceiling on credit cards.
2027: People complain they can’t get a credit card with less than an 800 credit score.
2028: Congress disallows use of credit scores in granting credit.
2029: U.S. banks, facing unprecedented consumer defaults, stop issuing credit cards.
2030: Chinese banks take over the credit card industry.
Geogre n Romey,
It’s not TSA responsibility to monitor how many bags people are carrying, it’s the gate agents and airlines responsibility
@Gary, thanks for sharing and doing the podcast – educational and entertaining. Particularly interested in the discussion of hotel reward programs. (PS I need this guy to do my introductions)
Re: AA – Scary, not being able to board and not knowing why 🙁
Re: ORD – Even more growth? ORD could really use some credit card lounges
When Koreans from South Korea joined SAS eurobonus program for the Million point bonus, some selected North Korea because it came up first for those who typed Korea. The flag difference is obvious, so not sure all of them were mistakes.
I ran into about a bunch of the South Koreans doing the 1 million point promo run. Met some in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, China and Spain. After Americans, they were the largest group I ran across doing this, even more than Scandinavians. Amusingly, I didn’t run into any million point promo runners in ICN.
The Scandinavian and American runner numbers are likely to rise disproportionately more than the Korean runner numbers at this point. SAS still has a backlog of million point runners’ missing flight credit claims to process.
I wonder if an American Airlines FA didn’t like him and tried to punish him?
The North Koreans were flying to earn currency for the government.
@Bill — ‘So, you’re tellin’ me, there’s a chance…YEAH!!’