Here’s why having a lot of authorized users, and why making mid-cycle payments to a card, can look like fraud. And behaviors undertaken by bad actors look suspicious when they’re legitimately undertaken by the rest of us.
Airlines pushed passengers into a bring-your-own-screen world—then cut back the built-in hardware that makes watching comfortable. With laptops barely usable in many seats, travelers are inventing their own ergonomics: seat pockets, airsickness bags, Ziplocs, even hats turned into phone mounts. Here are the best (and worst) DIY setups—and what they say about economy flying today.
News and notes from around the interweb: Latvians arrested in Texas in $14 million gift card fraud. If you ever wondered why the cards you buy and load somehow have no value when you go to use them…? The thieves would then take the items to another location and carefully remove the packaging almost surgically. “The card is removed, and then the material on the back that covers up the numbers to transfer anything or activate the card is then removed so that they can see it,” said Colby. “The numbers that are on the card are then programmed into another program that the criminals are using, which will now monitor that card.” From there, the cards are reassembled to appear new, without scratches, and placed back onto store shelves for someone to buy. ”As…
Starting January 7, British Airways will stop serving a full English-style hot breakfast on its shortest business class routes out of London. Club Europe passengers will get fruit, yogurt, and pastry instead—another cost-cut that chips away at the one thing European business class usually still does well: catering.
A Pilates instructor on a 12-hour flight from Paris raised both legs straight up the cabin wall just to get through 10-plus hours in economy — and TikTok turned her stretch into a referendum on coach etiquette. Here’s what really happened on board, what she says about the flight, and where the line is between a harmless long-haul survival hack and going too far in a cramped cabin.
An American Airlines passenger says he was physically shoved twice—once before boarding and again after taking his seat on AA4586 from JFK to Indianapolis. He claims an FAA inspector onboard urged the crew to remove the aggressive traveler, but that American instead kicked off the man who reported it, leaving him stranded overnight at JFK with an $829 hotel bill and later flagged as “disruptive.”
A viral video shows a passenger collecting and stacking TSA bins after screening — and it’s reignited an airport etiquette fight. Some checkpoints expect you to bus your own tray, others tell passengers to leave them alone, and the germ factor makes the “helpful” move less appealing than it sounds.
That inflight coffee isn’t brewed from a kitchen faucet—it’s made with water drawn from an aircraft tank. A new analysis of three years of EPA aircraft-water records tallied 35,000+ test locations and graded airlines A to F: one carrier scored perfect, while American and JetBlue landed in D territory. Here’s what’s behind the grades, what the data can (and can’t) prove, and what you should take away before you order your next drink onboard.
Delta cancelled 689 flights in just three days, and the problem wasn’t lingering weather — it was a union-contract catch-22 that made last-minute pilot staffing break down. A chain of rules around automated trip offers and “auto-accept” windows created a timing trap: open trips piled up faster than schedulers could award them, and cancellations followed even as conditions normalized.
One traveler was spotted eating cole slaw with her hands straight out of a gallon Ziploc—yet this barely cracks the top ten of “things you see at airports.” Also in today’s roundup: an Executive Platinum’s burst-open bag that American waved off as “minor,” a cargo-hold nap (British Airways warned staff to stop using holds as bathrooms..), and a filthy long haul business class seat that has people asking whether anyone cleans these planes anymore.
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 »
