The Daily Mail reports on BA114. The British Airways 777 hit 745 miles per hour — BA’s call sign isn’t “speedbird” for nothing! What’s more, the flight was reported to have flown at speeds of 745mph relative to ground speed. The speed of sound at sea level is 761mph. Several flights are reported to have made the journey from New York to London yesterday in around five hours 20 minutes due to the 200mph North Atlantic jet stream. I’m not an expert on such things, but I believe that sound travels slower in air than at sea level. I’ve googled references to the speed of sound ‘on earth’ being 750 miles per hour. The Daily Mail claims that this Boeing 777 at 745 miles per hour exceeded the speed of sound. Perhaps knowledgeable readers can…
About Gary Leff
Review: Quay, Sydney’s Famed Restaurant Overlooking the Opera House
Must-read Earlier Installments: Singapore, Cathay, and Qantas First Class.. Some of the Best Meals of My Life, and a Tour of Hyatts in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sydney Inside the New Oneworld Lounge at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal Cathay Pacific First Class, Los Angeles – Hong Kong Cathay Pacific “The Wing” First Class Lounge, Hong Kong Cathay Pacific Business Class, Hong Kong – Bangkok Grand Hyatt Bangkok: Suite, Club Lounge, and Facilities Thai Molecular Gastronomy at Sra Bua in Bangkok Getting Custom Tailored Suits Made in Bangkok at Empire Tailors Nahm at the Metropolitan: the Best Thai Food in Thailand? Thailand’s Iron Chef Cooks Ancient Recipes in a Deserted Top Notch Restaurant Eating The Best Local Thai Dishes in the Bangrak Neighborhood of Bangkok Louis Tavern CIP Lounge and Cathay Pacific Business Class, Bangkok-Singapore Grand…
Don’t Mess Up The New Hyatt Promo By Making This One Simple Mistake
Hyatt revealed their new promotion for the first quarter. And while the offers are targeted and vary by member, on the whole they seem more lucrative than what Starwood and Marriott are offering. Nothing world-changing, but definitely worth registering for. Here’s the thing. You go to the promotion page. You’re required to enter your Gold Passport number, in order to be presented with the promotion. But you aren’t registered for it! Normally when you input your account number and click enter, you’re good to go. But Hyatt has inexplicably programmed an extra step. You enter your account number, click enter, and then have to enter your account number again (although it should be pre-filled in for you) and hit enter to register! I’d bet that Hyatt loses a lot of people at this last step,…
Eating… and Drinking (As One Does..) in Sydney
Must-read Earlier Installments: Singapore, Cathay, and Qantas First Class.. Some of the Best Meals of My Life, and a Tour of Hyatts in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sydney Inside the New Oneworld Lounge at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal Cathay Pacific First Class, Los Angeles – Hong Kong Cathay Pacific “The Wing” First Class Lounge, Hong Kong Cathay Pacific Business Class, Hong Kong – Bangkok Grand Hyatt Bangkok: Suite, Club Lounge, and Facilities Thai Molecular Gastronomy at Sra Bua in Bangkok Getting Custom Tailored Suits Made in Bangkok at Empire Tailors Nahm at the Metropolitan: the Best Thai Food in Thailand? Thailand’s Iron Chef Cooks Ancient Recipes in a Deserted Top Notch Restaurant Eating The Best Local Thai Dishes in the Bangrak Neighborhood of Bangkok Louis Tavern CIP Lounge and Cathay Pacific Business Class, Bangkok-Singapore Grand…
Hyatt’s New Promotion Details Finally Revealed, What Did You Get?
Hyatt teased us a month ago telling us there was going to be a new promotion coming for the first quarter of 2015 — but not telling us what it would be. Starwood’s promo was live. So was Marriott’s MegaBonus. And IHG’s. There’s been much electronic ink spilled in hermeneutical exegesis over what Hyatt’s hints would mean for the promotion. For instance, yesterday One Mile at a Time suggested that in saying the promotion would be ‘one of their best’ that they must really mean it. Now on one hand I don’t read too much into marketing hype, but at the same time saying that the promotion is “one of [their] best” is a pretty strong statement. .. If it were just the same type of promotion as in the past, I’d hope they wouldn’t…
United Copies American This Time With Big Premium Cabin Mileage Bonuses as a Stopgap Until They Go Revenue-Based
United is copying Delta’s revenue-based mileage earning for flights that started January 1, but it’s taking MileagePlus until March 1 to get it up and running. In the meantime, American isn’t going revenue-based. They’re keeping the principle that one mile equals one miles. Instead they’re competing for high revenue passengers by giving those flyers a ton of bonus miles. That leaves United with an interesting strategic gap. In January and February they give out far fewer miles to paid premium cabin customers than either Delta or American. (Meanwhile, of course, those miles are worth less also.) So they’ve decided to copy American this time for that two month period, and offer bonus miles for premium cabin flights between today and February 28. And their bonus chart looks a whole lot like American’s. No registration required.…
The Worst Credit Card in the World, How to Cheat Uber, and Get Great Awards Out of Delta
News and notes from around the interweb: The absolute worst credit card has a new contender, although I think that First Premier still holds on to the title. Ways that passengers are cheating Uber There’s been really good partner award availability using Delta miles First class is worth it. I think the author conflates domestic and international a bit, and is flying on someone else’s dime. What the piece is saying, though, is that premium cabins are better than coach — which hardly seems novel. And yet I see this article getting lots of praise and social sharing in my feeds. Extend the expiration of your Hertz points by 24 months for free. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email…
GREAT NEWS! Airlines Can’t Make The Flying Experience Worse Without Losing Customers
I learned a new industry term this week: “passenger burn” While ultimately air travel is frustrating and uncomfortable for many — with tight legroom and packed planes — because that is what consumers are willing to pay for, and they make decisions based on price it turns out that there are limits.
List of Rewards-Earning Debit Cards, the Scariest Way to Fix a 757, and Free Hotel Nights From Rite Aid Pharmacy
News and notes from around the interweb: List of rewards-earning debit cards Earn 2 nights at a Hyatt when you spend $250 at Rite Aid Airline sacrificed a pair of goats as part of repairs to a Boeing 757. This was apparently done several years ago by Nepal Airlines to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu god of sky protection. I have to imagine this procedure was not noted in the log book. 13 United flight attendants are seeking federal assistance from OSHA to get their jobs back. They were fired for refusing to work a flight – which eventually had to be cancelled – from San Francisco to Hong Kong that had this written on the aircraft: A Ryanair flight to London Stansted unloaded arriving passengers at a departure gate by mistake. Everyone had been…
Here’s How to Link Your American and US Airways Frequent Flyer Accounts
American and US Airways will combine frequent flyer programs in a few months. In preparation for that, they’ve made it possible for you to link your AAdvantage and Dividend Miles accounts so that when the programs combine you can be sure all of your miles go to the right place. This is all about helping American AAdvantage ensure the right accounts get linked, so there’s a smooth transition when the AAdvantage and Dividend Miles programs combine in the second quarter of the year. There are no bonus miles for doing this (as Delta/Northwest offered). You cannot move your miles back and forth between accounts (which America West/US Airways, Delta/Northwest, and United/Continental allowed). Linking accounts does not benefit elite status at this time. You want to do this so that you’re sure your elite status, status…
