News and notes from around the interweb: Peeling back the onion on manufactured spending secret societies. Fascinating read. 50% off IHG Rewards redemptions in Mexico and the Caribbean for September and October stays. Book by September 6. Over 500 TSA screeners have been fired for stealing from passenger luggage. And it ain’t easy to actually get fired from the TSA. This has been a problem since they beginning, but a crackdown started only 2 years ago. And the TSA thinks they get blamed when it’s really others doing more of the stealing. Atlantic City is going bust if it can’t break the gambling habit. Instead the city just gets worse and worse. Behind the scenes of inflight entertainment censorship. (HT: The Forward Cabin) You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis…
About Gary Leff
Badges? Badges? We Definitely Don’t Need Marriott’s Stinking Badges!
Marriott has been trying to get ramped up and invest in social. They rolled out Plus Points in May which they then quickly devalued. Now they’re out with social media badges that earn points. Very, very few points that it’s almost silly. You have to log into your Marriott account and then register. You get your first badge which is your elite status. This gets you nothing. When you stay twice at a given brand you earn 25 points. Marriott points are an inflated currency… Staying at a bunch of brands earns points — 5 brands for 50 points, 10 brands another 75 points, and all of 250 points if you stay at all of Marriott’s participating brands. The more nights you stay the more points you earn. Big whoop. 25 points for 100 nights…
Pilot’s Arm Falls Off, Lands Plane On His Own Anyway
He probably couldn’t join passengers in clapping for this landing. A pilot flying a Flybe plane with 47 passengers aboard learned an important lesson on a flight to Northern Ireland: always make sure your arm is attached before landing. An unnamed 46-year-old pilot was landing a Dash 8 plane at Belfast City Airport in gusty weather conditions when his lower left arm prosethetic became detached from its yoke clamp and he lost control… According to the BBC, Shortly before beginning to land the Dash 8 aircraft, the 46-year-old had checked that his prosthetic lower left arm was securely attached to the clamp that he used to fly the aircraft, with the latching device in place. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said the captain had disconnected the autopilot and was manually flying the aircraft.…
ANA is Making Some of its Fantastic First Class Available for Awards in Advance
ANA’s first class service between the US and Tokyo is tough, tough, tough to get. Through the first half of the last decade it was easy, but back then there were 12 first class seats per plane. Then they went to 8 and it became nearly non-existent. Things thawed a bit 2008 – 2011 .. with space offered both within a week or two of flight and also far in advance for the winter months. Outside of those two periods, nothing. And more recently they stopped even opening up seats during the winter months. But right now there is a ton of award space in first class for one passenger booked far in advance, including over the summer months. And there are even a handful of sporadic days where you’ll find two first class seats…
Award Space Wide Open: Take Your Whole Family to Asia in Business or First!
Star Alliance member Air China often has very good premium cabin award space from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston to Beiing. Air China rarely ever has much premium cabin award space from New York (or Washington Dulles) to Beijing. That’s changed, and award space on their flights — with a new, very good product — is so good that it has to be a mistake and cannot last. Starting in December you can find award space in a premium cabin almost every day. There are plenty of dates where first class is wide open — not just two seats but four or six. And there are even a handful of dates where eight business class seats are available. Air China has two daily flights. Here’s a day where I was searching for four seats:…
Which Frequent Flyer Programs Are the Most Generous In Offering Bonuses?
Frequent Flyer Bonuses has crunched some numbers and put together the airline programs which offer the most bonuses. Now, they say this ranks the most generous programs overall: We’re often asked, which is the best airline or hotel program for value? And while there are many variables to weigh and consider when answering that question, one common theme has emerged as a key differentiator; frequency of bonus offers. In fact, it doesn’t even rank which programs have the most generous promotions. It only lists which programs have the most bonuses. Nonetheless, that in itself is interesting. For instance, in the run-up to a revenue-based program Delta virtually exited the promotions game entirely. In 2013 I really only remember seeing them match others with big bonuses for premium cabin travel to and from London Heathrow, and…
Here’s When You’re Protected Traveling on Two Separate Tickets
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve written about this, and I actually forgot I had done so. But I was warning someone about the risks of booking two separate tickets — that they needed lots of extra connecting time, that they needed to have a backup flight if the first one was cancelled — and that reminded me the advice isn’t always true. If you’re going to take a once-daily international flight, and it’s important not to miss it, but maybe you need to buy a separate ticket in order to get to the international gateway city there’s always a risk. Maybe your first flight gets cancelled. What do you do? I run into this myself. Often when booking an award ticket I need to buy positioning flights. Not everything may be available…
Delta’s New Lounge Food and the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
Delta is pretty clearly running the best all-around airline these days. Not in every dimension of course, the Skymiles program is poor compared to competitors (though it isn’t the worst). Even United’s miles are better which is saying something. But the airline itself — reliable operation, (relative) quality product, and profitability — is performing well. In fact, they might even be some reasonable percentage close to as good as they think they are.
Your Upgraded Flight Gets Cancelled? Keep Your Business Class Seat!
Often times upgrades are at the ‘bottom of the barrel’ — I’ve certainly been told “sorry” before when I have a confirmed upgrade on a flight that gets cancelled and the airline is offering me options for re-accommodation. They’ll happily put me on another flight, in the class of service that I paid for on my original ticket, but I can kiss my upgrade goodbye. There’s a several years old policy at American, though, that I was just reminded of and that’s detailed at TravelingBetter.com. Upgraded tickets that encounter a schedule irregularity may be protected into the upgraded cabin on any of our oneworld partners. If your flight, for instance, from DC to New York to catch American’s onward service to London gets cancelled, your upgrade on New York JFK – London can be protected…
Marriott Really Disappoints With Their New MegaBonus Promotion
Yesterday I wrote that Marriott’s perennial MegaBonus promotion would be back. Based on past experience, here’s what I expected: This is usually, for most members, ‘two stays earns a free night’ which: Can be earned up to two times And redeemed for stays at any participating Marriott property up to category 4. Some people get targeted for redemptions up to category 5. Others get targeted for bonus point offers. Bonus point offers may be something like: Stay 25 nights during the promotion period and earn 45,000 points Stay 20 nights during the promotion period and earn 35,000 points Earn double points after your second stay up to 25,000 points Only MegaBonus is here and it’s worse than usual. Here’s the offer, or at least the default offer shown without logging in: To earn up to…
