Last night reader H. e-mailed that United was extending their old award chart by a few days, not yet implementing their newly devalued award chart pricing until February 3. Matthew is reporting the same thing: the new award chart doesn’t go into effect until Monday. We don’t know what time on Monday but my best guess is the beginning of the business day in Chicago. It’s possible, of course, that it could happen earlier. I can only imagine that they weren’t able to handle the IT and customer service functions related to the change properly and needed all hands on deck when they made the switchover — which in some sense is hard to believe because they announced the change three months ago and have had ample time to prepare, and they’ve certainly made award…
About Gary Leff
A TSA Screener In His Own Words (And What His Slang Means)
Politico has a piece by a former Chicago TSA screener. We learn what his day to day experiences were like, and what he thought of the job he was doing. And we get these gems: TSA Speak: “Code red” is “an attractive female passenger wearing red.” “Alfalfa” is “an attractive female passenger.” “Fanny Pack, Lane 2” means there’s “an attractive female passenger” “Xray Xray Xray!” means.. “an attractive female passenger” and “Yellow Alert” is code for… “attractive female passenger, yellow clothing.” On Profiling: Until 2010 (not long after the TSA standard operating procedure manual was accidentially leaked to the public), all TSA officers worked with a secret list printed on small slips of paper that many of us taped to the back of our TSA badges for easy reference: the Selectee Passport List. It consisted…
Up to 40,000 Miles for an Alaska Airlines Visa
Good offers for the Alaska Airlines Visa from Bank of America come and go. One that’s been around since last October is 40,000 miles — 25,000 on approval and 15,000 for spending $2000 every month for a year. That one is available for both the personal and business card. Now there’s another 40,000 mile offer — this time 25,000 on approval and 15,000 more for spending $10,000 on the card within 6 months. It’s marketed to Alaska Airlines elite members, but in the past I’ve not heard of difficulty with anyone applying and getting the offer regardless of their status in the Mileage Plan progrma. As per usual with this card (and with Bank of America cards generally) the annual fee is not waived the first year. The cards come with an annual $99 companion…
Are We About to See the End of Free Internet for Elites?
Last month Hilton removed the benefit promise of ‘high speed’ internet for elites from its terms and conditions. And now we know why. Hilton is going to introduce two-tiered internet access at its Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, and Home 2 Suites brands. Basic internet will be free, but high speed access will be ~ $3.95 a day. And elites will have to pay if they want higher tiered access. If this was going to be higher speed than currently offered, while maintaining current free offerings, that would be fine — pay more to get more than you already receive. But I’m skeptical, why invest in what’s free when failing to do so becomes a revenue opportunity? As a guest I need access to internet wherever I go, and I bring my own…
Hyatt Will Buy Your Drinks, Passengers Will Bite You, and Southwest Shanghais American (Bits ‘n Pieces for January 30, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Drunk passenger kicks another traveler in the testicles, bites flight attendant. In court the passenger claimed she “would have calmed down if the cabin crew had left her alone.” So I guess it was their fault. The head of Hyatt’s Gold Passport program is buying drinks for Milepoint members. You can even win a free trip to Chicago to join in. TopCashBack’s 3% rebate on Hyatt reservations is ending in 3 days. Turns out they’ll be bumping the rebate up to 4% for about a week. Southwest is the big winner in the concessions the Department of Justice wrangled out of the American-US Airways merger. Not only did they pick up slots at New York LaGuardia, but they’re going to get to add 27 flights at Washington National…
The First US Airways Plane Has Been Repainted American
The first US Airways plane (an Airbus A319) has been painted in the ‘new’ American Airlines paintjob. Their process takes 10 takes to paint a paint, removing the existing paint, sanding, power washing, sealing, painting, and doing final touch ups. They use 80 gallons of paint on an A319. One of the reasons for keeping the ‘new’ American paint job is that there were plenty of American planes that had already been rolled out with it — 212 total mainline and Eagle planes, with 350 to go. Repainting all planes rather than just the un-repainted American planes and the US Airways planes would have been even more expensive, and taken planes out of service for more time. That the airline chose the cheaper option led me to wonder whether it was ‘really’ left up to…
Getting the Most Out of an American Airlines Award: Ultimate Guide to AAdvantage Rules
Three years ago I wrote an extensive guide to booking US Airways tickets. US Airways miles have been so easy to get, and their rules so opaque, that the guide was useful for many folks in figuring out what they could accomplish ‘within the rules’ of the program. Of course US Airways is unique in that agents manually apply regions to awards for pricing purposes, and routings are validated manually. Combined with a general lack of geographic knowledge, it has been possible to accomplish almost anything with US Airways miles if you’re persistent enough. Routing an Australia-US award via South America and Europe? Check! We already know that as part of the merger between US Airways and American, that the combined program will be American AAdvantage. A few days ago it was announced that when…
Up to 20% Off Virgin America Flights
Virgin America is offerig up to 20% off of flights through April 3 using promo code SPRING20. Take 10% off Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday flights, and enjoy 20% off Tuesday and Wednesday departures. Book by Thursday to travel February 25 to April 3. This offer ends at 4:00AM PT on January 30, 2014. Travel must occur between February 25, 2014 and April 3, 2014. …Promo code is valid for non-refundable Main Cabin only. Promo code is valid for a 10% discount off the base fare for travel on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and 20% discount off the base fare for travel on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Promo code is not applicable for travel on Sundays. Additional blackout dates are 3/21/14 – 3/22/14 and 3/28/14 – 3/29/14. …Promo code may only be used for bookings…
Virgin Atlantic May Have The Worst Miles, But There Are 8 Great Ways You Can Use Them
Best use of Virgin Atlantic miles: Virgin Atlantic may have one of the worst frequent flyer programs in the world, at least compared to major world airlines as opposed to regional players (I mean, I’d take Virgin’s miles over Frontier’s for instance). Their award chart is expensive (many flights take a whole lot of miles compared to what other airlines charge for the same itinerary). They add fuel surcharges onto award tickets, so you play a lot of miles and cash They have partner airline awards, but many of those are roundtrip one (no one ways) and you can’t mix and match partner airlines on a single itinerary. Virgin Atlantic’s miles aren’t even the best for redeeming travel on… Virgin Atlantic. Delta will let you redeem for travel on Virgin, and if you begin your…
The Most Important Things to See, Do, Eat, and Know When Visiting Washington DC
Meagan tweets, Excited to head to DC this weekend. Do any travel bloggers have tips/tricks/places I need to know? Giving tourist advice about your home town can be hard, at least it is for me, I’m not a tourist in DC — I live here. I’ve shown visitors around, for sure, and set up tours of the Capitol and whatnot. But it’s also easy to let the attractions blend into the background. So I had to give this a little bit of thought. Go to the Spy Museum. Just go. The rest of the museums are great, the Smithsonian unfortunately only displays something like 1% of its collection. You can’t miss Air and Space, or Museum of Natural History. The Newseum is worth seeing, and the Holocaust Museum is important. Get your tickets for that…
