Several days ago I woke up a little after 6am at the Sheraton Macao Hotel (full trip report to come) and decided to order up coffee from room service. They explained that I could tell them how many cups of coffee I wanted, and that’s what they would fill the pot to. So I asked for 6 cups. A short while later room service delivered the coffee. It seemed awfully light for 6 cups. I poured two cups, and the pot felt nearly empty. So I called back down to in room dining. The same person I ordered from answered, and she remembered that I had ordered 6 cups. She said she’d send up 4 more cups right away. So at 6:30am there’s a knock on the door, and the man who delivered the first…
About Gary Leff
Your Air Traffic Controller May No Longer Be Required to Have a High School Diploma
The FAA has considered itself to be highly budget-constrained for years, and in 1997 found a way to reduce its training costs — encouraging college air traffic control programs so that they could hire new controllers that were effectively already trained. There’s a wait list of over 3000 air traffic control college graduates in line for FAA positions. The FAA is killing off that wait list and, according to transportation researcher Bob Poole in the February Air Traffic Control Reform News will be announcing plans to ‘hire off the street’ with a requirement only of a high school degree or three years of work experience. This is apparently a move driven by the FAA’s HR department to improve diversity. But it would mean less qualified candidates, it would mean higher training costs, and it would…
Air New Zealand’s New Swimsuit Model Safety Video
Air New Zealand debuts a new safety video on February 11, marking 40 years of flying to the Cook Islands. And it’s a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit safety video, “Safety in Paradise” Here’s ‘the making of,’ in anticipation of the safety video’s release: (HT: Point Me to the Plane) You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Fantastic First Class Award Availability on TAM to Brazil (Bookable With Points from United, American, US Airways, Amex, Chase)
Brazilian airline TAM has pretty much never released first class award space, occasionally I saw seats when they first joined Star Alliance but more or less not at all since then. So it was a surprise to see reports that the floodgates had opened. First class seats are now (either by change in policy or mistake, and I cannot say how long this circumstance will last) being released in droves. They fly from New York JFK, Miami, Orlando and Mexico City to São Paulo. They also fly from New York JFK and Miami to Rio de Janeiro, but that’s with a 767 that doesn’t offer first class. Their 777s offer a new first class product with just one row of 4 seats. Some flights are on A330s with an older first class product. Here’s current…
Spirit Airlines Wants You to Pay More for Your Ticket on the Day of Departure if the Price of Fuel Rises
I love that Spirit Airlines exists. They serve a different market niche than I find myself in. Air Asia uses the slogan, “Now Everyone Can Fly!” and Spirit is very much in that same mold. I don’t like their miles. I love their advertising. But at root I can appreciate that if their route network serves you and you can navigate their myriad fees, you can often fly cheaper than any other alternative. And they do seem really transparent about their fees if you book on their website. It’s bookings through third party sites that can lead to confusion, where folks may not know what they’re getting into. That’s the key, and don’t book Spirit if you don’t want the product Spirit offers. The AP’s Scott Mayerowitz spends time playing board games in the home…
The Mile High Club is 98 Years Old – And It’s Come a Long Way!
Back in December, The Atlantic ran a piece on the history of the Mile High Club. Apparently Lawrence Burst Sperry, inventor of the autopilot, was the first to join. [I]n late November 1916, while piloting a Curtiss Flying Boat C‑2 some 500 feet above the coast of Long Island, he used his instrument to administer a novel kind of flying lesson to one Cynthia Polk (whose husband was driving an ambulance in war-torn France). During their airborne antics, however, the two unwittingly managed to bump and disengage the autopilot, sending their plane into Great South Bay, where they were rescued, both stark naked, by duck hunters. Surveys suggest that women fantasize about having sex on the beach while a third of men want to have sex on a plane. It’s this disconnect that makes me…
Etihad Reneges on Their Big Bonus, Changes Promotion Terms After Tickets Purchased
Etihad Guest came out with a really lucrative offer that had folks considering flying to the Middle East and taking their flights, just to earn the miles. It was that good. The original offer was 25,000 miles for any online booking. A one-way flight within the Middle East, that you could buy for ~ US$130, would earn 25,000 miles. And you could do as many as eight short one-ways per day. The terms and conditions didn’t restrict who could participate in the promotion. They didn’t require roundtrips. They didn’t limit the number of miles you could earn. A literally reading of the terms didn’t even seem to suggest you had to fly as long as you didn’t cancel your tickets. But the terms seemed too vague, too unrestricted, and being a Middle Eastern carrier that…
Indian Visas Will No Longer Require Self-Immolation, the Amazing Bath Amenities Race, and What Joe Biden Thinks of Airports (Bits ‘n Pieces for February 8, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Be careful — if you select miles as your earning option with Club Carlson, they’ll convert your entire points balance as well. Turkey is going to eliminate visa on arrival for tourism and trade and begin requiring e-visa in advance, supposedly making the transition in April. India is going to eliminate visa via bloodletting, oath-swearing, and physical challenge and replace it with electronic travel authorization in 5-6 months, and covering several Indian airport arrivals. But since it’s India, I would anticipate “5 to 6 months” to mean something longer. Joe Biden hates LaGuardia .. but thinks cool airports like in Hong Kong make you think you’re in the U.S. which tells me he has no sense of how large capital infrastructure projects work, and I suspect if he…
How to Earn Miles When You Dine Out at Restaurants
Rewards Network is the company that provides branded mileage-earning dining programs in conjunction with major frequent flyer programs like United MileagePlus, American AAdvantage, and Delta Skymiles. I’ll always call them iDine, it former name, and the predecessor to that was Transmedia — the old program where you paid to sign up and had a membership card which you needed to present at restaurants for a cash discount. When I first started earning with them in the mid-1990s, United’s program was only open to their elite frequent flyers. I used to rack up miles by choosing to schedule reimbursable business meals at participating restaurants, and steering groups of friends towards those restaurants — where everyone would kick in cash and I’d earn miles for the total bill that I’d put on my credit card. Standard earning…
Frequent Traveler University – Nearly 90% Sold Out
I wrote about the upcoming Frequent Traveler University event in mid-December. It will be held in Seattle, starting the evening of Friday April 25th and running through the afternoon of Sunday, April 27th. Tickets are on sale Hotel is available for booking Here’s where to discuss the event with fellow attendees We’re capping the size of the event this time, after having ~ 650 people in Washington DC in April and a much more managable group in Tampa in September. 400 people seems just a better size for having a chance to get to know people, networking and sharing tips with each other, and building community beyond just listening to speakers. That said, the speakers will be great. I already shared that we would have Lucky from One Mile at a Time, Greg from Frequent…
