There’s a reason that I use a Yahoo email address here on my blog, an email account that I don’t download to Outlook on my laptop. Instead, I usually check it twice a day for reader emails and comments. So I apologize that I’m not always quick on the draw with my replies. The reason isn’t that I need to focus on work, although I do, so I shouldn’t always be paying attention to your questions and needs during my business day… Rather it’s because once you put an email address up on a blog, you get on lists. PR firm lists. And you get pitches. A lot of pitches. Some of them are better than others, which is to say they’re at least customized to the blog. They might reflect some understanding of what…
About Gary Leff
Studying at 36,000 Feet for the Mile High Club
Long-haul flights can be tedious, but they’re also a great opportunity for uninterrupted education, at least if the multimedia offerings can hold your interest. On Qantas, apparently, the video on demand system allows you to learn improved sex techniques (HT: Sam S.) A documentary about the female orgasm is now available for viewing on all of the carrier’s international flights, reports news.com.au. The French film, “The Female Orgasm Explained,” seeks to show the intricacies of the female orgasm and features old pornos, graphics and sound effects. According to a Qantas spokesperson, the documentary is the most popular selection on in-flight channel The Edge… Apparently flight attendants can block this from the inflight entertainment systems of unaccompanied minors. I understand that Cathay Pacific offers similar instruction, albeit not through their CX World entertainment system.
Friday Links Around the Blogs: View from the Wing Reads Everyone Else So You Don’t Have To
Lots of credit card deals, American Express getting aggressive, deals to take advantage of you may not have known about. And a couple of imbecilic stories – from passenger and from the TSA: 10,000 American Express Membership Rewards points per month, for every month you make at least 15 transactions on the card. Possible 50,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points for Adding Authorized Users to Your Account TSA Agents Can Now Use Their Judgment to Decide Who is Really a Pilot, and Who Needs to Be Screened Ugh, I think I was on this flight 75,000 mile signup bonuses for new Citibank American Airlines credit cards still work. Meanwhile, Some people are still getting 75,000 signup points for the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card.
Rumored Drastic Changes to United-Continental Frequent Flyer Program
Lucky passes on some pretty specific speculation about the combined United-Continental frequent flyer program for next year. I’ll quote substantially from his post, and though while I don’t claim to be entirely in the know on this my understanding has been that the details of next year’s program aren’t final or fully decided and wouldn’t be until after Labor Day — so this may not be completely right. Although it certainly resonated with some things I’ve heard about in terms of the direction they’re going. Let’s start with the good news (and trust me, there’s not a whole lot of it for most of us). Class of service bonuses: Class of service bonuses for full fare tickets and paid premium cabin tickets will go up substantially, ranging anywhere from 125% for Y, B, and M…
Status of the 83,000 Mile AAdvantage Shopping Mall Offer?
Over on Milepoint a member named Cartera Commerce appeared to take responsibility for running the AAdvantage Shopping Mall and claims they’re not liable for providing any miles. Attention AAdvantage eShopping(SM) customers: Cartera Commerce, Inc., operator of the AAdvantage eShopping mall, displayed an incorrect offer for certain products available through Verizon Wireless on the AAdvantage eShopping mall website on Tuesday, August 10, 2011. The incorrect offer of 83,871 AAdvantage® miles for online purchases of certain Verizon wireless accessories was the result of a Cartera system error. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Due to Verizon’s Terms & Conditions, which reward American Airlines AAdvantage miles on service plans only, Cartera is relieved of awarding AAdvantage miles for shoppers who clicked on the offer and purchased Verizon Wireless accessories online. The specific Verizon Wireless AAdvantage…
Can You Really Trust Online Mileage Mall Shopping Portals? Or the Biggest Mileage Bonanza Ever, Gone Awry
Randy Petersen posed an interesting question on Milepoint two evenings ago, Recently an offer provided through the US Airways Dividend Miles Mileage Mall featuring EasyCGI was found to have had some fulfillment problems and a recent statement from EasyCGI that “EasyCGI has never approved or gave permission to be a part of frequent flyer mile program.” seems to be leading to confusion as to if this offer was legitimate or not. If you have any experience with this offer, we’d love to hear from you. Looking for members whose miles have posted, members whose miles have not posted and more importantly, members who have actually been able to enroll in the services provided by EasyCGI so that officials of these organizations can track down exactly what happened. Wow, frequent flyer miles don’t usually generate mystery…
El Al Matmid Club Free Signup Plus 30 Points for Joining
Kosher Kouponz is offering $25 signup fee waived for joining the El Al Matmid frequent flyer program. Signup also comes with 30 free points. Now, odds are that if joining El Al’s program will be useful to you, you’ve already done so. If you’re going to fly them and want to upgrade, for instance, you want to be a member. Most Americans will redeem for El Al travel via American Airlines AAdvantage. But if you’ve ever considered joining, it’s worth not paying the joining fee. And signing up lets you search for El Al award availability online so you know what flights are available before ringing up AAdvantage, say if you don’t have an Expertflyer account in order to accomplish the same thing. (Via Dan’s Deals.)
Which Airline and Third Party Booking Websites are Most Popular? Some Surprises..
Via @Expertflyer, Tnooz has data on the most visited travel websites. Pretty interesting findings, some a bit unexpected at least by me. Rank Website % of Visits 1 Expedia 13.35% 2 priceline.com 10.51% 3 Orbitz 6.87% 4 Yahoo! Travel 6.11% 5 Hotwire 6.02% 6 Travelocity 6.01% 7 CheapOair 4.71% 8 Kayak 4.28% 9 bookingbuddy 3.13% 10 Cheap Tickets 2.97% Expedia makes the most sense. I find its booking interface to be the friendliest and easiest to use. Transactions there are just simple in my overall experience, at least compared to other travel website. Orbitz is far more powerful for cosntructing bookings segment-by-segment across multiple airlines, but it’s slower and the buying process more…
83,000 American Airlines Miles for $5?
The AAdvantage shopping mall currently shows 83,871 American Airlines miles for buying a $59.99 MOTOROKR S305 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones from the Verizon Wireless store. It’s the fourth item in this list. I think the offer is supposed to be 2 miles per dollar spent, and I don’t have an interest in these headphones at $60, but I’ve gone ahead and purchased one anyway. If they’re offering almost 84,000 American Airlines miles at $60, I’m certainly in. I’ve made screen shots and .pdfs of the offer for myself. I’ve made the purchase via American Express, which I’ve had good luck in purchase disputes when needed in the past. I recognize that the Verizon Wireless store has a tough return policy (14 day, I believe there’s also a $35 re-stocking fee). In the end, I’m not being…
Post-mortem on Airline Ticket Taxes and Why Airlines Raised Price to Compensate
In some of my coverage of the suspension of airline excise taxes I explained why no one should have been surprised that most airlines raised their fares to offset tax savings during the time that the FAA lacked re-authorization (and thus the authority to collect these taxes). I tried to give a simple explanation of ‘tax incidence’ which some commenters found useful, but the majority of writing on the topic was filled with outrage that the airlines would pocket the money rather than passing on the savings to consumers. I wasn’t outraged because I wasn’t surprised, and because this is exactly what the economics would have predicted would happen. Matt Mitchell from the Mercatus Center put together a short video illustrating the economics, that when supply is inelastic, producers bear the primary burden of a…
