Laundering points through Amtrak. Need to top off your United Mileage Plus account? Did you know you can transfer Continental and Midwest Express miles into United miles, 1:1? They don’t advertise it this way, but here’s how it works. Open an Amtrak Guest Rewards account. You can transfer Midwest Express miles and Continental miles into your Amtrak account. You can then transfer these Amtrak points into United miles. This all should be done in 5000 point increments. You can also transfer Continental —> Amtrak –> Midwest Express. However, you can not transfer United –> Amtrak, so you can’t turn your United miles into Continental or Midwest Express miles. Now is a good time to get rid of any Midwest Express miles you may have. Starting October 1, it will take 25% more miles for a…
About Gary Leff
A way around the new
A way around the new restrictions. USAirways, Continental, and American have all announced a change that says unused nonrefundable tickets don’t retain any value. You can make a change (while paying a $100 change fee, naturally) before you fly .. but if you don’t know what your plans will be, you lose. Here’s a workaround that will work on USAirways and Continental (but not American, because of a quirk in their rules). If your original ticket cost $500 and you decide to not to go, the rules say you’ve lost $500 — or you can make a change before your first flight leaves. Here’s what to do: find a refundable/unrestricted fare to anywhere that’s $400. Apply the full value of your restricted ticket to the new unrestricted ticket ($500 minus $100 change fee = $400).…
A new term has been
A new term has been coined for the over-intrusive “random” searches subjected to passengers about to board: Gate Rape.
Earn triple
Earn triple Alaska Airlines miles with Thrifty car rentals.
Will Wilkinson offers
Will Wilkinson offers a nice takedown of the anti-cloning arguments in the summer 2002 issue of Doublethink.
Shopkeeper, 82, chases
Shopkeeper, 82, chases off armed robber by grabbing the robber’s crotch.
The TSA approach to security
The TSA approach to security — search everyone in long lines, keep weapons out (even though weapons make it through quite often) is the wrong approach to air security. This incident of an attempted strangling of a flight attendant with shoelaces shows that almost anything can be used as a weapon. Air marshalls aren’t the answer. Why exactly don’t we want to arm pilots?
Rain man was
Rain man was right: Qantas never crashed. Of course, even though their pilots like to throw back a couple every now and then, America West never crashed either.
Continental matches American
Continental matches American and USAirways with a “use it or lose it” policy for nonrefundable tickets. No more blowing off a flight and just applying the value of the ticket to a new purchase later.
Boob-licking scam “busted.”
Boob-licking scam “busted.”
