Looks like I’ll be on the Mary Starrett show on KPDQ (Portland, Oregon) at 2:30pm Pacific time to discuss Underperformin’ Normin and the Impeach Norm Mineta bumper sticker phenomenon.
About Gary Leff
Northwest has a new promotion
Northwest has a new promotion that can earn you up to 200,000 miles for your travel. It’s really geared to travelers paying higher fares, but there’s a few thousand miles here and there for the rest of us. Head off to the link, though, because it does require signup.
15 Minutes of Training: the
15 Minutes of Training: the TSA violates federal law? The Transportation Security Administration’s “elite” baggage screening team — which travels from airport to airport as the TSA takes over security — started work after only 15 minutes of training. They weren’t tested or certified on the equipment. This despite a requirement in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act which requires all “security screeners” have a minimum 40 hours classroom and 60 hours on-the-job training… which would be more than enough to learn to operate the machines, but probably not enough to learn to detect explosives. Mineta’s TSA is clearly not ready for primetime. They aim to deploy more than 50,000 federal passenger and baggage screeners and install thousands of luggage-screening machines at U.S. airports before year-end — screeners who are apparently less qualified than the…
Someone needs to
Someone needs to tell this to Norm Mineta.
Rental Car Discounts
More on discounted rental cars. First, do a search on Orbitz because it will do a fairly comprehensive survey of different companies and different types of cars quickly. This will ballpark a price for you that you will then want to beat. Then go to Avis.com. There are a few tricks to get better deals. First, as I’ve mentioned before, you can use the Amateur Sports Assistance Program discount (which works out to 20% most of the time for me, but sometimes as much as 50%). Just enter D002807 in the “Avis Worldwide Discount (AWD)” field. You get a discount, and Avis gives credits for free rental days to Olympic hopefuls. That’s the most useful standy code. However, some other useful ones to try are K753401 ($25/day on a compact car via British Airways —…
Discounted travel
A brief discourse on how to find the best travel deals. Sign up for the automatic fare notification services offered by Travelocity and Expedia. You tell them what cities to watch for, and they’ll email you when the price changes. Sometimes price changes only last for a few hours, so it’s nice to have someone else on the lookout for you. Also, when you look for one of the fares they’ve found, they’ll present you with a calendar of availability. That’s nice because an airfare is only good if you can get it — and these services will help you get it. Check for special airfare deals at Digital City. The link here is to the Washington, DC list — but you can go there and switch to another city. They track deals better than…
We’re closing in on 3000
We’re closing in on 3000 unique visitors today. We’re at 2900 with just over an hour and a half to go — but we’ve slowed down to 40 or so in the last hour. I think we’re just going to miss it. It’s sure been exciting to see all of you — hope you liked it, and that some of you will come back!
When United and
When United and USAirways announced their codeshare agreement, I said that there would be a change to the United-Delta relationship. Today, Continental and Northwest (which already codeshare) announced an agreement to also codeshare with Delta, effectively adding CO/NW and international partner KLM to Delta/Air France and the SkyTeam alliance.
The “security questions”
The “security questions” will end. Travelers won’t be asked whether they packed their bags themselves or whether the bags have been outside of their control. In 16 years, these questions have never foiled a terrorist. They’re silly, but they’re also non-intrusive. Let’s focus on the real problems that need reform!
As he swooped
As he swooped over the rich cotton fields beside the Brazos River in his crop-dusting plane last week, Sam Muse thought his biggest worry was whether he had enough insecticide aboard to finish spraying for boll weevils. THEN HE LANDED at a nearby airport and was handcuffed to await the Secret Service. Unbeknownst to him, he and his bright yellow airplane had flown into the middle of a 20-mile no-fly zone set up that morning to protect President Bush during an economic summit at nearby Baylor University. I didn’t have much sympathy for the aforementioned pilot who violated restricted airspace. I could see that it’s important to keep small planes away from the President. Then I read further in the article: The no-fly perimeter around the President’s Waco ranch ranges from 6 miles (when the…
