A Boeing employee won a Powerball lottery jackpot for $754.6 million. She bought the ticket when she saw the jackpot had reached 747 million because, 747, and it was the week Boeing had just delivered its last 747.
Big merchants like accepting credit cards, because it’s a convenient way for consumers to pay, and puts money right in their bank accounts. But that comes at a cost, which they’d rather not pay. They want the government to legally require banks and payment networks to provide their services for less.
Retailers don’t want to come out and say this, of course, so they cloak their argument in doing good… for the poor, whom they claim are the ones paying credit card fees. And they claim that rewards cards, which bring in bigger spenders who buy more and are more expensive, especially hurt the poor. That’s not actually true.
Consumer advocates have pushed for the federal government to mandate more seat width and legroom for passengers. The Department of Transportation can’t do this by fiat, but they’d hoped to argue that airlines pack to many people into planes and that this is unsafe; that if a plane needed to evacuate it couldn’t do so quickly enough (90 second standard).
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American Airlines flight attendants have been working towards a new contract since before the pandemic. The union says they’re far apart, and that they have filed for federal mediation. That’s the first step towards a strike.
Airlines publish their schedules nearly a year in advance, but the schedules that they publish are just placeholders. They are selling tickets for flights that are not what they intend to actually fly.
While American Airlines has been selling its summer schedule for 8 months, they only finalized what it would actually be last weekend.
During Senate confirmation hearings for President Biden’s nominee to lead the FAA, Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) asked a rapid fire set of questions that amounted to a knowledge quiz. It was awkward both listening to the questions, as Budd tried to appear as though he’s an expert in the asking, and listening to the answers as Washington knew the answers to exactly zero of them.
And in answering it was clear he didn’t have enough familiarity with the issues to speak about them more generally, even if he didn’t exactly follow the questions.
The reason I shrug my shoulders a bit at the new Kansas City airport terminal is because it’s Kansas City. You go there if you want barbecue that hides the quality of meat and the cooking technique with a thick tomato-based sauce.
If you’re Kansas City and want to be part of the national conversation, you make sure your new airport terminal has… gender-neutral bathrooms.
A Melbourne-based couple traveling on Virgin Australia couldn’t get seats next to each other in business class when they booked. Virgin’s Boeing 737 premium cabin has just two rows up front.
So they took a window seat and an aisle seat on the other side of the aircraft, and tried to switch with another passenger when they boarded.
Airbnb takes a Minority Report approach to pre-crime profiling, banning people from renting who they deem likely to engage in prohibited activities like house parties before they’ve done anything improper.
And, it turns out, they ban people who are associated with people ineligible to rent.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
