News and notes from around the interweb:
- If you get Montezuma’s Revenge When You Travel, it’s the FDA’s Fault
- The CEO of British Airways — former head of a low cost carrier — wants the airline to start thinking like one.
- Inside LAX’s New Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Unit
LAX In-N-Out on Sepulveda - Getting a US Passport in 2 Hours
- Air India now offers short haul awards on United domestic flights for as little as 5000 miles. This would be super-useful if Air India Flying Returns was a credit card points transfer partner.
- Virgin Australia Gold elites no longer get lounge access at LAX when not flying business class. Instead they’ll “receive a US$40 (A$54) food and beverage voucher to spend within the LAX international terminal along with 10,000 Velocity frequent flyer points” because the Star Alliance lounge they used previously says they’re too full to accept a paid deal with the airline for their Golds.
- The White House has a new paper on hidden fees (.pdf) (HT: @Nick_Roosevelt) It correctly criticizes mandatory charges not included in price like resort fees.
But it goes off the rails a bit suggesting everything needs to have all-in pricing, contra Justice Sotomayor who in this week’s credit card surcharge case oral arguments pointed out “every State I have to figure out what that sales tax is and I’ve got to do the math in my own head.”
The White House goes even further and entertains whether airlines should be required to advertise pricing including checked bags and change fees>
The question of what counts as “the entire price” has, for regulators, proved to be an evolving question. Two of the main fees charged by airlines – change fees and baggage fees – operate in a gray zone between being truly mandatory fees and truly optional
The click bait is strong in this one.
Why wouldn’t Virgin Australia use the Virgin Atlantic lounge? I really, really, really liked the Virgin Atlantic lounge. Sure, it’s a little small and doesn’t have a shower but the champagne was great and the food off the menu was decent. Plus, it had great tarmac views for seeing livery that one only sees if they regularly fly out of big airports like LAX or JFK — not FNT.
Click, click, click. Why do I keep falling for these.
Can I get an air India credit card? I clicked on this article for the 5,000 mile redemptions and I still want them
Uhhh…was there supposed to be something about United rewards? (per the headline)
@Potrecflyr – yes, you can redeem 5000 Air India miles for short haul United flights
Oops…nvm. Air India = United Duh.
Yep. Duped by Gary again. Click-bait UA “offer”.
Is Air India a member of one of the 3 Alliances? Which airlines does it partner with? Bottom line, can we earn Air India miles by flying UA?
You would be crazy to travel by Air India-it is full of drunk Indian men and since it is an Indian Airliner they think they can get away with molesting women on board and misbehaving with passengers. Search for any such terms and you will be horrified to see the low standards of that airline (not to mention various technical problems and late departures/arrivals)
@james Would you like to provide some links on the comments you made about Indian passengers molesting women on planes?
Air India has pretty good food. Its problems with technical faults causing late departures is due to the low number of planes on the long haul US-India nonstop routes – when something goes wrong their often is not another Air India plane at the airport to shift to. This problem is much less with Air India becoming a Star Alliance member – they can rebook the passengers on United.
Regarding credit Cards you can get the Citi Premier Miles credit card in India which transfers to Air India. You can also transfer any Star Alliance flights to Air India.