Things that make you go hmm.
- How come flight attendants have to pick up the cups they serve drinks in prior to takeoff, but they let me keep the Starbucks coffee I brought on board myself?
- If Delta, United, and American award points as a multiple of the price paid for your ticket, why do they call those points ‘miles’?
- If liquids are so dangerous, why are they tossed together in a bin next to the security checkpoint instead of dealt with by a hazmat team?
- Why don’t airlines who base elite status on revenue give credit for tickets purchased but not flown?
- Why do rental car companies have to cable ALL of a vehicles keys together? If you lose one key this way you lose them all. Whose pocket exactly are these supposed to fit in?
I might as well add, echoing Gallagher, “why do we drive on parkways, and park in driveways?”
As for point #3:
I believe the threat is hydrogen peroxide. Looks like water. Could be used to make nasty things airside. By itself it’s pretty hard for a terrorist to handle something concentrated enough to be a threat.
This is also why ice is allowed through even though it’s just frozen water–hydrogen peroxide melts at -40.
The point is that if water is not allowed through ‘because they cannot tell the difference’ then they do not know it is water they are tossing beside the checkpoint.
They do not believe the banned liquids are actually dangerous.
As for the last question, have you ever been able to get a taxi on a taxiway or been allowed to run on a runway?
#5 is because rental cars move around and losing the 2nd key hurts the resale value more than the odds of someone losing the keys. Some car companies used to put the extra key in the trunk but with modern keyfobs, the car really can’t be locked and could be stolen if a key is left inside the trunk.
The only one that drives me crazy is #5: For sure I get that the Rental Car Companies have to sell the older vehicles at some point, and they want to have both sets of keys, but as noted it makes carrying them crazy difficult. It would make an interesting designed experiment for one of them to offer a single set of keys for a $ 2.00/day premium, and see how popular that would be…
#4 We recently paid for 2 nights in a BonVoy. Because of a change of plans we left in the second evening and checked out. Paid for the 2nd night but didn’t get credit because we weren’t there. I asked if I’d left one sock on the bed and formally checked out in the morning would that have counted. Yes. But being officially gone meant we weren’t there. Go figure.
@Gary the liquid itself isn’t an explosive, two different liquids have to be combined together and then you get a solid that is the bomb. So just tossing a bottle of precursor in the trash won’t do anything.
1) They hate Starbucks
2) Innate trickery. No, it’s a holdover from fly mile to earn a mile.
3) The water in the bins will put out the flames.
4) Good question.
5) Because they don’t trust themselves to not lose the second set of keys.
No, sorry- I call foul on the #5 reason to preserve resale value. Even rental car businesses still have to deliver the pink slip when transferring title to the car, and they don’t stash those in the cars.
So they have to have a centralized way to manage the titles- just ship the spare key there. My personal guess for why they put all the keys together is more profit when the customer loses the keys.
@grorge – not always.
The pink slip is virtual now in many states, as the title can be electronic (example: Florida), or the reprint charge is so low that they will pay that (exsmple: Colorado $9.00 fee)
@gary you can take the other fob and sell it. I’ve been behind the counter at every chain, and nowhere is it logged in there system how many keys they gave you. Same goes for mats and such. A hertz manager once told me that when they negotiate contracts for cars they will leave out the spare tire if the manufacturer is willing to discount because most of them get stolen anyways
#4: And when charged a co-pay to upgrade with miles, why doesn’t the co-pay generate points?
On more than one occasion I have snipped the wire that keeps two car rental keys together. Then we can divide the keys up between two drivers. Pretty simple.
Why do people stand on a moving walkway? It’s called a walkway not a standway…
Re #5: I’ve returned a car due to keys not fitting in my pocket. I was going to be out and walking around most of the day without a bag and after I parked at my hotel, I realized I had no way to park the car somewhere and carry the keys around. So went back to the airport and swapped out the car, and literally the only criterion for the new car was that the keys fit in my pocket.