News and notes from around the interweb:
- Hotel tells guests to wipe their arse with the letter denying a refund after learning their would be hidden, undisclosed fees as part of their stay
They booked a five-night stay at the Ambassador Hotel in the Gold Coast through a third-party service — an employee benefit portal called TicketsatWork. This resulted in a $931.66 charge on their credit card, and the site said there would be “additional resort fee of $138.43 per night.”
But when the festivalgoers called to confirm the additional costs would equal nearly $700, the hotel gave them new numbers — nearly $1,369.96 still “to be paid.” …They even hired an attorney to send a letter to the Ambassador requesting reimbursement, citing “hidden fees” and “deceptive conduct,” and the response the attorney’s letter received surprised them.
“Your client booked through some obscure website that then routed their reservation through Expedia,” Schaffer read the response to the attorney’s letter. Schaffer’s attorney said the letter was returned with an unsigned, handwritten message on the back, declining the reimbursement — and ending with the remark, “Kindly wipe your a** with this letter next time you need toilet paper!”
- Delta passengers left iPad behind, it was stolen by an employee (the airline says it was a contractor, perhaps a regional carrier), and then used to record explicit videos which were… uploaded into the passengers’ cloud. Oops. They’re suing the airline over it.
At first, the photos were relatively unremarkable: selfies of a man in his Delta uniform with his name badge visible. The Brewers filed a lost and found report with Delta by 20 July 2023, they recounted in their lawsuit. But a little more than a month later, pornographic videos of the same man from the prior images showed up in Brooke Brewer’s iCloud account. [Specifics redacted]
A second lewd video of the man in his Delta uniform – again wearing his name badge – appeared in Brooke Brewer’s iCloud account within days, the lawsuit continued. The Brewers also learned that the man had managed to access Brooke’s iTunes account and create his own personal profile.
…The Brewers said they filed a second report with Delta. The major airline – who did not acknowledge the first of the reports – responded with a generalized, “no reply” email saying it was searching for the iPad, the lawsuit asserted.
- The inflight snacks are free, I don’t know what they’re complaining about.
.@united needs to step it up. First flight had gross “something” covering overhead speaker & this flight had an entire peeled orange in seat back that I had to clean. Considering the price of flights today, cleanliness should be a pretty simple expectation. You can do better. pic.twitter.com/uadw7xqagx
— David Wickham (@MrWickhamLB) July 29, 2025
- Breeze expects to be profitable this year. They are the only airline on 87% of their routes, and mostly pick up incremental traffic rather than passengers booking away from other airlines. They’ll begin scheduled international flights in winter 2025–26, using A220‑300s to serve Central and South America (e.g. from Florida), once ETOPS certification is in place.
- About 2,000 Austin city employees have been given credit cards with few rules over how they’re used yet what little rules are in place are regularly flaunted – while the city plans budget cuts to police and fire staffing.
In 2024, the German government gave [Austin City Council member Leslie] Pool more than $1,200 for an airline ticket to Frankfurt for a cultural exchange trip, but she wanted to fly business class. So, she charged more than $6,000 extra to the city of Austin “as total flight time was 9+ hours each way,” her staff wrote in an email justifying the expense.
Pool, in a statement responding to questions from the Statesman, stood behind the expenditures.
“All spending in my Council office was done in alignment with city rules — Financial Services staff review and approve all spending,” she wrote.In 2024, Pool also sent two staffers to São Paulo, Brazil for a climate conference. They both flew business class at a cost to the city of nearly $20,000. Pool was slated to present on two panels at the conference but came down with COVID-19 shortly before the trip, she said. “Missing that conference was one of the biggest regrets I had,” she wrote.
- Wow.
Denver – High Winds. pic.twitter.com/rRBrGkI1ox
— Turbine Traveller (@Turbinetraveler) July 30, 2025
Damn Australian dollars
I have found that “Tickets At Work” doesn’t have any real benefit to me. Most of the stuff that’s on the web site has discounts less than I can get elsewhere. I’m not going to use a third party to book hotels, etc. because when things go wrong, the finger pointing starts. I went “shopping” for Hilton Hotels in London and got a better price via the Hilton Honors site. I tried buying theater tickets for a London show with TAW and found that I could buy them trough the local London ticket agency at a better price.
Most travel websites (including View from the Wing) encourage travelers to be cautious about booking and paying on 3rd-party websites. That said, they can be of use in certain searches, but a good practice is to employ them for the search and then switch to the actual Airline/Hotel/Rental site for booking and payment. A related good practice when booking online (at the actual Airline/Hotel/Rental site) is to take screen shots of the promised “All-In” Total Cost.
flaunt = display ostentatiously
flout = openly disregard
That Austin story is just ‘corruption,’ and anywhere it happens is a cancer, whether it’s ‘red’ or ‘blue,’ the USA and everywhere. All sane people should demand transparency, accountability, and to prevent such excesses from occurring in our societies.
On the wind in Denver, uh on, @Tim Dunn, that seemed expensive. Delta’s gonna need to look at that 737… seriously, lotta issues at DEN for everyone lately (recent incidents with AA, Frontier, etc.)
So, it’s not the HOTEL at all really. It’s the 3rd party travel rip-off, I mean booking, site.
Yeah, there’s a reason I never use that sort of stuff.
On that Australian hotel dispute, thanks to new regulations in the USA, we’re *supposed* to see the all-in price, now, but laws are one thing, enforcement is another; also, the whole thing feels more like surprise/excessive ‘cleaning’ or ‘resort’ fees. Concepts like AirBnB used to be more consumer-friendly, but then became a money-pit as guests were charged for cleanings and simultaneously forced to clean the property themselves before leaving. Makes more sense to stay at hotels and book directly, but then companies like Marriott fail to honor/enforce benefits like Platinum (and above) ‘complimentary’ breakfasts. Ugh, makes you just wanna stay home…
And, although some of your commenters often criticize the use of AI slop on this site; I must say, today’s is top-notch, sir, especially with the use of ‘arse.’ *chef’s kiss*
Wtf was Delta supposed to do about it? Sue the criminal, not their employee. Going after companies just because they have money, despite no negligence, is despicable. These frivolous lawsuits need to stop, there’s a huge societal cost. Disbar attorneys, countersue, and stop settling with these charlatans.
@Mantis – not a fan of civil litigation but, in this case, it appears the “criminal” is a DL employee if they are posting photos in uniform (and then same person not in any uniform performing porn). If there is an employee name badge visible this should be an easy matter for DL to resolve – fire the employee, support any potential criminal charges and settle the suit.
@Mantis @AC — I don’t think this is ‘frivolous,’ and if it is, the courts can handle it; the case would be dismissed. We should prefer an organized system where we settle disputes in an orderly way; otherwise, what’s the better solution? Letting thieves walk free? Denying victims justice? Extrajudicial violence? Naw. All that’s far worse. And the immediate calls to fire (and to disbar) people are harmful, too. Let ‘due process’ take place here and elsewhere. It takes time. It’s boring. Kinda supposed to be.
Stay away from the online booking the rate is only low until you check out.
Check prices on reputable booking sites like expedia, hotwire, booking.com, etc. Then call the hotel and ask for a price match. Many are happy to match as they won’t have to pay the third party and you get a price that you wanted. Of course, that assumes the hotel price isn’t just as good as the third party anyway.
Are we sure it was arse and not ass? David Sedaris dislikes the word arse because he finds it affected and overly self-conscious, especially when used by Americans trying to sound British or clever. In his writing and interviews, he’s mocked the use of arse by Americans as a sort of pretentious affectation, suggesting that it’s an unnecessary substitute for the perfectly good American ass. The word, to him, sounds like someone trying too hard.
So which was it? This is important stuff.
“These frivolous lawsuits need to stop, there’s a huge societal cost. Disbar attorneys, countersue, and stop settling with these charlatans.” — Yup. Get rid of all lawyers. Next time YOU need one, call a plumber!
@Hall Decker — Most lawyers are mere mercenaries for their clients, especially in the civil litigation context; that said, there are some that fight for the needy, but, ok, I guess, ‘lawyer-bad,’ is simpler than getting into any nuance here.
Might as well get rid of all the priests while we’re at it; more harm than good there, too, right? Oddly, more pedos in clergy than at a drag event.
You know what, since it’s all the rage in 2025, let’s again ‘exile’ and ‘eliminate’ groups of people, professions, etc., because, historically it goes ‘well.’ Great ideas, Hall Decker…
*facepalm*
The hotel in question is on Chicago’s Gold Coast, not Queensland’s Gold Coast. For laughs, I looked up a room for a random date. It was $42 per night plus another $140 in taxes and fees. Geez…why not $1 plus $181 in taxes and fees?
@ 1990. Thank you for the brevity and I doubt that Austin has enough sane people who care how The People’s Republic of Austin spends taxpayer money? I do agree with you. But then in Austin, the blue dot in a sea of red, we who desire accountability are in the minority. I don’t know why anyone traveling on taxpayer dollars think they DESERVE F or J.
People are always looking for a bargain. But third party bookings should be a flag warning to everyone. I did that once, got badly burnt and “learned” my lesson. If it looks too good to be true….move on !
@Hall Decker. Don’t worry, I, like (I assume) most here, see you weren’t advocating to eliminate lawyers. But, there’s a frequent poster who seems so anxious to reply to every post, that they post will little attempt to actually consider or understand what was actually posted. I’m starting to think this may not be a human, but a test of a not well developed left-wing AI bot.
@This comes to mind — You got me. *beep boop* ‘Free buses for everyone!’ …on the ‘Gold Coast’ distinction, that’s a good catch. I was aware of the one in Queensland, Australia, and just learned of this one in Chicago; there’s also the region in West Africa (Ghana), and several others in the USA, also including California, New Jersey, Washington, and some refer to the Miami metro area as such.
@One Trippe — I’m in NYC these days, and we’ve got plenty of corruption, past and present. After all, Tammany Hall was here (Boss Tweed, and all). As a taxpayer, I’d prefer to ‘elect’ civil servants, not mini-princes and princesses to municipal government; besides, it’s nonsensical to go on business that far outside the city. Like, I get the ‘sister cities’ phenomena, but that’s just mid-level folks abusing their ‘allowance.’ Time to audit, send invoices, recoup some of that money.
Chock that high wind incident up to poor ground staff positioning/planning…
Get it? Chock?
Thank you. I’ll be here all week…
But which Gold Coast was the site for the unpleasant Ambassador Hotel? It might be on the west coast of Africa, it might be north of Sydney, Australia, and it could be the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago’s Gold Coast and my last guess is the north shore of Long Island, which is sometimes referred to as the Gold Coast, but I am not sure if there is a possible hotel there.
Sadly all four locations will now be avoided by serious travelers!
I paid $2k for a 3 week stay at the Marriott W in Sydney along Darling Harbor (work trip). 3rd party sites wee quoting triple that. The W was running a special at the time for stays over 14 days (a 14 day stay would have been 2x what I paid for a 3 week stay). Other hotels in the CBD for the same duration were also much higher.
Never, ever use 3rd party sites, people.
@Doug Swalen — I got it. ‘Chocks,’ like those little break things they put at the wheels. Good one, sir. Please keep going… like that Delta aircraft in the wind.
I stayed at the Chicago Hotel Collection Magnificent Mile and they did the exact same bait and switch. I booked through Priceline, and got a refund through them. This chain is notorious for being scammy.