News and notes from around the interweb:
- $91++ hotel parking – plus a late checkout surcharge at Marriott’s The Clancy Hotel, an Autograph Collection property in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco:
Highest overnight parking rate I’ve seen at a hotel. This one isn’t even very central. pic.twitter.com/8Hl8wZNrhY
— Rakesh Agrawal (@RakeshSFNYC) August 8, 2024
- NBC Philadelphia reporter has bump voucher ripped out from under her by American Airlines
The story of how I had to ‘walk of shame’ it down my @AmericanAir flight to Austin for #AAJA24… witness testimony included pic.twitter.com/viUhJvXE9z
— Frances Wang (@FrancesWangTV) August 7, 2024
- How on earth does American Airlines keep dispatching planes in this condition?
@AmericanAir this was just shared to my #facebook group! I hope it was a mistake to have this #aircraft in service for AA2957 to #Panama. What is really going on? #AmericanAirlines #travelblogger pic.twitter.com/zVgRilcdXC
— Dr. Kristen Ellis (@DrKristenEllis) August 7, 2024
- After losing its President, CFO, VP of Finance and VP of Food and Beverage, Rio Las Vegas lays off 30 managers. One wonders if the manager in charge of limiting Hyatt Globalist breakfast options is among them.
- Horrible: “Woman dies after getting caught in baggage carousel at Chicago O’Hare”
- Did United pass on a hub in Tampa?
- The ultimate DYKWIA:
Thinking of that time Lord Mountbatten almost missed his flight and threatened an Air France attendant by showing his Grand Cross of the Légion d'Honneur pic.twitter.com/s3hTpWpXcH
— Joris van de Riet (@JorisvandeRiet) August 8, 2024
For those wondering about the woman at ORD, she wandered into a restricted baggage area at 2:30AM and was found entangled in baggage routing equipment at 7:30AM.
She was NOT caught in the conveyor system at baggage pickup where the public is supposed to be. This is not something that anybody has to worry about, unless you have plans to wander around in restricted areas.
Off Topic: Children would LOVE IT if they could ride on baggage conveyer belts. Dangerous? Probably not. No matter, let the kids have their way and all will be MUCH better for families waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting for their luggage.
Is there somewhere in the AA app that I can report them to the President of France?
We need a system to detect people who try to go through the unguarded roll-up metal doors leading into the bag room. It needs to allow luggage to flow while preventing people from traversing.
Re: The woman dead in the luggage conveyor system. Middle of the night she’s wandering around in a restricted baggage area? No companions with her? No one to pick her up wondering what happened? I wonder if she was not traveling at all and simply looking around to steal bags in the middle of the night.
Hyatt Centric Time Sq Sedan=$95 and SUV=$105
https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-centric/nycts-hyatt-centric-times-square/parking-and-transportation
@jamesb2147 and @Joe are correct, what’s astonishing is the dishonestly of this clickbait coming from ABC News. Their title literally read: “Woman dies after getting caught in baggage carousel at Chicago O’Hare”. Just goes to show how often MSM intentionally lies.
I honestly don’t think any body would bother to pay the high priced hotel parking fees.Not a chance in hell
SF SoMa? They must have cleaned up that area a lot since I was there. And doesn’t square with the frequent tales of car break-ins around the city.
Yeah, that makes sense. They have charge so much to pay for the multiple armed guards.
>I wonder if she was not traveling at all and simply looking around to steal bags in the middle of the night.
Hope that nuclear waste Dept of Energy guy is OK
Long ago, I was having dinner at the bar of Wilton’s, the very old London seafood restaurant. The bartender kept a very lively conversation among his guests, but suddenly looked up as an elderly couple walked in and said ,,”good evening mi lord, good evening mi lady” as they passed by. When we asked what they were, he said it was Lord and Lady Mountbatten.
FYI – I doubt the woman that died at ORD was planning to steal luggage. I live in Charlotte and local news is reporting she was a 57 year old woman from Waxhaw (small town about 20 miles from Charlotte). Just doesn’t make sense and will be interesting to see what investigation uncovers
Parking rates really spiked across the pandemic. Indianapolis downtown hotels parking rates at places I stayed roughly doubled between 2019 and 2022.
I assume the very high parking charge is a result of auto theft in San Francisco. The hotel’s insurance has probably increased. I imagine they have also had to add security and probably increase cameras, etc. The only alternative is they don’t want to provide the service and price it so high that it dissuades guests from parking at the hotel.
I don’t know what was up with the dead baggage belt woman, but I am curious if she had a checked-in bag that got mishandled and she went looking for it with the help of an AlrTag or other tracker. And if it wasn’t that or for engaging in baggage theft, maybe she was homeless or a stranded passenger looking to sleep somewhere sort of dark and out of sight. A toxicology report could be interesting, along with any medical history about mental illness.
Even 25 years ago, hotel parking costs in Manhattan (NYC) were ridiculously high. Can’t remember what I paid for parking at the Helmsley NY on E42nd and around CPS/58th back then but it was expensive. And a taxi wasn’t always ideal, so the car it had to be sometimes.
@GUWonder — Looking for her bag based on an Airtag makes a lot of sense. If the bag fell off the conveyor or the precision of the airtag isn’t perfect, I could see someone climbing around machinery looking for it. In that case, she may have just climbed into/onto the wrong place at the wrong time.
Gary, do let us know the rest of the story once it comes out!
The lady’s death was reportedly a case of suicide.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago/2024/08/09/vwoman-fatally-crushed-machinery-ohare-airport-conveyor-belt-baggage-virginia-christine-vinton-north-carolina
For an expensive city like San Francisco, I’m not sure that a $90+ rate per day for parking at a hotel is out of line. A lot of things have doubled in price since Covid-19.
If the ORD death was suicide, why are all the articles spending most of their time talking about baggage machinery in the restricted area? Why are there not descriptions of where the suicidal hanging took place and how she ended up in the machinery after she was dead?
Woman from Charlotte flies to O’Hare to kill herself & her body ends up in baggage machinery?
Frances Wang needs a higher threshold for tears. I bought a ticket for the Cubs at the old Yankee stadium. Come on you gotta go. I figured I’d drive. But, I was unwilling to spend more each night for my vehicle than I’d spend for a hotel in a city I like.
Did this baggage belt area incident take place via access of the area around baggage belt 12 at ORD T5? That’s the baggage claim belt Frontier uses, IIRC. And it’s accessible to the public — maybe even more so than the landside McDonalds at ORD T5.
Speaking of ORD, the hotel shuttle center that was used for hotel shuttle pick-ups for arriving passengers at T1-T3 (and where there used to be Covid testing during the pandemic) is no longer in use for that because they didn’t want people squatting in the area. So now hotel shuttle pick up is formally only on the outer bank curb on the road outside the arrivals level at Terminal 2 (across from Door 2B?) and the equivalent at Terminal 5 (across from door 5E).