News and notes from around the interweb:

• Why airport screening in Australia costs half as much per passenger as in the U.S.

• The auto-changing toilet seat covers at Chicago O’Hare

• 45,000 point initial bonus offer for Wyndham credit card is back it also comes with Platinum status (early check-in, late check-out) and a free night at any of their hotels is 15,000 points this includes home sharing at 15,000 points per bedroom per night.

  
  Firestone Estate Vacation Rental Palm Springs, credit: Wyndham

• Why aren’t there more mosquitos at Walt Disney World?

• AccorHotels Using Biometrics as Marketing Ploy for Loyalty Members a gimmick for now eventually it’s all about targeted marketing data.

  “If Accor wants to know deep information about you to market to you, it’s clear why any company would want to have this predictive information to enhance their marketing,” said Gary Leff, a frequent traveler and loyalty program expert who writes the View from the Wing blog. “That makes sense. But it’s unclear why a customer would want to go through the experiences to want to be better marketed to.”

  “Most people don’t need a biometrics assessment to know if they like laying on the beach versus a more active destination,” Leff added.

  …“There is a real future in improved marketing analytics, using AI to understand customers at an individual level and offer the right kind of product marketing at the right time, not just based on preference but also timing,” Leff said. “In the future, it wouldn’t be surprising to see physical responses integrated into a brand’s understanding of consumer behavior to be used for marketing — but maybe this is an early iteration of it 10 years from now.”

• The former manager of the Atlanta airport says he was fired when he pushed back against the Mayor’s desire to award corrupt contracts. (These arrangements are under federal investigation.)

  His attorney in ongoing litigation quotes Reed as telling Southwell, prior to his firing, “You worked in Miami. I thought you know how things worked,” which Parks says “could only be interpreted as a blunt reference to Miami International Airport’s long and difficult history of patronage-based awards.”