News and notes from around the interweb:
- What’s going on in the New York JFK Terminal 8 showers?? At the American Airlines-British Airways Soho lounge:
At Soho the lady working there on 2 occasions has “encouraged” us to go in together…and I’m late 50s not a young buck. She has told us on more than one occasion that we wouldn’t believe the things she’s seen/heard. And she smiled when she said it.
- Government technology is the best Amtrak’s mobile app now supports seat assignments “when purchasing tickets for Acela trains, as well as for business class on the Northeast Regional, Palmetto, Vermonter, and Carolinian.” The 2025 revolution is here, people!
Other features include updates on train status and schedule changes that display with reservations for trips within 24 hours; a station-to-station train tracker (also available at Amtrak.com), the ability to modify part of a trip through the app, and a “my trips” tab that will automatically show trips if there is a reservation that day.
Amtrak Tech - Usually passengers only take packaged food from airport lounges At Cathay Pacific’s ‘The Bridge’ lounge in Hong kong, “a woman accompanied by her child attempted to pack cooked food into her own containers to take onto the flight. When staff intervened to explain that removing food from the lounge was prohibited, the woman reportedly became argumentative, causing a scene in front of her child.”
- If you’re the passenger, then yes.
- Boston airport rideshare fees go to $15 in 2027 with plans for $23 in 2031
- 25% bonus on transfers from Citi ThankYou points to Avianca LifeMiles through October 19.
Boston Airport Fee: Typical Democrat run state. Soak the citizens for more taxes.
Fun news at Amtrak! In the words of Borat, veri nais how much?? Is this leading towards Amtrak introducing another tier of pricing?
Wow I didn’t realize Uber fees were so high at Logan. I don’t go to Boston often but I take the Logan Express which is pretty nice but certainly a whole lot more time consuming and limited in pickup/dropoff spots.
@ L3 — MA has the best healthcare in the US. How dare poor people get good healthcare!
JFK T8 AA’s Chelsea and Soho lounges are excellent–I’ve said so numerous times on this site. Those two are above and beyond anything else, Flagship or Admirals Club. Like, they are DeltaOne and/or Polaris equivalents, even if DeltaOne is the best overall to date (JFK and LAX). I’ve shared a shower at several lounges around the world with my significant other–we were responsible there. It is not odd request, either for couples to make or for the staff to ask. It usually saves on time and effort to turn-around the shower, and to keep open other showers for other guests (if there are multiple). Why is this so hard? It isn’t. Unless, Gary was allowing his imagination to drift again. Dirty!
@L3 — You get what you pay for. Clearly, wherever you’re from, probably Texas or Florida, you *think* you aren’t paying extra, but then, that sales tax, property tax, higher insurance premiums, etc. starts to add up. Huh. @Gene is absolutely right. Better healthcare. Better services, generally, in states that make you pay more. No, it’s no perfect. Pick your residence wisely. Try others, then you’ll know for sure. I’ve done NY and FL, and much prefer NY, even with winter. You do you.
@L737 — Great success! …not. Is Amtrak number one transporter of ‘potassium’? High five??
In addition to offering a shared shower at the joint American Airlines-British Airways First-Class Soho Lounge at New York JFK, this lounge serves as a preferred international destination where one may inadvertently share communicable disease threats and infectious illnesses, including measles, influenza types A and B, Mpox (Monkeypox), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenovirus, rhinovirus (common cold), COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), and more. Hand hygiene with soap and water is the most effective method to prevent the spread of Clostridium difficile (C. diff), as the complimentary alcohol-based hand rubs in the Soho Lounge are not effective against C. diff spores.
The staff at the SOHO are terrible. 3/4 agents I spoke with at the front desk were incredibly brusque, the last one was kind but not especially effective. The shower room staff are also terrible. When I was directed over to the showers to request a suite I asked one of the staff for a room and he literally turned around and left through a door without saying anything. Just bizarre and really uncomfortable.
“MA has the best healthcare in the US. How dare poor people get good healthcare!` And a super high rideshare fee is related to that how?
@1990
That’s because Gary is too large to share a shower with anyone, and it shows in his hateful writing style.
Sharing those showers — how bohemian.
So, I haven’t seen these showers — you go to a swimming pool and there’s like an area (that seems designed for optimal growth of fungus and athlete’s foot to be honest) with shower heads on the walls. Even if there’s some privacy dividers, I could see this being a situation where people could stand around and share. On the other hand, if it’s a set of hotel room style showers… I’m not shy, go ahead and take a peek at my wang if you want, but that does seem odd to suggest sharing that type of shower.
The only bad thing about sharing a shower is that you only get one towel.
@ KB — Slow much?
@Ken A — What is this, the ‘do you concur?’ scene from Catch Me If You Can? If so, I concur, doctor. Wash your hands, folks. Soap and water. Scrub, scrub.
@Connor — I’ve been through Soho or Chelsea lounges many times, and to me at least, as a local, the staff seemed kind and effective enough to me. Then again, maybe this so-called ‘brusque’ attitude that you described may just not be what you are used to. I like when folks are direct, efficient, and no nonsense. That must feel jarring if you’re coming from a place filled with passive aggressive niceties, like a Texas or a Florida–they’ll stab you in the back. Whereas, I prefer the ‘front-stabbers,’ because at least you can see them coming at you, mostly figuratively.
@KB — We must be reading a different blog. What’s the ‘hate’ you’re referring to? @Gene if you will, what did KB mean?
@hwertz — No, it’s not a gym. These are individual shower rooms. It’s a high-end lounge, not a standard Admirals Club or something. Gary seems to have simply been ‘stirring the pot’ speculating that folks are getting frisky in the shared shower–like a ‘Mile High Club’ but on the ground, at least I think that’s what he was going for. Ah, to explain the joke, so fun.
@M — You can ask for an extra towel.
@ 1990 — I was referring to the fact that apparently KB missed Gary’s mention a while ago that he has lost lots of weight. I do not agree that Gary’s writing style is “hateful”.