News and notes from around the interweb:
- Larry David’s take on seat recline. (HT: @crucker)
Is it inappropriate to recline your seat on the airplane?
Larry David answers @richeisen’s question on the @RichEisenShow pic.twitter.com/VHGK2j0YLz
— Yashar Ali (@yashar) April 4, 2024
- Anatomy of a credit card rewards program I don’t actually agree with the characterization of Sapphire Reserve – it certainly was an earthquake in the industry, but so profitable as the piece suggests.
- Philadelphia airport thinks they need 20 new gates by 2040 and they are prioritizing flights to Asia and South America. (HT: Chris T.) While Asia seems a long shot, Air China visited the airport a couple of times in 2018. The airport says that once American gets more planes they’ll restore all their Europe destinations. That doesn’t make sense to me. They aren’t holding back on Philadelphia – Bologna due to lack of aircraft…
- Help! Japan Airlines Downgraded Us From First Class and Skimped on the Refund (NYT) accepting a downgrade requires an airline to refund the difference in fare between cabins, but how they calculate that is under-specified.
- JPMorgan Chase is about to let advertisers target customers based on their spending
- Dallas squeezes travelers with Alto rideshare contract at Love Field “City wrong to award sole curbside pickup contract to a luxury provider”
- The Visa/Mastercard legal settlement with retailers requires them to lower swipe fees temporarily. So Mastercard is increasing its network assessment fee. Some of you didn’t believe me that the settlement was more or less a nothingburger.
- Progress on a second airport for Las Vegas
So , what about the JAL non-refund ? Cannot access the article ?
@Alert – Last year, my husband and I splurged on round-trip first-class tickets on Japan Airlines from San Francisco to Tokyo for $13,474 each. We reserved them in February for an October flight through American Express Travel. On the same day, I also bought business class tickets for a couple who was traveling with us at $8,429 apiece. In September, Amex notified me that we had been downgraded to business class for the return flight. JAL’s conditions state that we would receive “the difference between the normal fare amount of original class of service and for the normal fare of lower class of service.” To me that means that since the difference between our first class seats and our friends’ business seats was $5,045 each, we should be refunded about half of that — around $2,522 per person — for the second leg. But we got only $941 each. I contested this with Amex Travel, but they rejected our claim. Can you help?
@Alert, I posted a quote of the question posed in the NYT. The answer/response, however, is too lengthy to post here. Gary’s name (as an authority) is mentioned in the article; perhaps he can give us a synopsis of the NYT reply, as this is his area of expertise.
@alert – read it here https://archive.is/Q1caJ
Like in so many other things Larry David is exactly right!
Thank you, Gary, for the archive link. I have not flown Japan Airlines because they are never the most competitive from LAX but this is a reason to not consider them in the future.
Larry David has a reasoned approach to reclining an airline seat. It would be nice if many of the people in front of me on past flights followed it. I usually check who is behind me so I can figure out how much to recline if I decide to do that. Reclining part of the way is usually good.
As if Larry David has flown commercial, much less in Economy, in the last 2 decades.
The Alto issue is exactly like the Surtran contract at DFW in the 70s. The FTC should take up the matter (but they won’t).
For once in my life, I actually agree with Larry David! Every word of it.
As for the PHL article, fix and modernize what you have first! PHL is a S%#thole.
I find the JAL claim hard to believe, they have been extremely generous to me. On my last flight my window F seat was broken, but luckily there was a vacant window F seat I could move to, so no big deal. 15 minutes later, the pursar comes to my seat, profusely apologizes, and says they are giving me 30k miles. Walking 10 feet for 30k miles, ok!
There is no why I am flying into Primm for a Las Vegas trip.
Several years Had to change a R/t singapore airlines business ticket ($3100) for a 2 week later departure, after I had already flown the first parts. Called and was told that they would forward the balance to the cost of the new ticket. $500 was left to apply to a one way $4000
I’m 6’3, I enjoy a 1/2 way recline. Larry David I doubt you fly in coach lol.
@Gary … Thank you for the link .
@Kimmiea … My two cents worth is the airlines are very greedy companies and once they have your money you will need to pull their teeth to get it back . As I cannot deal with hopeless clerks , I would consider consulting with an attorney with the object to file a lawsuit . I hope they will settle quickly.
Larry Davis can kiss my reclined butt.
Larry David: “Prettay, prettay, prettay good.”
Seat recline in airplanes dates back to when most coach seats had 32-35 inches of pitch, not current standard of 28(Spirit) to 32 Southwest inches. Additionally, few passengers worked at their seats
The Love Field thing seems overblown. If I understand correctly, Alto won exclusive rights to curbside pickup, but all other operators are still allowed to pickup at a nearby garage. This requires a short walk from the curbside, but is similar to how many other airports are doing things. It’s not like DAL totally banned Uber and Lyft from the airport. The headlines seem like they are written by Uber’s PR team.
When Covid-19 hit I was in Phnom Penh and scheduled to be there until the beginning of April. I did not see a need to rush back to the USA and get infected by the crowd on the airplanes and in the airports so I stuck by my original flight. EVA kept pushing it back but the authorities in Taiwan would not allow transit passengers. Finally I had to leave several months later due to being short on meds. I bought a one way ticket and took Asiana back to LAX through ICN (first trip on Asiana). The half used EVA ticket was refunded. If I remember correctly, EVA gave me a very reasonable refund that came out to more than half of the ticket. Not only a great airline to fly but also reasonable when there are difficult circumstances.
@Tom – it is not nearby or a short walk, at a brisk pace it’s 10 minutes
As usual, Southwest has quietly addressed this issue by limiting the amount a seat can be reclined to 2-3 inches, which seems to be standard on all aircraft. This limitation seems to pacify the entitled Patti’s and also allows the person sitting behind these Patti’s to not be forced to have a self centered person infringing into their paid for space.
Larry David is wrong. Sitting for hours without being able to change the angle of recline is torture. That’s why seats are designed to recline. The problem is not that people are inconsiderate (although sometimes they are), the problem is that airlines are placing the seats too close together. Give us all more room for legs and for torsos, and everyone is happier.
In other words, don’t blame the victim.
Bite me Larry. I’ve been flying since the 60s and always recline a bit . These days I have to recline due to neck and back problems. Nota issue for you you’ll be up with the 1% and I’ll be back with the more reasonable great unwashed
Thanks for the link to an EXCELLENT banking article (not really about travel), which is very refreshing:
> Almost everybody writing about credit cards on the Internet receives some sort of spiff if you sign up after clicking through tagged links in their material. That is not my business model (people pay me to write about financial infrastructure), but is probably one you want to be cognizant of every time you read about credit cards online.
Also refreshing:
> Credit card issuers explicitly and directly charge the rest of the economy for the work involved in recruiting the most desirable customers.
Prices are higher in the USA *because* of the high interchange fees that bankroll rewards:
> In the United States, card acceptance is expensive […] in Europe, card acceptance is cheap by regulatory fiat.
> Chase got Visa to authorize Chase charging almost the entire economy more for credit card acceptance
As Susie (on the show “curb..”) often tells him: Shut the f up Larry!
Larry David does crypto ad. Smart people realize it must be a scam. Larry David says no recline. Smart people recline.