News and notes from around the interweb:
- American Express in Canada has a new invite-only credit card that comes with Star Alliance Gold status, access to Aeroplan Super Elite airport concierges, entry privileges to Air Canada’s Signature Suites in Vancouver and Toronto. Wow.
- What’s going on at the Austin airport?
- Queen Consort Camilla – she’ll always be the other woman – flew British Airways, and the plane suffered a bird strike. She’s apparently afraid of flying to begin with.
- Ascenda Loyalty handles points transfers for many of the programs you participate in. They now support transferring points into crypto but it sure feels they’re about 11 months late? (Here’s my tempered enthusiasm at best fom last November.)
- Israeli passenger sets toilet on fire during El Al flight to Bangkok
- Uber cracking down on riders using cartoon character and offensive names and piloting video recording of rides through the driver app.
Uber’s in-app recordings are not accessible to the driver, only to Uber in the event something goes wrong. I’m more comfortable with that than the occasional (or in some cities, frequent) driver with a private dashcam setup. The extraordinary arrogance of drivers who believe they have the right to a private recording of passengers leaves me in disbelief. Yes it’s the drivers car. No it does not give carte blanche to record passengers anymore than an Airbnb host renting out their own home to record guests.
@Fauci: If passengers didn’t misbehave and make false accusations against drivers, the drivers would not need recordings of what actually transpired. Such cameras are REQUIRED in NYC in all taxis and private car services, and for good reason.
You are not in your private car. You are in a form of public transportation and you have no right to privacy.
I have a friend of mine who drives for Uber. First thing I advised him to do was to install a camera.
He then had proof when a female passenger told him to delete the trip and not charge her or she would report him to the police for sexually abusing her.
Now, this, this is a Nice lounge!