News and notes from around the interweb:
- 20,000 miles for bringing a phone number over to AT&T up to 4 lines and 80,000 miles. That lets you buy 80,000 miles for ($140/month x 3 month minimum) $520 or $0.007 per mile which is certainly worthwhile. (Miles Earn and Burn) Unfortunately these are redeemable miles only and not Loyalty Points towards status.
AT&T of course pays to market to American Airlines passengers as the ‘sponsor’ of free wifi. You have to watch an AT&T ad, and a Citibank AAdvantage credit card ad, before getting online. 80,000 miles is a better reward than a single wifi session!
- You don’t get to just decide where people live, but this is one idea to address airport noise complaints:
We need more innovative thinking like this in government pic.twitter.com/IA260QiBe7
— Nicholas Decker (@captgouda24) July 29, 2026
- Watch out for the NYC pedicab scam:
I got scammed by an NYC pedicab.
I took two of my family members to see the Empire State Building today and we wanted to walk to Central Park after.
A pedicab driver asked where we were going and said he'd take us. I asked how much to Central Park and he said "$12." At no point… pic.twitter.com/7BVVXP1vDP
— Lee Kuan Yimby (@LeeKuanYimby) July 30, 2026
- ViaSat’s new F2 satellite won’t make them competitive with Starlink but it should be a real improvement for flyers on planes they equip with wifi.
- JetBlue Passenger Loses It After Gate Agents Enforce The Two-Bag Carry-On Rule
- San Francisco is suing the parent company of Kayak and Booking.com for providing rooms inventory to scam websites that impersonate hotel websites but mark up the rates with added fees. (HT: @RakeshSFNYC)
Hotel booking websites have been overcharging tourists to stay in San Francisco rooms, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by City Attorney David Chiu.
…The suit alleges that Book Online and Guest Reservations disguised their third-party booking sites to look like official hotel websites while tacking on additional fees for customers. The URLs change frequently, Chiu said. Booking Holdings knowingly provided Book Online and Guest Reservations with hotel-room inventory and payment systems, the lawsuit claims.
Oof. That ‘juice is not worth the squeeze,’ especially as we’re likely heading towards a re-monopolization of all industries (‘Ma Bell’ being one of the more infamous.) ‘Just say no…’
If someone is ambitious, they can read the fine print and see if the ATT offer is stackable with Rakuten for 6,250 membership miles. https://www.rakuten.com/shop/attwireless?query=att&position=1&type=suggest&store=4027
$35/line activation fee needs to be factored in.
I had the same issue with a pedicab in Beijing. I took a Mandarin for Travelers class before going and knew my numbers up to 100. He eventually gave in to the original price then I walked into the restaurant where I got ripped off by 2x or 3x on a Peking duck meal. Looking at you Li Qun. So I won the battle and lost the war.
” ($140/month x 3 month minimum) $520…”
$420?
“or $0.007 per mile which is certainly worthwhile…”
Certainly not worthhile. You pay AT&T prices. Pay $45 elsehere (e.g. Boost) and pocket the $375 ($475 using GaryMath) to use on cash tickets.
@L3 — I’m with you on this at least. (Side note, you doin’ the Accor thing tomorrow with BILT?)
As travelers, my wife and I switched to T-Mobile for the free international service. We spent 9 weeks overseas last year, and 11 this year. I am not sure what AT&T international fees are but T-Mobile is basically free, would be very hard to switch over.
@1990: Yes indeed. It appears to be costless, other than the opportunity cost of using the Bilt points.
@L3 — I did the similar Accor promo last year (transfer a nominal amount of points for status), and I guess it was fine. If they do this annually, it’d be a way for the status/points to not expire at Accor. Using Bilt Cash to upgrade to the next level would’ve been nice. I guess we’ll see what the following month brings.
Anyone factor in their time? I will happily save trees for miles by entering my MC number, but this AT&T thing is too much. If it involves more than one step, I’m out.
@L3 — Potential issue with the status offer: Accor won’t extend a status you have already. So if you have Gold, you can’t extend Gold… Yeah, not great.
@ 1990 — Surely you dont find significant value in Accor status? It is super-lame.
@Gene — You know me, doin’ it for some… *checks notes* …drink coupons… *facepalm*