News and notes from around the interweb:
- Even airlines have moved away from this. Have you seen a hotel call center booking fee before?
It’s right here. This guest booked 3 nights x $15 +Tax fee for call center booking = Extra $51.03 just to have a reservations agent book your room for you. TOTAL NONSENSE, MGM! pic.twitter.com/XfXpcQRn7b
— Heather. (@HeatherBenson75) August 23, 2024
- Juvenile refused an American Airlines downgrade from first class to Main Cabin Extra when the airline subbed the aircraft for an A319 with just 8 first class seats. He exited the plane, and was not happy he did not get the product he paid for. Makes sense. It makes less sense, then, for him to now say he’ll move his business to Southwest which… has no first class (though they’re at least planning to offer an extra legroom product and assigned seating).
- The defiant American Airlines passenger with a bload-soaked head bandage who refused to get off the aircraft? There’s now video.
- Lenovo sales employee fired for urinating in the lobby of the Westin Times Square. He says he did it because of a disability that made him unable to hold it long enough to get to his room and besides Lenovo salespeople do worse things all the time. So he’s suing. What I wonder, though, is: shouldn’t the Westin be suing him?
- United Airlines hosted a reception at the Democratic National Convention. As the most ‘woke’ of the big carriers their policy preferences didn’t feature prominently in prime time there. This thread explains why.
- This is why everybody hates you.
Peanut Butter is a liquid. We said what we said.
— TSA (@TSA) August 23, 2024
I have no problem with any company charging a fee to book through a reservation agent. It is so easy to book via the website (and if you log in you automatically get comp offers based on your status for MGM). It costs to have people taking calls and placing bookings. Why should that cost be spread among the 99% that book their reservations directly via the website or app?
BTW if a $15/night booking fee infuriates anyone visiting Las Vegas they have to live $15 beer and $25 weak drinks at casino bars plus overall cost of anything. I’ve been well over 100 times and go at least 2-3 times a year. Based on my play I get most everything comped but still am amazed at the prices some people pay.
Well first of all, having reservation agents is part of the cost of doing business. If they have fewer agents then the cost of the rooms should also go down. Secondly, it costs the hotel the same to book 4 or 5 nights as it does for just one. Why are they charging a new fee for more nights? As a matter of fact, when you book several nights they only give you one room key for all of those nights. If there are 5 people in 5 nights for a room then they have to use 5 different keys. Should there be a separate fee for keys too?
Freeze the peanut butter and it should go through TSA without a problem just like a frozen bottle of water can. The advantage of peanut butter is that it doesn’t expand as much as water when frozen and doesn’t thaw as fast as water does. It does expand some so peanut butter in a plastic jar is better and it is also better if the container is not full. A better way is to put it in checked luggage where it doesn’t have to be frozen (I have done this).
How can we charge you more for providing you less ?
That is the motto of every MBA.
So not surprised this is happening at MGM.
There should be laws against such fees.
The MGM Grand has 5000 rooms – if you want personalized service, you should stay somewhere smaller. Everything about Vegas mega-resorts depends on efficiency. File this under: only in Vegas.
Friends don’t let friends stay at MGM resorts. This fee will prepare you for. The actual gouging you will experience when staying there.
I couldn’t find that ASTM standard online, though there were articles on how substances were tested for “liquidity”. I wonder what the friendly folks at the airport would about a soft orange versus a hard apple…or a hard orange. Anyway it comes down to show as clearly there was no real thinking involved in making this rule. After all as any smart 8 year old could figure out, 1 person carrying 1 liter of a (real) liquid is not okay, but 10 people traveling together each carrying 1/10th of the same substance are fine. Come in to the gate area, buy a 1 liter bottle of water, dump out its contents and pour in your group’s. “Problem solved.”
Vegas was a much better place in the 60’s and 70s when it was…..shall we say…”family owned”, and before the giant corporations took over.
With most of the quality Strip Properties now owned by just two of them (MGM and Caesars), competition is a by-gone concept.
I visit Vegas frequently but only because I have several in-laws there, some of whom worked there in the Good Old Days when the Mafia ran many of the hotels. The usual comment is that the mob bosses treated their employees better.
@jns … I have heard a rumor that peanut butter spread on a cracker could be placed on a seat , no ?
Fundamentally, it comes down to the liquid rule really saying “don’t bring enough of anything that could possibly be hydrogen peroxide to be dangerous.” But it has to be written in a fashion to let those without technical knowledge not let something slip past (you need to assume an intelligent adversary even if they’re working through somebody stupid) and thus a lot of things that actually could not be harmful get excluded.
The thing is any concentration of hydrogen peroxide in water looks like ordinary water. Even 100% hydrogen peroxide passes for water if you don’t actually interact with it. (And it’s very nasty stuff!) Ice is permitted because frozen hydrogen peroxide will not pass for ice.
And, personally, I suspect the bomb plot was used as an excuse for making things even harder for smugglers. You can’t hide your drugs in a quasi-liquid like peanut butter if you can’t bring things that can be readily deformed around your container of drugs. Politicians absolutely love ways to do an end run around the Constitution.
I’m sure that all of Vegas was in an uproar. Save it for the post.
@Alert, hahaha. Maybe. It would get messy if the peanut butter side was down. I suppose that if you put peanut butter between two crackers it could be considered to be a sandwich. I think that there are some snack foods that are built that way.