Here’s What It’s Like to Travel (With And) Without Elite Status

by Gary Leff

May 29 2017

I usually try to avoid travel over major holiday weekends like this one. The bookends of long weekends are ‘amateur days’. Airports are crowded, planes are full (they are most of the time nowadays anyway) and lines are longer.

Very frequent flyers can get frustrated with once a year (or less) travelers but really shouldn’t. The skies — and the airports — do not belong to us. We put in our time, and we get our perks, we know the drill and it comes easier for us anyway with PreCheck for security, club lounges to wait in, and priority boarding so we don’t lose overhead bin space.

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Delta Rolls Back Fuel Surcharges on Virgin Atlantic Awards (and How Not to Protest SkyMiles Devaluations)

by Gary Leff

people walking through airplane cabin
May 29 2017

Delta quietly devalued their miles again over the holiday weekend adding fuel surcharges to Virgin Atlantic business class awards departing the U.S..

A year ago a business class roundtrip on Virgin cost 125,000 Delta SkyMiles. Yesterday it cost as much as 205,000 miles and a $956 cash co-pay. But this change has been rolled back.

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7 More Airlines Just Joined PreCheck, Make Sure Your Known Traveler Number is Up to Date

by Gary Leff

people walking in airport
May 28 2017

Back in September Lufthansa became the 19th airline set up with TSA PreCheck. By joining Air Canada, Etihad, Aeromexico and WestJet, what was once US airlines only — and not even all of them at that — the massive US data-sharing, surveillance and passenger-convenience program had gone global.

In January 11 more airlines joined including Spirit, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates and Avianca to bring total participation to 30. Now 7 more airlines have joined.

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United Express Captain Arrested for Botched Castration of Transgender Woman

by Gary Leff

united
May 27 2017

An enterprising director could make a United Pilots Gone Wild! video out of the two who were too drunk to fly, the one that was running brothels all over Houston and the United Express pilot and co-pilot who got into a fight.

Now a Chicago O’Hare-based United Express captain for ExpressJet, the same Express carrier where a flight couldn’t continue because pilots were fighting, has been arrested in a Colorado castration case. And it gets even stranger.

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