Laser Takes Out Virgin Atlantic Pilot, Union Calls for Ban on Possessing Lasers

by Gary Leff

Feb 15 2016

Last night’s Virgin Atlantic flight VS25 from London Heathrow to New York JFK departed and was enroute to 36,000 feet 170 miles north-northwest of Shannon, Ireland when the crew declared a medical issue with the pilot.

They had experienced a laser pointed at the aircraft, and the pilot was feeling unwell. The aircraft was an hour into its journey when they turned back and landed at Heathrow an hour and 15 minutes later.

Shining a light at an aircraft in a manner to distract or harm the crew is already illegal. However,

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United Now Wants $59 for a Lounge Day Pass, Isn’t That Kind of Insane?

by Gary Leff

Feb 14 2016

United is going to start restricting club access to people actually flying same day. And they’ve started serving Illy coffee in the clubs (it’ll be a few more months until that’s onboard).

They’ve apparently raised the price of day passes from $50 to $59, following Delta’s $59 day pass pricing move. (United increased the annual fee for its club memberships, too, following a similar move by Delta.)

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United Fixed Its Award Availability Calendar

by Gary Leff

Feb 13 2016

Last week both unicorns and snuffaluffagus appeared at the same time Air New Zealand business class awards between the US and Auckland opened up.

The quickest, easiest way to see award availability across a period of time is to use the United website, which doesn’t require you to log in and will show you two months’ at a time (although intentionally doesn’t let you see all partners).

However the award availability calendar hasn’t been entirely reliable.

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New AND EXISTING Customers Now Earn American AAdvantage Miles With Sprint Service

by Gary Leff

Feb 13 2016

When I was new to miles and points, one of the biggest deals was signing up for and switching long distance carriers. Then there were big mileage offers for cell phone service. Those dried up a bit with number portability, when a company acquired a customer the customer wasn’t really locked in past the end of their contract the way they had been so it wasn’t worth spending as much to acquire a customer.

A dozen years ago I earned 10,000 miles for signing up for Sprint service, Sprint had a cell tower on top of the building next to my office and I got a great signal even in the parking garage.

It’s possible to earn miles again for Sprint service. You can register your American AAdvantage number at Sprint stores.

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American AAdvantage Updates Their Award Chart Regions

by Gary Leff

Feb 12 2016

American AAdvantage appears to have cleaned up its region definitions.

The number of miles for an award in a zone-based award chart is based not just on whether there’s saver award space, but the regions you are flying between.

If you want to fly from New York to London, you look up the saver award price for “Contiguous 48 U.S. states” to “Europe.” It thus matters what region a country is assigned to, as it affects the price of an award.

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European Union on Verge of Restricting Passport-Free Travel for 2 Years

by Gary Leff

Feb 12 2016

Six weeks ago I asked, Will This Be One of the Biggest Stories of the Year: The End of Europe’s Passport-Free Travel?

The free movement of people and goods is a fundamental idea of the European Union, and one that’s driven tremendous economic benefit to the region (not to mention the individual benefit from unburdening travel). It’s embodied in the Schengen Agreement and in other agreements.

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