Just How Pathetic is Business Class in Europe?

by Gary Leff

Jan 17 2016

“Seat pitch” is the distance between seat back to seat back. It’s not the same as legroom, exactly — you aren’t always getting the same legroom with the same seat pitch because some airlines use thicker and thinner seats — but it’s the most generally accepted proxy for legroom.

It’s shocking to me that both Lufthansa and British Airways offer the same legroom in economy and business class for their intra-Europe flights. And that’s 30 inches, which is tighter than what the US majors offer in coach. British Airways “Club Europe” is coach with a blocked middle seat and a cold meal tray.

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Uber’s Confidential Financials Revealed. They Lose Money On Every Ride But Make it Up on Volume.

by Gary Leff

Jan 17 2016

Uber is ostensibly valued at over $60 billion. To really be ‘worth’ that they have to grow rapidly, and arguably beyond on demand ridership into a ‘transportation logistics company’ moving goods and not just people. And they have to actually make money.

While there are certainly network effects — the more consumers use Uber, and the more drivers offering rides on their platform, the more valuable they are. The first person with a fax machine had a useless piece of equipment. There was no one to send them anything, and they couldn’t send a document to anyone else. The fax machine became more valuable the more people that had them. But even there, when’s the last time you sent a fax? I believe I’ve sent two in the past year.

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Earn Hundreds of Thousands of Miles for Real Estate

by Gary Leff

Jan 16 2016

Miles for real estate transactions used to be a pretty big thing. When I bought a condo in 2006 I earned six figures in United miles for being referred to a realtor. Basically they were rebating a bit more than half their commission in the form of United miles.

People usually think that meant I had to work with whatever real estate agent was assigned to me. That’s not the case at all. Instead, I simply needed to work with the brokerage firm I was referred to. I didn’t think much of the first agent I got, so I had the brokerage manager re-assign me to someone far sharper.

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Man Uses Boarding Pass Implanted in His Hand at Security, Lounge, and Gate

by Gary Leff

Jan 16 2016

I hate paper, so don’t love paper boarding passes – whether printing them at home or queuing up at the airport. Since I mostly fly American Airlines domestically I use their mobile app. One catch though is that I always pull up my boarding passes when I check in for a flight, even my connecting pass, in case I don’t have great connectivity (or there’s some other glitch) when I go to board my flight. The app saves the boarding pass so I can use it even if I can’t update it.

I don’t usually download apps for carriers I fly less frequently though, so I’m stuck with paper since I don’t want to clutter my phone. It’s never occurred to me to inject an NFC chip into my hand…

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How to Fix an Award Ticket that Your Airline Screws Up

by Gary Leff

Jan 16 2016

Reader Susan contacted me about a problem with an award ticket she had booked. She had business class awards flying Denver – Los Angeles – Honolulu – Sydney with travel to Honolulu on American connecting to Qantas.

She tried to rebook onto Qantas San Francisco – Sydney which was showing available. The agent changed her reservation and queued the award tickets for re-issue. When the tickets didn’t get issued, she called and learned that her reservation was cancelled.

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Flight Attendants Trained to Report Asian American Women to the Police Because See Something, Say Something

by Gary Leff

Jan 15 2016

Earlier in the week I wrote that the Department of Homeland Security wants hotel desk clerks to snitch on guests as possible sex traffickers based on a set of behavior that could match that of plenty of guests.

It turns out that they want flight attendants to do this also, and so a married couple was detained at New York JFK because the crew thought they fit the ‘profile’.

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