Nov 03 2015

It’s easy to forget that prior to their merger with Continental Airlines, United really was a broken carrier. Instead of investing in their product, they would give out passenger compensation liberally. United knew their planes were in disrepair, and flight attendants were armed with cards they could hand out for easy compensation. These were known as ‘Skykits’ and later “Please Accept Our Apology cards.”

United has a new compensation program that started yesterday proactively giving out up to $125 to passengers who are disserved or who go out of their way to be helpful.

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Nov 03 2015

Washington DC’s airports have made ridesharing services legal and what that largely means is they’re now extracting money from Uber and Lyft (and more than taxis are charged).

The money funds fantastic advice to passengers, like the airports authority releasing a statement that passengers should 1. “Contact the provider through its app to arrange the ride.” and then 2. “ask to be dropped off at the publicly accessible curb closest to their airline’s ticket counter.”

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Nov 03 2015

In late September American accidentally published new, reduced mileage-earning rates for discounted British Airways and Iberia tickets on their foreign websites. The changes were supposedly going into effect February 1.

I didn’t sound the alarm at the time, because I checked with American and was told the new earning rates were published in error. And I was told that if they did something like that, it would be with more advance notice. We now have that advance notice.

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Nov 02 2015

American’s flight attendants threw in with US Airways in its attempt to take over American in bankruptcy.

Both airlines’ flight attendants agreed on a dollar value for their contract as part of that arrangement. In other words, they set a minimum amount that the airline would spend on raises for flight attendants if the merger went through. They’d negotiate a contract, but if negotiations fell through there was an agreed-upon floor.

They got $81 million more than that, even after they rejected their more-generous contract. And they still think they’re getting hosed.

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Nov 02 2015

A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.

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Nov 02 2015

For a long time I’ve said that you need to have at least one of each flavor of major card — Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. That way you’re prepared for whatever lucrative promotion comes along.

Recently there have been some big offers from Discover Card, and there are regularly big standalone savings offers from American Express but I was actually starting to question whether my advice was still relevant because we haven’t seen as many airline or hotel loyalty program offers funded by payment networks.

With this new offer that stacks on top of free nights after two stays I’m finally vindicated

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Nov 02 2015

The American Express Centurion Lounge at New York LaGuardia is giving away free Uber rides into New York through December 31.

Stop by once by the end of the year and you get a code that will give you two free rides from LaGuardia to any of the 5 boroughs of New York.

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Nov 02 2015

This Iran Air pilot lands like a boss. With no landing gear deployed at the plane’s nose, it touches down perfectly and slows down before lowering the plane’s nose and coming to a stop.

I couldn’t even tell anything was wrong until 20 seconds into the video. But from 28 to 50 seconds it’s amazing. Watch:

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Nov 01 2015

Luxury Travel Diary, a high-end travel blog with great reviews based in the UK, has a bunch of travel auctions — many that go too cheap, real bargains.

They wanted to highlight some of these, and offered to help organize a giveaway of a 4 night hotel stay in Paris for readers of this blog. I suppose that folks who already know about these auctions don’t like this added attention, because frankly there aren’t enough bidders relative to the value of the offerings and some of these items go too cheap.

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Nov 01 2015

When Spirit Airlines launched the Free Spirit program it included an opportunity to name a plane with enough points-earning. I don’t think anyone ever earned enough points (perhaps they all expired, with Spirit’s 90 day inactivity rule).

Years ago there was talk of Virgin America naming a plane for Flyertalk, or letting Flyertalk’s online community members name a plane, but that never materialized.

The world’s largest charter airline is offering the opportunity for you to choose the name of a 787.

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