Feb 27 2016

The Old Post Office in DC at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue was leased for 140 years to the Trump Organization to create the Trump International Hotel DC. Local celebrity restauranteur Jose Andres was supposed to anchor the hotel’s dining, but backed out of the project as a result of comments by Donald Trump that “Mexico was using the U.S. as a “dumping ground” for drug dealers and rapists.”

Legal wrangling ensued — Andres was backing out of a contract, but claimed it was Trump’s comments that made the project impossible. Discovery in lawsuits like this can be interesting…

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Feb 27 2016

You should never bring your own alcohol onboard. And you shouldn’t mix alcohol with Methylenedioxy Methamphetamine (especially if you’re dating a Kardashian). If you’re lucky you’ll just get written up for an inflight disturbance.

Sometimes a drunk passenger will just expose her breasts. Other times they’ll try to climb into bed with first class passengers.

Elite passengers, though, may be the worst because first class upgrades come with free booze.

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Feb 27 2016

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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Feb 27 2016

“#TSAGoodCatch – A shaving cream can with a false bottom was discovered in a carry-on bag at Las Vegas (LAS). When the false bottom was removed, officers discovered a small plastic bag with marijuana, a metal pipe, a spoon, a lighter and a hair clip.”

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Feb 27 2016

American’s revenue management has been notoriously stingy about releasing seats for premium cabin international travel over the past three years. However American has been going to lengths to improve their premium cabin award availability.

We’ve seen that with transatlantic space, with Asia flights, and even with Auckland, New Zealand. This week we finally saw it with South America.

But strangely award availability on American’s flights was nonexistent past the end of the calendar year.

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Feb 26 2016

Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson isn’t just known for heavy metal. He invested in building the world’s largest aircraft and setting up Air Djibouti.

Dickinson is also a pilot, and is rated to fly a 747. He’s piloting the band’s 35 country tour supporting their Book of Souls album.

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Feb 26 2016

There was the air marshal who sued because he was denied his onboard meal choice, and the one who left his loaded gun in the bathroom. (Another left a handgun in an airplane lavatory, it was discovered by a teenager.)

Then there was the one who pulled his service weapon on two civilians in a parking space dispute at New York JFK.

They scheduled work assignments to facilitate vacations and sexual trysts. Which is fine because they’re insufficiently trained to do much even if something did happen on their watch.

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Feb 26 2016

Book an award ticket for travel on British Airways across the Pond, and you’re going to pay pretty hefty fuel surcharges. But use your American AAdvantage or Alaska Airlines miles to fly on American transatlantic, even without fuel surcharges the taxes and fees are still pretty high.

That’s because of the UK’s Air Passenger Duty (APD) also referred to as the UK luxury tax or premium cabin departure tax, even though it applies to coach tickets as well. The amount of this tax is based on distance and class of service. And it applies to all departures originating in the UK. Here’s a way to save $200 sometimes.

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Feb 26 2016

This woman — who was neither from Germany nor from Florida — ripped pages out of her passport and used them as toilet paper. The Thai government didn’t accept her altered passport, and deported her.

The lesson though may not be not to use a passport as toilet paper. The lesson is that if you do you should follow up and have the passport replaced. Ultimately it’s probably not any rougher than much of the toilet paper I’ve found in Europe. And indeed I’ve traveled plenty of places in Asia where, if one didn’t plan ahead, they might well find themselves without better options.

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Feb 26 2016

In 2014 American Express changed their signup bonus rules to allow one bonus per card type in a customer’s lifetime.

That’s a policy they had in place a decade earlier. It doesn’t just cut off the sorts of customers that Amex wouldn’t want. They cut off customers that are after signup bonuses, but also customers who — despite being clearly savvy in the world of rewards cards — aren’t even aware of the restrictions on personal cards that you’re only eligible for one bonus per product during your lifetime.

American Express backed off of this policy once before. After losing the Costco partnership, American Express wanted to show growth – to show Wall Street it was still a growth company – by any means necessary. I had hoped that would shift them more towards ‘customer acquisition mode’. But after a series of further setbacks they appear to be entering cost cutting mode.

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