Google collects a tremendous amount of information. That’s pretty useful — to Google and to us. They improve their selection of what search results to show us based on what we’ve chosen in the past. They also give us similar results that we’ve liked before when we search again. And of course they tailor ads to our searching which, while creepy, is actually quite good — I’d rather have ads that contain relevant information and offers than ones that are utterly useless to me though in practice it doesn’t much change the likelihood that I’ll click. Google search data is also fascinating in the aggregate for social sciences. What people are searching tells us something about what they’re thinking, and en masse it tells us something about what “we” are thinking as a society. It…
Free Avios, What’s Better than a Selfie Stick? and a Turkish A320 Halts and Catches Fire.
Apr
27
2015
A collection of interesting links you’ll want to see, many you’ll want to click.
Silvercar Adds Fort Lauderdale with $43/day Rates, Chicago is Next!
Apr
27
2015
Silvercar announced Ft. Lauderdale as their 9th city, and strongly implies that number 10 will be Chicago. Silvercar of course is the company that rents only silver Audis. And they give you GPS, in-car internet, and no toll tracking administrative fees. They charge just $5 to refill gas at market rate. Promo code FLLE27 will get you 27% off their $59 introductory rates, or $43 a day (plus taxes). That’s even better than the $49 deal they’re running on all rentals this month (that’s valid at other locations as well). Although on a two day rental you’ll still do better with the Frequent Traveler University discount code FTU50 which will give even existing customers $50 off a rental of two days or more. The great thing is that these stack with Silvercar’s $25 bonus for…
American’s New Plan to Renovate All of Their Lounges
Apr
27
2015
Two weeks ago I wrote about American’s new lounge design.
American, today, has finally announced it and it looks very much like their old new lounge design, which is to say it’s quite similar to the most recently-opened lounges such as in Buenos Aires and the midfield concourse at LAX and even Paris.
The idea is that eventually all of the lounges get re-done. Here’s details of the renovation and which clubs go first..
Any Room Charge on an Award Stay Enough for 30,000 Club Carlson Bonus Points
Apr
27
2015
When Club Carlson announced that their co-brand Visa will stop giving second night free on award stays, they offered something of a sweetener to make the news go down more easily. They announced 30,000 bonus points on your next stay paid with the card by August 31. Presumably that was to keep cardmembers from cancelling their Club Carlson Visa — since they’d need to hang onto the card and use it to earn the 30,000 points, and presumably many would have cooled down or forgotten the devaluation by then. Reader B.K. confirms for me that it doesn’t actually have to be a paid stay in order to earn the 30,000 points. Any hotel charge that posts to your account should work. He passes along an award stay where he had a food and beverage charge…
Woman Cleaning Aircraft at New York JFK Stole 1500 Mini-Bottles of Liquor. She Could Have Avoided Jail With This One Simple Trick.
Apr
26
2015
A contract cleaning worker for Airserv at JFK was arrested for stealing 1429 liquor minis from aircraft she was cleaning.
“[A] witness tipped off American Airlines security officials” and when police searched her apartment..
Let’s Help Out a Honeymooner Stranded by United.. My Advice Is Radically Different from Another Consumer Advocate.
Apr
26
2015
United’s flight schedule from Antigua has changed, and honeymooners have to stay in paradise an extra night. Their hotel wants $900.
One consumer advocate says they should go to Congress for help. I say they should get the United flight segment refunded, and take the American non-stop home instead… or book a cheaper hotel for that last night. What say you?
Airbus Celebrates 10 Years of the A380 — With Disingenuous Claims
Apr
26
2015
Airbus released a video on Friday celebrating 10 years of their A380 program. The video was produced before Airbus announced a new higher-density economy configuration, or they conveniently ignore their own announcement when talking about economy class comfort. Of course it’s a promotional video and they make some rather incredible claims. The video suggests that the A380 is more efficient than the Boeing 787 because you’d “need 2 787s to carry as many passengers” and that would be more costly and burn more fuel. That misses the point, of course: the question is whether a given route has as many passengers as an A380 can hold, where it’s economical to fly such a large aircraft. You need to fill an A380 for it to make sense. And that’s not something that works on most routes.…
Here’s How New Boeing Overhead Bins Will Make Boarding Faster and Flying Easier
Apr
26
2015
Many flyers don’t remember that before 9/11 passengers could take two carry on bags onboard. Generally passengers had a free allowance of three bags — and those could be two carry ons and one checked bag, or one carry on and two checked bags.
This changed by government regulation. The TSA wanted fewer bags going through the checkpoint, which meant less screening work, and fewer delays given a fixed throughput at the checkpoint.
Continental Airlines actually pushed back: they had installed higher capacity overhead bins as a customer convenience. Passengers wanted to carry on bags, and they viewed this accommodation as a competitive advantage.
How to Avoid Onboard Fistfights and Still Get the Seats You Want
Apr
26
2015
A couple of weeks ago the New York Times carried a trend piece on arguments over seat swapping onboard.
I suppose if desires to switch seats are a trend, it’s a function of:
- Fewer seats available for advance assignment, as airlines want customers to pay for ‘premium’ seats (more and more seats are designated as somehow premium even though they aren’t better)
- Full planes, so fewer seats left for assignment at time of booking.
Nonetheless, it amazes me how many people don’t secure advance seat assignments, usually on international flights, and this is for people who really care where they sit.
