News and notes from around the interweb: TSA PreCheck is an important idea – risk-based security, focusing resources where there’s a greater chance of a threat. It’s why TSA as an acronym for ‘Taking Scissors Away’ is such a problem, because it distracts the agency from looking for actually dangerous items. When the TSA lets a member of a domestic terrorist group into PreCheck, however, the program doesn’t work very well. Not to worry, though, because the TSA says there are multiple layers of security. (HT: S.) A woman who opens for Margaret Cho was denied pre-boarding for the disabled on Virgin America and they’re raising a stink. The quite successful Cho “would take legal action if they had the money to fight a Goliath corporation.” While a regrettable incident somehow I think that if…
She Caused a Disruption *After* Her Onboard Sex Act
Alright, crazy passenger stories happen at least somewhat regularly. A woman flying British Airways from Kingston, Jamaica to London Gatwick “was arrested on suspicion of being drunk on an aircraft” which I did not realize was even a crime. (“I’m glad to have never been arrested, then” half the people reading this think to themselves.) Here’s the piece of the story I don’t get: Apparently the disturbance wasn’t caused by the sex act. It was caused after that. The stripping and whatnot, on the BA flight, was itself merely ‘being cheeky’.
~ $5000 Competitours Europe Challenge Trip Giveaway!
My Award Booking Partner Steve Many of you know that I offer an award booking service. It grew too big to handle on my own, and I was fortunate enough to be able to partner with one of the real veterans and gurus in the frequent flyer game, Steve Belkin (known in online forums as ‘beaubo’). Steve is most famous for exploiting loopholes in frequent flyer programs like Aeroplan and United’s MileagePlus in a truly big way, scaling opportunities to earn millions instead of thousands of miles. And in that pursuit he has hired disable Thai rice farmers to fly in and out of the Golden Triangle area of Thailand, and New Zealand college students to fly to Europe for the summer. His ‘Amazing Race for Regular People’ One of the really fun projects he’s…
Will the Thai Airways Mileage Program Be a Savior for United Passengers?
yosithezet responds to my post suggesting that the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program is a good place to credit miles for United flights (because it earns full miles flown and you can top off accounts with points transferred from Citi, Chase, Amex, and Starwood) by asking, “What about Thai? And that’s such a good question! Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus offers full mileage earning on all paid United fares. Here’s the earning chart: And for avoidance of doubt:
KLM’s Business Class Houses, With Liquor
KLM gives long haul business class customers a takeaway gift of collectible houses with liquor inside. Each flight, a Dutch house. Each year, a different style. I didn’t realize that there’s a KLM Houses App so you can look up the details of each house. (HT: baccarat_guy) I’m not sure I buy their slogan ‘Holland. The Original Cool’ (although it gets cold there for sure) but the house gifts are cool. Just not quite as cool as model airplanes.
American Updating Their Award Charts — Don’t Panic!
An American spokesperson emails, I just wanted to give you a heads up that around 11 a.m. CT this morning, we’re refreshing the look and feel of our award charts to make them easier to read and navigate. There are NO changes to the content or pricing, etc. I don’t think the new award charts are easier, I actually think they’re more cumbersome, since you now get a different separate chart for each region of the world instead of a single grid. Here’s the new partner award chart for travel between the US 48 states and the rest of the world. (Click to enlarge) Why are they doing this? We are in the process of updating all of our aa.com pages to match our new look and feel, so award charts were next on the…
Is This What Our Hobby Has Come To?
Yesterday the Hyatt Gold Passport system was showing award redemption prices in error for some hotels. Take the Park Hyatt Chicago, which normally runs 25,000 points per night as a category 6 hotel. It was showing up at 35,000 points: Now, 35,000 points isn’t even a thing in Gold Passport. The top price for a standard room is category 7, which is 30,000 points per night. The same thing was showing up for the New York hotels, by the way. When I clicked through to the property, the number of points required for the hotel didn’t even appear.
FARE WAR: American and Delta Offering $1550 Business Class Roundtrips to Rio and Sao Paulo
American and Delta appear to be in a fare war that will not last long. These are not mistake fares, but deep discount business class fares that each airline is aiming at the others’ hub markets. They’re 21 day advance purchase fares require departure Tuesday through Saturday and return Saturday through Wednesday. The American and US Airways fares allow travel through December 15, while Delta appears to allow travel through end of schedule.These fares require return no earlier than 7 days from departure. You can fly American from:
TONIGHT ONLY: Buy a $1 Gift Card, Make $20, Plus How to Scale It and Make Even More
New TopCashBack members (only) can buy any gift card priced at $1 or more and get $20 cash back. …purchase any gift card priced at $1 or more and within seven days $20 cashback will have posted in your TopCashback account. Shipping’s free. That’s effectively a $20 saving on anything you want at a retailer of your choice. If you’re super-savvy and buy a card for somewhere that costs more than $1 but less than $20, you could even be in profit. From apparel stores such as Macy’s, Gap, Kohl’s, Old Navy, (even) Gucci, Century 21 and TJ Maxx to home and garden retailers such as Lowe’s, Home Depot, Sears and Yankee Candle; there’s an enormous choice available to utilize the free $20 credit. Pet owners might opt to treat their pal at Petco or…
American Will Honor $450 Business Class Tickets to China!
American has publicly stated that they will honor the business class mistake fares between Washington DC and both Shanghai and Beijing that were posted on Tuesday. We already knew they’d honor some of the tickets. They hadn’t made a public statement, but internally seemed to be saying they would honor the tickets that were ~ $20 plus taxes and fuel surcharges, but not the tickets that were $0 plus taxes and fuel surcharges. No such distinctions here. All purchased mistake fare tickets on this deal will be honored. Congratulations to everyone that purchased these. They seem to still be taking the position, however, that tickets which had merely been ‘held’ and not purchased will not be honored. (That’s the reference to ‘fully purchased’.) Some people used American’s 24 hour hold feature, and had American cancel…
