Reader Denis passes along this story (Portugese) about a family under criminal investigation over manufactured spend. It’s not clear from the article how laws would have been broken. Google translates the charges as, Gang, embezzlement, forgery, use of false documents and money laundering. Apparently they earn only about $740 per month but managed to generate ~ $17 million in credit card charges last year. Denis explains that “he used a form of wire transfer known in Brazil simply as “DOC”, which is the way most bills (utilities, credit cards, cable….) are paid, but he issued those DOCs to himself or someone else in his family.” Those funds transfers generally come with a fee, ~ 2.5%, so it’s unclear from the story how he managed to keep his costs low enough to make the credit card…
New Airline (‘Reborn’) PEOPLExpress Has a Very Bad Day, and Teaches All Other Airlines an Important Lesson
The ‘new’ PEOPLExpress airlines had a very bad operational day yesterday. They took to their Facebook page, with a message signed by their President: Lots of customers appreciated this heartfelt and detailed explanation, although I’m not sure in his position I would have scolded customer behavior (it won’t be taken well by the customers who behaved that way, and will be read mostly by customers who didn’t — and is about the airline’s needs rather than theirs — although perhaps it paints a sympathetic picture). It seems like they handled things better than United does. Although their non-Facebook communication probably wasn’t as good, based on this Facebook comment: While I am grateful for the explanation, I am still upset about the lack of knowledge from your airport checkin-in counter staff, not being able to get…
LAN Business Class to Ecuador for Under $1000: Head to the Galapagos!
The indispensable The Flight Deal points to a LAN business class sale, $998 New York – Quito / Guayaquil, Ecuador. Normal coach fares from New York to Ecuador runs about $600. They rarely go on sale. If you want to go to the Galapagos too, LAN’s fares from Guayaquil is about $350 roundtrip. You can also redeem 7,500 British Airways Avios each way to Galapagos from Guayaquil. There is no premium class seats between Guayaquil and Galapagos or within Ecuador– only coach. If you just want to go to the Galapagos, book the deal to Guayaquil. (New York – Guayaquil is non-stop, going to Quito involves flying to Guayaquil and connecting to a one-cabin domestic flight, and is the same price terminating in either city.) The fare must be purchased by August 25 for travel…
American Reveals its Frequent Flyer Program Data to the SEC: Here’s What We Learn
Frequent flyer statistics: American AAdvantage is the largest frequent flyer program in the world — including US Airways members, they boast more than 100 million members. At that scale, nearly all analysis can be done by the numbers, and fortunately American is more revealing about their numbers than most other carriers. Airline filings with the SEC can be extremely enlightening if you’re willing to work through them. American’s filings provide quite a bit of detail about the number of members, how many miles were issued in a year, and how many miles remain outstanding (unexpired and unredeemed). I had a look at annual 10-K filings from the beginning of 2008 through the beginning of 2014. Here’s what they show:
Get Instant Free Status from Avis and National Car Rental
Last month I wrote about how you can get free and easy rental car elite status if you have a World Elite MasterCard. Plenty of readers have one of these, for instance if you signed up for the Citi American Airlines Executive Card when it was offering 100,000 bonus miles. johnf pointed out though that there are links available with both Avis and National that let you sign up and receive elite status instantly. Avis has their MasterCard World Elite signup offer online. This gives you instant Avis First status. You’ll have to enter a MasterCard as your credit card of choice. National Car Rental makes their signup link available as well. Which means most should be able to use it. Years ago you used to be able to sign up for Avis Presidents Club…
Is the Airbus A380 a Failure?
The Airbus A380 is cool. Efficient Asian Man says “the 747 is iconic while the A380 looks like a retarded goldfish” but the whale is huge and is amazing to fly. I still think it feels bizarre at takeoff, flying on the upper deck. It feels underpowered as it glides into the sky, it’s too smooth. Boarding the entire upper deck from separate jet bridges, you almost don’t realize that there’s a full length plane beneath you. You can pack it in densely or add amenities like Emirates has done with the shower, or Etihad is doing with their 3-bedroom residence (which isn’t as insane as it sounds, since it leverages what is mostly otherwise dead space). A New York Times story this weekend contends, though, that overall the A380 is a failure. There are…
Iranian Domestic Flight Crashed into a Residential Neighborhood on Takeoff This Morning
An Iranian passenger jet operated by Sepahan Air crashed Sunday morning after takeoff in a residential area near Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport. Thirty nine people were killed and nine onboard were injured. The plane apparently was an ‘IrAn-140’ — a twin-engine turboprop that’s a variant of an Antonov An-140 assembled in Iran. The flight was headed for the city of Tabas, about 580 miles southeast of Tehran. The plane suffered an engine failure and its tail struck an electricity tower before impact. My thoughts are with the families of passengers, crew, and anyone injured on the ground — as well as with Sepahan Air. Much information that comes out in the immediate aftermath of a disaster turns out to be wrong, so some of these details may change. It’s too early to identify a cause, although…
Here’s Why You Should Consider Connecting In Dublin On Your Next Europe Trip
About a week ago, the UK’s Telegraph ran a piece, Is Dublin Airport Eating Heathrow’s Lunch? The answer is clearly no, because London remains an important world business destination, even if it’s an abominable connecting airport. And Heathrow remains terribly even transferring British Airways-to-British Airways… last year my Dusseldorf – London – San Francisco connection involved two buses and a train as I arrived at a terminal 1 bus gate, then had to bus to terminal 5, and we departed out of a T5 satellite concourse. If you’re going to connect in Europe, Dublin is a really good place to do it. If you are starting or ending your trip anywhere west or north of London, it’s a no brainer not to fly all the way to London (or beyond) and backtrack. Plus flying Westbound…
Here’s How to Fix the TSA, In Song
The TSA is offering a $15,000 prize for the best idea that improves the security screening process. TSA is looking for the Next Generation Checkpoint Queue Design Model to apply a scientific and simulation modeling approach to meet queue design and configuration needs of the dynamic security screening environment, Yeah, that makes sense. And that description may be part of the problem. Here’s the contest entry website. The TSA guarantees they will award a prize. A total of $15,000 is available, and could be awarded to one single entry. At a minimum there will be a $5000 first prize and there could be in theory (4) $2500 prizes (no prize under $2500 will be awarded). My good friends at ReasonTV released a video entry from Remy. He wins. (Shout outs for the prompt to K.K.,…
Free Upgrades, 50% Hotel Discount, Miles Purchase Savings, and Thousands of Bonus Miles: What You Need to Know Today!
News and notes from around the interweb: Earn up to 100,000 United miles flying between Chicago and Shanghai Finally! Someone agrees with me that
