Bruce Schneier offes commentary on the TSA’s “Top 10 Good Catches of 2011” The TSA is great at trumpeting anything close to what it considers to be a success but nowehre on its top 10 list is a terrorist. They didn’t catch any. Schneier points out that the firearms and knives brought to the checkpoint by forgetful passengers would have been caught by the very same screening procedures that existed pre-9/11, the TSA offers no value add there. And that the number one good catch, small chunks of C4 explosives in a passenger’s checked bag, was found on the return flight meaning that the TSA didn’t even find it on the outbound. The P.R. spin doesn’t stop though, this isn’t an agency that can admit fallibility, it’s defending its decision to confiscate that cupcake in…
American Miles Becoming Increasing Valuable for Aspirational First Class Award Redemptions, While Star Alliance Programs Become Harder to Use
If you want business class all over the world, it’s hard to beat Star Alliance (although American miles, and oneworld, have Star beat for North America to South America by a wide margin – great availability on both American and on LAN). But if you want first class awards, departing from North America, Star (e.g. United/Continental and US Airways) has really fallen down several notches while American Airlines miles have gotten more useful. Star Alliance used to be my go to, all over the world, but recently it’s been much much more difficult to get first class awards departing the U.S.: Singapore Airlines used to be hard, but possible, usually just for a single seat at a time. Now that they no longer serve any U.S. routes with the old first class on the 747,…
Mileage Running Really IS a Different Sort of Travel: Celebrities at the Checkpoint and Kids on a Plane
I’ve long been jealous of the strange flying experiences that seem to seek out Lucky. Very little strange seems to happen to me in my travels, and I finally had a bit of contrast this weekend to reflect on why that is. I fly mostly at peak business travel times. The planes are filled largely with very frequent flyers, business travelers who know the drill. I avoid flying at peak holiday times, the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving or the Sunday after for instance, “Amateur Day” as it were. (At least domestically.. I’ll go away on major holidays but usually flying long haul.) When I go somewhere for the weekend, I’m flying to interesting places when all of the interesting people are leaving those interesting places. Mileage running, or arranging travel without the constraints of a…
How to Use Hidden City and Throwaway Ticketing to Save Money on Airfare
Airlines often price tickets from one city to another through a hub cheaper than flights that terminate at the hub. That’s because there may be more competition between the two cities that are cheaper. And this presents an opportunity called “hidden city ticketing” — you buy the flight to the cheaper destination, connecting where you really want to go, and just get off the plane at your ‘true’ arrival point. (Throwing away the final segment, throwaway ticketing.) For those who think I’m somehow breaking secret ground here, the post was actually inspired by a recent useful thread on Milepoint and even further I’d note that Nate Silver wrote this up in some detail in the New York Times back in May. Here’s Silver’s explanation: Passengers flying to or from airports that are dominated by a…
Award Wallet Implements Workaround to Continue Helping Members Utilize their American AAdvantage Accounts
Back in December, American Airlines forced Award Wallet to stop checking AAdvantage accounts, claiming that their servers contacting American’s were a violation of American’s website terms and conditions, and that storing member passwords and account information was as well. The battle began to heat up in October or at least that’s when the Wall Street Journal reported on it. Oddly enough, American lets Points.com do precisely those things. Of course American has a business relationship with Points.com. American would say that they ‘trust’ Points.com, though they don’t apparently have a formal program or certification standards. Further, Award Wallet is actually a partner of Points.com. That doesn’t seem to create concern for American in their trusting of Points.com, yet they still don’t want Award Wallet accessing their site. It’s suggestive that something else entirely is going…
25% Discount on United/Continental Coach Awards to Europe and Africa
For travel booked by January 16 for travel January 27 through March 22, United is offering a discount of up to 25% on coach saver awards between the US and Europe or Central and Southern Africa. A Saturday stay is required, and you can only get the discount on United flights using United miles and on Continental flights using Continental, though as they’re quick to point out you can freely transfer points back and forth between the two at will. The discount is 20% for travel Thursday – Sunday and 25% for Monday – Wednesday, and you can do travel in one period in one direction and the othe period in the other direction, combinability is not an issue. Open jaws are permitted within a region and the discount also applies to miles and money…
Free Points for Frequent Flyer Program Signups
New Girl in the Air highlights current signup bonuses offered by various frequent flyer and frequent guest programs: Alaska Airlines: 500 Miles for Joining and Completing Your Profile American Airlines: 1000 Miles for Joining and Referncing Promotion Code ETD10 Amtrak: 500 Points for Joining and Completing Your First Trip Within 90 Days Choice Hotels: 500 Points for Joining and Completing Your First Stay Czech Airlines: 2000 Miles for Joining Jet Airways: 2000 Miles for Joining LAN Airlines: 1000 Kilometers for Joining Marriott Hotels: 2000 Points for Joining and Completing Your First Stay Southwest Airlines: 750 Points for Joining and Opting In to Emails for at least 3 Months Virgin Atlantic: 1000 Miles for Joining and Taking Your First Flight in Economy Class (2000 Miles for Premium Economy / 3000 for Upper Class) For those programs which…
Credit Card Usage Strategy for Someone Who Isn’t a High Spender
In response to Tuesday’s post laying out my personal credit card spending strategy for 2012, reader Andrew writes: Gary, can you please write a post laying out a credit card strategy for those of us who don’t spend mega dollars in a year? Even with some reimbursable business spend, I’m probably not going to spend more than 50K this year, and it seems silly to split up that spending across, at minimum, three cards (as you suggest). Getting 15,000 or 20,000 points per card per year isn’t getting my wife and I closer to award travel very quickly. I replied briefly in the comments, but will share my take on this as well. My post was about my own personal situation which I described, and I absolutely recognize that it doesn’t apply to plenty of…
300 Free Priority Club Points
Via Miles Momma: Get 300 Priority Club Rewards for answering a simple quiz LINK: http://usa-survey.priorityclub.com/mwpvwj ANSWER: Question #1 – All of the above Question #2 – All of the above Question #3 – All of the above Question #4 – Over 4,300 Question #5 – 50 nights or 60,000 points
The “Spouse Upgrade Debate” Goes Mainstream
A couple of weeks ago, the “spouse upgrade debate” was raging here at BoardingArea: traveling with your partner, one of you gets upgraded, which one of you gets the seat? That debate has gone mainstream with a CNN.com piece in which I’m quoted at the top and bottom of the article, and which also draws on commentary from BoardingArea blogger Deals We Like and also from Online Travel Review. I continue to reject the premise, a false dichotomy of “one of you takes the upgrade and the other doesn’t.” It’s important for you to both get the upgrade. And depending on the trip, I might even consider declining the upgrade, it’s better to be together than separated but with one of you getting a meal..
