New TSA Slogans: If We Don’t Get Off, You Don’t Get On We Love Your Fly, And It Shows Alex Tabarrok reminds us that we tell children that their body is their own, they have the right to say NO, and that there are parts of their body that are private. Authority figures, for example, may also use threats of violence to engage in abuse against adults, for example, “you will be blown up unless you let me touch your genitals and take naked pictures of you.” Boing Boing brings us a children’s book, My First Cavity Search: Helping Your Child Understand Why He May Pose a Threat to National Security. Illustrated cover is priceless. Tyler Cowen thinks an arbitrary and punitive TSA is good for consumers who remain willing to fly because it’ll cause…
Free Flights to Cancun, New York, and Las Vegas
Expedia.ca (the Canadian Expedia site) has published a vacation package coupon — SAVE300 — that takes $300 off of any air/hotel package to Vegas, Cancun or New York. Take for example a $260 airline ticket to Vegas, add two nights cheapie off the strip $20 hotel nights and that totals $300. SAVE300 makes that $0. Book by November 21, 2010 for travel through December 31. (But who knows, Expedia might pull this sooner.) If multiple people are flying, book them separately so each gets the $300 off. (Yes that means there are hotel nights you never use.) If you can get it to price at $0 don’t worry about the dates, just book whatever dates you MIGHT need. Use the ones you want and don’t worry about the rest. Flyertalk thread and details as follows:SAVE300…
United Won’t Reduce Confirmed Domestic Upgrade Certificates for Top Level Elites in 2011 After All
United is backing off of their just-announced changes to Confirmed Regional upgrade earning. Earlier in the week they said that beginning in 2011, Mileage Plus members who flew 75,000 miles would receive 2 confirmable-at-booking domestic upgrade certificates (valid even on Hawaii and JFK-San Francisco/Los Angeles “p.s.” routes) and an additional 2 confirmable upgrades for each 25,000 miles flown after that. The upshot was that 1Ks flying just 100,000 miles would earn only (4) confirmed domestic upgrade certificates, instead of the current system where they earn 2 in each quarter that they fly at least 10,000 miles on United for a standard total of (8). But high-flying Premier Executives who don’t hit 1K would earn a couple, and 1Ks flying 175,000 miles per year would earn (10) so more than current. There was much backlash on…
The TSA Emperor Has No Clothes
Flyertalk member kokonutz asks a series of (not-G rated, as he’s wont to do) questions: Is it illegal to moan with pleasure when the TSA fondles your junk? Enquiring minds want to know. Is it illegal to get wood from a good rub? Is it illegal to tip for a good rub? Is it illegal to request a happy ending? Is it illegal to keep going through security, exiting then regoing through security so you can get your junk rubbed a lot? He follows up with more: Is it illegal to say at the start of the rub down, ‘You can do everything. But I don’t kiss on the mouth.’? … Is it illegal to request hot oil with your rub down? Perhaps my favorite idea for fun at the checkpoint is this: Please be…
BigCrumbs for Getting Cash Back on the Online Purchases (including Air and Hotel) You Make Anyway
Over the summer I reminded folks to get cash back rebates for their online travel purchases. I’ve used mostly FatWallet and eBates for this. But I’ve long seen lots of references to Big Crumbs, which seems to offer cash back from stores the others don’t and frequently more cash back than the others as well. But even I have a limit to the deals and strategies I pursue, I often just follow what I know and what I’m used to rather than expending the energy to pay attention to yet another site. And I never bothered to sign up, even though I was likely losing out on rebates as a result and even though the signup process takes no more than a couple of minutes. Then this morning I read Frugal Travel Guy channeling Flyertalk’s…
Animated TSA Nude-o-Scope Illustration
Via Lucky, a Taiwanese animated take on TSA nude-o-scopes and ‘enhanced’ pat downs. I especially love when the TSA animated groper takes the opting out passenger into a private bedroom and sexy music begins to play.
US Airways and ‘Starnet Blocking’ — Is US Airways Preventing Members from Booking Award Seats That Lufthansa Is Offering?
I mentioned on Sunday that redeeming US Airways miles for Lufthansa transatlantic flights has been a challenge over the past couple of weeks. Flights that Lufthansa is offering to partner airlines are showing up to US Airways reservations agents as unavailable. I’ve tested this on a number of routes and dates and found this to be the case — bookable with Continental or Aeroplan miles, but US Airways says not available. At first I assumed it was an IT glitch of sorts, something I’ve seen and experienced with US Airways in the past. Or just agents who didn’t know how to search for what I was asking about or who didn’t know what they were doing. I’ve frequently asked about first class awards and the agent will say nothing is available — when the agent…
United and Continental Elite Program Changes for 2011
Others already blogged the details while I was in meetings today (e.g. here and here) but still worth noting that United and Continental have announced changes for 2011, mostly aligning their upgrade programs. The two programs operate separately in 2011. And just as United moved to and end of January the following year for status expiration, Continental will follow suit. Then they’ll merge the programs for 2012. When they do there will be clear differentiation between 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, and 100,000 mile flyers. Put a different way, United’s top tier is 1K at 100,000 miles flown. Continental’s top tier is Platinum at 75,000 miles flown. Clearly a combined entity wasn’t going to have a 75,000 mile top tier, just too easy to reach that and would mean too many top level elites (who were thus…
US Airways’ Uninspiring Holiday Shopping Promotion
Last Holiday Season US Airways offered one of the greatest mileage promotions of all time to encourage shopping through their online mall — up to 250% bonus on earned miles which when paired with an offer from TrackItBack yielded 140 miles per dollar spent without having to leave your computer. Judged against that standard, almost anything will appear disappointing. So it’s no surprise that this season’s promo doesn’t get the juices flowing. (Actually, it’s not even as lucrative as their back to school promo was just a few months back, which is rather surprising.) This holiday offer (registration required) is for up to 4 additional miles per dollar spent, based on how much in total you spend through their shopping portal between November 15 and December 30. Spend $100 to $249 and earn 1 bonus…
A New Twist on National Opt Out Day
Jeffrey Goldberg recommends a twist to National Opt Out day, where folks are trying to get passengers to refuse nude-o-scope screening en masse on the day before Thanksgiving, perhaps the busiest travel day of the year. Like Lucky I’m somewhat torn over the concept. I’m not sure that the TSA really cares, lines are bad enough on such a heavy travel day, and clogging them up further will likely inconvenience passengers more than it will TSA gropers. Moreover, I’m not certain it’s even individually rational to opt out at this point, since the TSA has started their retaliatory ‘enhanced’ pat downs designed to be worse than the nude-o-scopes in order to push folks to accept their backscatter fate. Personally I generally just try to fuss with my stuff long enough for someone else to be…
