Let me just hand the mike to Lucky. Poor, poor Chris Elliott. And while I almost always disagree with him, this time it’s different. I support him. As we all know, the TSA didn’t exactly do a great job making the new security initiatives clear. So in trying to help the public out (for once), Chris Elliott posted the security directive on his website, which wasn’t supposed to be published. Now, aside from the fact that this wasn’t supposed to be made public, I don’t see anything in there that I’d consider confidential or surprising. In other words, Chris wasn’t compromising our national security. But apparently someone from the government showed up at his house last night with a subpoena, wanting to know who leaked him the document. Overkill much? You’d think they have bigger things…
Alamo $10 Weekend Rentals
Alamo’s $10 a day weekend rates are back from January 6 through February 8. (Thanks to mrp alert for the pointer.) Book using corporate ID 7015238. Pick up the car 9am on Thursday or later, return by Monday, and the key to getting the deal is keeping the car Saturday night. Rates are $10 for compact up to $20 for premium vehicles. Rates are capacity controlled and only available at airport locations.
I Have Little to Add to Recent TSA Commentary
I had only just been joking about the shoe carnival at checkpoints, the unfortunate legacy of ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid. Thank goodness he wasn’t the ‘pants bomber’ was my joke, or we’d all have to take off our pants at security. So it’s cruel irony that the December 25th failed attempt has become known alternately as the pants bomber and the crotch bomber. TSA has been roundly criticized, no mocked is more like it, for their silly response to last week’s events. Somehow we need extra security measures on flights into the U.S. because somehow Amsterdam’s security is less thorough than that at US airport, or perhaps because there aren’t already terrorists in the U.S. and so we have to keep all would-be bombers from staying warm with blankets. And if they’re really bored while flying…
1500 Mile Frontier Signup Bonus — Good for $6 at Starbucks
Frontier is offering 1500 miles for signing up for their frequent flyer program by December 31. (Hat tip Frugal Travel Guy.) Even if you’re never going to add more miles to your Frontier EarlyReturns account, it’s worth signing up. You can transfer your points out of Frontier and into other programs for free at Points.com. 1500 Frontier miles yields your choice of: 372 Air Canada Aeroplan points 311 Alaska Mileage Plan miles 329 American 637 Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles 296 Delta Skymiles 592 HawaiianMiles 348 Midwest Miles 637 Priority Club Rewards points 296 US Airways Dividend miles … or $6 in Starbucks.
Hilton 50% Off Weekends (Many Hotels Weekdays, Too) in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia
Loyalty Traveler points to the new Hilton 50% off weekends sale for Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The sale is valid for bookings made throughout January. Hotels in the Americas are excluded. Rates are fully prepaid and non-cancellable, and include breakfast and late checkout. And while perhaps this will be corrected, currently many hotels are offering the weekend 50% off rate during the week as well.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is a Delta Diamond
Mike Huckabee explains this status to the New York Times. Are you prepared to deal with Delta reservations agents, whom you describe in your book as robotic and unreasonable? You’d think they’d be nice to ex-governors. What does give me cachet is not that, but the number of miles that I fly a year. There’s a new designation that Delta is cranking up in January called Diamond, and it’s for people who are so far above the Platinum status that they are going to put in a unique category. I qualify for that! I’m glad you’ve achieved supreme status in at least one realm of life. You know, if you can’t be president, by gosh, get to the highest level of frequent-flier rewards. Of course, if Huckabee doesn’t like dealing with Delta res agents, I…
Flyertalk Makes it On Oprah
Up in the Air director Jason Reitman explains to Oprah, Jason Reitman: I think it’s a combination of things. One, it’s the thing that you first brought up—it is a community. If you look at a website like FlyerTalk.com, for example, you will find a group of people who have banded together in their passion for this kind of lifestyle of living continuously on the road and who have an unusual definition of the word home. It’s a group of people that are just as comfortable if not more comfortable living in constant flux—hotel to hotel, airport to airport—who get a sense of thrill from being surrounded by those destination boards knowing that they could suddenly be off to any city in the world. People who live by their daily itinerary. And I think one…
Starwood’s Brand Positioning
London’s Sunday Times carries a puff piece on Starwood Hotels CEO Frits van Paasschen “whose mantra is ‘refuel the cool’” He has his work cut out for him, though I’m not sure he realizes just how. Starwood has had four unique selling propositions, two of which were loyalty program-related and three of which have been matched or bettered by the competition over the past couple of years. 1) SPG True Redemption. This was the best program for award redemption, period. Not only no blackout dates but no capacity controls. But now Hilton and Hyatt both explicitly matches this, and in practice Priority Club seems close. 2) Platinum suite upgrades. Intercontinental Royal Ambassador has long had a better upgrade policy, but the program was too small for Starwood to worry about. Hilton doesn’t offer a suite…
Fixing Air Traffic Control in the United States
Reason.tv‘s video, Your Flight Has Been Delayed… And It’s Washington’s Fault makes the case for folowing Canada’s lead and prviatizing Air Traffic Control. Of course this weekend’s delays weren’t Washington’s fault. But certainly transportation funding priorities are out of whack, air traffic control technologies are terribly outdated, and Canada’s private model seems to operate better (in spite of more snow up North!). That said, I’ve long wanted to imrpove plane-to-plane communications and make planes more like cars…
Just Over a Week Left to Take Advantage of the US Airways 250% Holiday Shopping Bonus
I’ve written plenty about this offer already, but there are likely several people still on the fence so I thought I’d write it up as simply as possible in one place. The bonus offers the opportunity to buy US Airways miles at about 7/10ths of a penny apiece. That’s buying business class from the US to Europe for ~ $700 (plus taxes and award redemption fee). First class to Hong Kong on Star Alliance partner awards becomes ~ $850 per ticket (again, plus taxes and fees). So it’s a pretty amazing offer. The basics of the deal: * You need to have (5) transactions with different merchants in order to reach the 250% bonus level. The 5th needs to be Track It Back which normally offers 40 miles per dollar but becomes 140 under this…
