I still don’t know what I’m going to do with a free Mac Mini but this Wired piece suggests it can turned into a livingroom video recorder, a media center for cars, or a toaster. Though that last one may be a little too MacGyver for me.
John Stossel’s ABC News piece last night contained some interesting nuggets, including this about proposed changes to the Ketchikan International Airport in Alaska: Years ago Congress gave money to the little tourist town of Ketchikan, with only 14,000 residents, for an airport on a nearby island. Ketchikan International has six to eight flights a day, and people get there by taking a short ferry ride — which they love. The scenic ride takes 500 air travelers a day to or from the airport in just seven minutes Alaska resident Mike Sallee likes the ferry ride. He said, “I think our existing ferry system is just dandy and it doesn’t cost $200 million.” The $200 million refers to the fact that Young recently persuaded legislators that Ketchikan needs a bridge to the airport. And Young doesn’t…
The Bush Administration is proposing to more than double the airline security tax under its budget for the Homeland Security Department. Bush’s plan calls for boosting the security fee from $2.50 to $5.50 for a one-way airline ticket and from a maximum of $5 to $8 for multiple legs. The hikes are expected to generate $1.5 billion. I know this makes sense to me, since the Department of Homeland Security gets so much value out of the budget they have now. Any money will surely be well spent. Heh.(Hat tip to Tripso Daily.)
Southwest Airlines has an offer for a free movie download from Movielink.com as part of their effort to introduce in-flight entertainment. They won’t install movie screens or inflight audio. Instead, they encourage you to download a movie and watch it.
The eFax 30 Day Free Trial offer is back on the Free Mac Mini site. I did the eFax trial for my photo iPod. It’s a 30 day free trial, which is good because it makes it plenty easy to cancel. Cancellation is done via online chat, so you can even save the chat in case something goes wrong (just copy and paste it into your wordprocessor). So if you’re looking for an easy offer to complete, this is a good one. The past few days had seen only sketchy offers like 7 day trials that required you to stay signed up for the full 7 days, or even a 1-day trial for $1. Too much hassle. Much prefer to have a month…
Randy Petersen believes that United’s Mileage Plus is worth $2.4 to $2.7 billion and that a public offering could lie in the future.
Engadget reviews the iPod Shuffle: This thing is tiny — and light. You’ll never feel it around your neck or in your pocket. It’s like a stick of gum, not a pack. Just be sure not to leave it in your jeans when you wash them. Gets me excited about the new Free iPod Shuffle offer from Gratis, not to mention the Free Mac Mini.
Continental and United are both offering 42,000 bonus miles for business class flights across the Atlantic, matching British Airways and American.
USAirways is offering double miles for purchases made through the end of the month on all flights through the end of 2005. Business class flights to Europe earn 40,000 bonus miles (like American and British Airways) and all flights to the Carribean and Latin America earn 10,000 bonus miles. Registration is required, and again the bonus applies only to tickets purchased by January 31.
The year started with a bleak outlook for Independence Air, as news broke that they had missed an interest payment on some bonds leading to speculation that they were close to a bankruptcy filing. (If they were going to file for bankruptcy there was no reason to make the payment, and they’d want to conserve cash in any case.) Then they announced plans for job cuts, renegotiated lease payments on aircraft, agreed to return some aircraft, and obtained a loan from GE. All of this bought some breathing space for the carrier, though did little to improve their revenue outlook. But my opinion of the carrier is somewhat boosted by two big bets being made on the carrier by Wall Street heavyweights. Regulatory filings late Friday indicate that two major hedge funds have acquired 12.5%…
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
