The TSA security director at the Phoenix airport has been placed on leave amid allegations that he intentionally slowed down screening to increase wait times in order to justify expanding his staff. A Valley newspaper reported Wednesday that federal authorities responsible for security at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport intentionally lengthened wait times at passenger checkpoints at a time when they were asking Homeland Security administrators in Washington to provide more screeners. … The e-mails written by Fred Carter, screening chief at Sky Harbor, to Florian alerted staffers to the wait-time move on April 5. One of Carter’s emails stated that shifting staff away from checkpoints would allow passenger lanes to be shut down so wait times could be lengthened. Clearly unacceptable and a failure of leadership. Poor security, hiring of criminals, and violations of…
Comments Have Been Disabled
I’m sorry to say that the comments feature has had to be disabled. It’s not that I don’t want to hear your thoughts on what I write — I do — but in the past 24 hours the comments feature has been spammed with about 400 ads for online gambling and other such services. It’s a bit unmanagable and so until we come up with a solution we’ll just have to forgo the comment feature. Sorry for any inconvenience, but I didn’t want to make readers sift through pitches for Cialis as a condition of discussing miles and points.Update: Looks like the crack technical folks have gotten things cleaned up a bit and I’m hoping that we’ll have comments back shortly.
1000 Free Alaska Airlines Miles
Alaska Airlines is offering 1000 miles just for enrolling (free) in their mileage-earning partnership with Safeway grocery stores by August 31.
Delta Considers Charging Customers for In-Sourcing
Since the beginning of the year, E-Loan has been offering consumers the choice of whether to have their loan paperwork processed in India or the United States. Processing in India is accomplished two days more quickly. Now Delta is considering a similar offer with a twist. They would charge a fee to have calls handled by U.S. agents. Both versions involve the consumer bearing a cost, but E-Loan’s model is pitched at offering consumers a benefit, “choose to have your loans processed abroad and we’ll finish things more quickly.” Delta’s model is pitched as a tax, “we’re going to charge you for what you want.” They’re two sides of the same coin, but customers aren’t accustomed to paying for this kind of service.If Delta moves forward with the idea, they would be advised to take…
How many frequent flyers worldwide?
Sometimes it takes an article from India to learn about interesting frequent flyer facts here in the US. [W]orld-wide more than 120 million people were covered with frequent flyer programmes of various airlines. “There are over 500 to 500 million cards related to frequent flyer programmes possessed by air travellers,” he pointed out. (The story was prompted because Randy Petersen was in Mumbai for the the launch of revamped Jet Airways frequent flyer program.)
Man Raised As Chicken
Not miles and points related. (Hat tip to the Volokh Conspiracy.)
Delta Gives Away Music
Freeipods.com isn’t the only way to get music for free.Delta is offering several free entertainment products as rewards for flight purchases. Delta’s “carrier-within-a-carrier” Song will be giving out a Les Paul Junior electric guitar to people who book two round-trip tickets together on the airline between Aug. 1 and Aug. 12, for travel between Sept. 7 and Oct. 6. The promotion will require booking on the Song website. It may well also require registratoin — I don’t yet, and I don’t see details of the promo yet up on the website. So check for details before making purchases. Those who book three or more round-trip tickets together will get the mini-iPod from Apple Computer. Those who book only a single ticket will get a 100-song download from Apple’s iTunes music service.
Double Guest Rewards Points
Register to earn double points on Amtrak when booking Acela Express and Metroliner trains online in August (for August travel).
Chris Elliott’s Travel Notes
I cruised on over to Chris Elliott’s Travel Notes blog for the first time in awhile and Chris is doing a bang-up job summarizing the day’s travel news and offering brief commentary. There’s a lot more content each day than I remember, he seems to be doing a better job keeping his website up to date than I am. Just as I offer each day’s writing by email, so does Chris. I’ve signed up because I want to read his content but I’m terrible about remembering to check all the websites I enjoy reading.(I offer a simple solution for regular readers of blogs, just add my RSS feed to your favorite Blog Reader software.)
Taxing Miles in Australia
Paying business expenses on personal credit cards for the miles is a time-honored tradition. And there’s even a new company, Zevez, which helps businesses run their accounts payable through rewards credit cards in order to capture cash back or frequent flyer miles.But the practice of earning miles by charging business expenses to a credit card may be coming to an end in Australia. Australian taxpayers earning miles on business travel are clearly not liable for the tax. However a new Australian Tax Office initiative (“ATO Practice Statement”) will tax business people earning miles on their personal credit cards. The tax office will scrutinize Australians who earn 250,000 or more frequent flyer miles in a year to determine whether those miles are being earned by putting business expenses on personal cards “for no economic purpose” other…
