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United Visa: Triple Miles on Fast Food
Between September 1 and November 30th, the United Visa is awarding triple miles for spending at ‘quick service’ restaurants, up to 30,000 bonus miles total. Details are here. Quick service is a Visa designation, and the website specifically cites examples as Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, and Quizno’s.
Northwest’s 1-2-3 Free Promotion
Northwest has matched United’s reintroduction of ‘fly three, fly free’ and upped the ante. Northwest is offering international as well as domestic free travel, and most fares are eligible (although the lowest — L, T and K class domestically and V, L, T, and K internationally — are not eligible). Unlike United, Northwest will award credit towards this promotion when flying discount coach fares that include a Saturday night stay.Registration is required.
We won’t even tell you why we won’t let you have freedom to travel
Nick Gillespie over at Reason‘s “Hit & Run” updates on John Gilmore’s legal battle against the requirement that we show papers in order to travel by air. The government doesn’t even want to allow Gilmore to see its legal arguments before the 9th circuit. Chilling.
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More on the free electronics offers
A Wired article from last month outlines the economics of the free electronics deals, and is consistent with the explanations I’ve given here. Instead, they explained, Gratis Internet is paid a bounty for sending potential customers to sites like AOL, eBay or RealNetworks. “We’re a marketing firm,” said Jewell. “We’re sending these people to our advertisers. We cringe when we hear ‘pyramid’ or ‘scheme.’ We’re more closely associated with viral marketing, with the subservient chicken, than Amway.” …The company has sent out more than $3 million worth of free merchandise, Martin said, including 5 million to 6 million condoms. Since the launch of FreeiPods.com in June, the site has dispatched more than 2,500 iPods, Martin said, worth more than $1 million. But in the last few weeks traffic has exploded. Martin claimed nearly 1 million…
Double Miles from Delta Amex
The Delta American Express card is offering double miles on retail purchases (up to 10,000 bonus miles) from October 15 to November 15, 2004. Registration required.
Office Depot Coupon
Save $30 off $150.
Bringing a ‘One China Policy’ to Frequent Flyer Schemes
China Eastern Airlines and Taiwan-based China Airlines are partnering to offering reciprocal mileage earning for each others’ frequent flyer members. They are discussing future reciprocal e-ticketing and the possibility of codesharing as well.
Aviation Security and the Failure of Relative Risk
Once again, David Rowell is on a roll with his weekly aviation newsletter. I’m reproducing a larger portion than I normally ever would, because he does an excellent job summing up some recent stories that illustrate the current state of our approach to airline security. A flashlight battery ‘exploded’ on Saturday. The ‘explosion’ was apparently caused by a buildup of gas inside its five year old ‘C’ size battery. The person handling the torch suffered swollen hands, and several people nearby said they had ringing in their ears for a while after. But because this was at LAX airport, the entire International Terminal was evacuated for three hours. To make matters worse, at almost the same time, a passenger entered one of the other terminals through a ‘no entry’ exit, requiring terminals 6, 7 &…