News and notes from around the interweb:
- East Hampton on Long Island plans to make its airport private to cut down on Manhattan helicopters (HT: @crucker)
The town’s board is expected to vote to deactivate its airport and reopen it as a more limited facility that planes and helicopters can only land in with prior permission, according to a Tuesday press statement by Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc. The shift will give the town greater control over flight traffic at the airport, which has surged in recent years thanks to ride-share apps that make it easier to snag a seat on a helicopter or private plane at the last minute.
- 3700 AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points, potentially for $25 with Amex Offer it’s a meal delivery service, I had a $25 off $50 offer with Amex and I also stacked a card-linked offer to earn additional miles too.
But consider that you may want to hold off on some of these ‘first time subscription only’ mileage deals and wait until you know you need the loyalty points to earn elite status, they might still be around in a year or two or three (or they might not!).
- Obituary for Dick Ferris, United CEO from 1979 to 1987. He withstood the bitter 1985 pilots strike and he acquired Pan Am’s Pacific routes as well as Hilton hotels and Hertz rental cars (trying to combine the whole thing into one and naming it Allegis though the company was quickly named back to United). (WSJ, HT: Jonathan W.)
- Capital One Venture X, Venture and VentureOne cardmembers can take $300 off their non-discounted twelve month Gravity Haus membership as a first-time (Update: or renewing) customer enrolling through the dedicated link. This partnership runs through January 19, 2024.
Capital One will offer a pop up Venture X Haus near the Breckenridge Quicksilver lift February 11-13 and February 18-21 (11am – 5pm) for Capital One cardmembers to taste food from James Beard-nominated chefs along with drink pairings.
- 20% transfer bonus to Aeromexico Club Premier through February 15 very few people are going to want to do this.
- Executives need to ‘eat their own dog food’ to understand their product and customer experience. And Airbnb’s CEO is starting to live in Airbnb’s, per a thread he started in twitter, though I’m rather surprised he wasn’t doing that already.
1. Starting today, I'm living on Airbnb. I’ll be staying in a different town or city every couple weeks
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) January 18, 2022
- Hertz customers getting sent to jail for ‘stealing’ cars they returned and paid for hits Inside Edition It usually seems to happen when customers either switch cars or extend their rental, and Hertz doesn’t update their systems properly.
Rented a vehicle from AVIS a few years ago at SFO airport. Tried to change rental return over phone (in Manila call centre), AVIS couldn’t find it in system. When returning vehicle to downtown, they still couldn’t find rental agreement, even though I had a copy of it and showed them. As they couldn’t find it, they didn’t charge me 1c. They were really nice about it too. Can’t imagine what might have happened if i had a traffic stop?
Why do the police and district attorneys believe anything Hertz says?
I feel like I see a rendition of this Hertz story every few months, and Hertz seems to never actually fix the problem – really bizarre
@ David
I just had the same thing happen with AVIS over Christmas. I checked out with an actual employee at the exit gate but somehow the car was never checked out in their system. I returned it a week later and was never charged. I kept wondering why the rental was not showing up in the app
In other news to calm the traveling public Hertz will build its own private jails so
customers won’t have to face doing time with the regular prison population.
This will apply to only Hertz Gold number 1 or higher status customers
Handcuffs too will be padded and food and beverage can be purchased
by cash only or payment APP
“Hertz puts you in the drivers prison cell seat”
10 or 20 years ago, a rental car customer in San Francisco was arrested for “stealing” the car. In the “tank,” the customer was severely beaten and had teeth knocked out but other guests awaiting bail. Turns out the customer was an attorney. Lawsuit followed. And, here we are today and nothing has changed. What’s that tell you? President’s Club doesn’t count for nothin’.
@Jorge
Because no one holds cops, jailers, judges, and prosecutors accountable for their actions. Until that changes, things like this will continue. In my book cops/judges/jailers/prosecutors should be held accountable for every action whether it’s enforcing leftist laws (from drug laws to taxes ) or holding someone over false claims. Following orders is not an excuse. They choose to hold testimony from hertz as gospel when it’s a known problem for many years.
clickbait as usual
I used to love Hertz and their loyalty program. Since 2019 I 100% avoid all rentals from Hertz, many times choosing to pay extra at competitors, all for keeping my name safe from false imprisonment. And now I always wait extra minutes for a printed receipt upon returning any rental car, and scan into my records for safe keeping.
I had an issue with Avis also at SFO at Christmas. Returned the car and the rental was not in their system. At least Avis did not report the car stolen. I just had to go back to the counter and they charged the card and I was on my way.