News and notes from around the interweb:
- United miles can now be used for award travel to Cuba some months after American changed their rules to allow it.
- $550 off the W Hotels Bed. I recommend the cheaper plush top with a feather bed rather than the pillow top, you don’t want your mattress to develop a ‘memory’ and you can change out the feather bed.
- The realism of the crash is incredible but here’s what the Sully movie gets wrong. Basically the movie needed protagonists so it made the NTSB investigators the bad guys, which just seems off for a film that goes to great lengths to get so many details right.
- The best inflight celebrity encounters
- The new Uber deal in Quebec is surprisingly restrictive — fees to the city, drivers must have taxi drivers licenses, surge pricing capped at 1.5x during emergencies (precisely when supply is most limited so people can’t get rides), can’t undercut taxi minimum fares.
Taxi drivers are furious, and are considering going on strike so that of course the only option to get around would become Uber…
- First class seats get sold instead of going to upgrades. Delta survives on operational performance, not its frequent flyer program. But when other airlines devalue their programs too there’s no longer a reason to choose them when they can’t match Delta’s operation. Plus the best rewards credit card programs.
Gary, do you own a W-Hotel bed? Flyer.talk has negative reviews about reduced quality and no exchanges defects. Looking for positive W-H bed review(s).
@Alison – I do but mine is very much not new/recent purchase
I hate my W mattress. It developed a huge dip in the middle, and you can’t flip it, only rotate. I threw out the feather bed after ~1 year.
It is disappointing that Hollywood once again changes the facts of a historical incident. Sadly the American public is not likely to research what really happened and the end result is that what gets shown in a film is what the public assumed happened.
Many years ago, we were at an airport, late at night, waiting for a delayed flight. A mother with a toddler and an enfant had two very obviously tired and cranky children to deal with — both fussing and crying. Suddenly a woman went over and asked the mother if she could hold the baby for her. She walked back and forth gently bouncing and baby and softly singing to it until the baby fell asleep. She then sat with the sleeping child in her arms leaving the mother calm down and entertain the older child. The woman was Dolly Parton.
I don’t see that Uber deal as being bad enough that Uber could say no to it. The surge cap sucks it basically means that if something goes very wrong in the city Uber will be unusable… But that’s really the least of your problems in that case
Needed antagonists, not protagonists.
*sigh*
I’ve not seen Sully yet, but the reason I respect him so much is because he actively solicits and encourages respect for aviation security in all forms. I personally watched him calmly defend the ban on cell phone usage as a safety measure even when it was clear that it was not a threat. That’s EXACTLY the attitude we should all have. We’re not all experts. The FAA is full of experts working with a system designed to prevent the recurrence of any accident and should be respected. Sully not only understands this, but actively and publicly promotes it.
If the film undermines his message of safety and respect in any way, I’ll be disappointed that he signed off on it for his likeness to be used. I’ll also be incredibly disappointed in Clint Eastwood for tarnishing the work of a man who saved lives and wants to save more.