At View from the Wing we just call ’em like we see them in travel, miles and points regardless of political party affiliation. Although many readers complain that we’ve focused too much on the miles, points, and travel of Republicans. For instance, we’ve exposed:
- Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s Delta Diamond status
- Scandal-plagued former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s mileage award ticket that brought down his administration.
- Former Congressman Ron Paul’s past use of government fare tickets which are more upgradable domestically on several airlines.
- Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s credit card debt
- Senator Marco Rubio’s carelessness with credit cards
- Governor Chris Christie’s $1 million in American Express travel spend
- Donald Trump’s travel businesses facing challenges as a result of his candidacy, the challenges he faced in the airline business, and his daughter’s tips for first class upgrades
While I’ve highlighted the ObamaPoints program (though that wasn’t why I predicted an Obama electoral victory), and I called out the President’s choice of credit card and skipping the line at Frankline Barbecue, I haven’t noted much more about Hillary Clinton than a passing reference to her flight last year in United economy on a single cabin regional jet no less.
It seems though that Hillary Clinton spoke at the American Society of Travel Agents’ Global Convention a couple of years ago (see, Bernie Sanders, she doesn’t just speak to Wall Street banks).
She’s long had a direct hand in choosing her travel agent so certainly had much to say.
Both her supporters and detractors point to the volume of travel she undertook while Secretary of State as underscoring either her accomplishment or lack thereof in the role having traveled “to 112 countries.. 956,733 miles” (falling just short of lifetime State Department elite status).
Here’s what we know from her speech to travel agents:
Hillary Clinton cares about frequent flyer miles.
“Thanks to a terrific travel agent, my travel goes very smoothly. My agent serves me very well and is trying to get me frequent flier miles for all those Air Force flights.”
There’s no word on if she’s ever redeemed miles, or what she redeemed them for. She’s currently campaigning for an office that comes with its own private plane that can withstand a nuclear blast on the ground.
She doesn’t trust online travel booking.
“I think there’s a real opportunity. I may be wrong about this, but I think that online searching is going to get really old. There is no way to verify what you’re finding on the Internet. The pictures don’t look like what [you think you’re] getting. I could spend hours on my computer, and there’s no way that I can know that I’m getting what I’m buying.”
Clearly she’s worried that even TripAdvisor contains fake reviews. No word on what policies she’ll pursue to spur hotels towards better websites.
Secretary Clinton offers free marketing consulting to travel agents.
She suggests the following slogan,
“To get what you really want, come to us. Let us help you get the kind of travel experience that you’re seeking.”
Her first flight sounds like it was for spring break.
As a teenager: “When I was in high school, I got permission to go to Fort Lauderdale, [Fla.] and we had a lot of fun. That might have been my first time on an airplane.”
Hopefully Killary will soon be behind bars in an orange jumpsuit.
Another one of your poorly researched articles! If you would have spent a little time and e.g. just typed miles in the FOIA search engine, you would have found out that she has (at least attempted) to use miles…
So much a “thought leader”…
Hillary WILL be our next POTUS!! Thank goodness!!
“She’s long had a direct hand in choosing her travel agent so certainly had much to say.”
I saw what you did there, even before noticing the hypertext link.
Gary, you should have mentioned the infamous travel gate when discussing the subject of clinton in travel.
Great! Stories about the HildaBeast
@steven k – travelgate is linked to in this post, see @Andyandy’s comment above ;P
oh, my apologies.
That’s WHY, regardless of your fear of the Donald if you’re REALLY into this stuff, like it’s your LIFE, of the two ( If it comes down to the Two) .
One has spent a lifetime traveling on the taxpayer dollar, and the other although it failed invested a significant amount of his own money attempting to be a part of your so called industry.
Yes he was a former competitor but love him or hate him, HE HAD skin in the game.
Just a penny full of my thoughts.
And neither will give us a better job or make us better looking or take care of our vet bills, but thankfully they give us things to talk about during down times such as these.
Have a great weekend.
Oh and in all honesty, I haven’t made up my mind as of yet, but all of this significant media hate being flung against “The Don” actually has the opposite effect across the Nixonesque “Silent Majority”.
Your venom only tends to make people more accepting of a man’s faults.
If you asked me TODAY, do I think C wins, Yep. But why the demonizing is my point.
But that’s how the game is played.
When you start referring to DC’s close-in airport as Reagan National Airport, just like the official airport website does, then I’ll know you’re truly unbiased politically.
http://www.flyreagan.com/dca/reagan-national-airport
@mason Grover Norquist’s effort to rename something in every state for Ronald Reagan notwithstanding, as a DC resident for 18 years I will continue to call it National. And I don’t think most folks consider me too left-wing.
I’ve been flying in and out of DCA since I was a kid. It was NATIONAL then and it’s still NATIONAL!
Indeed, I’m not going to throw the name of an airport down the memory hole just because the Ministry of Truth declares it should now be called something else..
Does every damned thing have to be political?