Wonder if Roto-Rooter does sinuses?

Seriously.

I really hate colds. At least I waited to catch this one until the end of my Caribbean cruise rather than the beginning. Even better, it waited to really nail me until after my flight got back. I've been on airplanes with really bad sinuses and it's miserably painful: the low air-pressure, at altitude, makes your ears feel like they're going to burst. Or, even more fun, if your head seals up at altitude, landing and being on the ground is excruciating.

Ugh.

I'm Pretty Sure US Air's Theme Song Should Be "Let's Get Retarded"

Ok, so, the trip down to Puerto Rico wasn't horrible. One of the legs of the trip down we were upgraded to first class (granted, it was the 20 minute flight to Philly, but, at least there was free alcohol). The PHL-to-SJU leg was what you'd expect from coach-class.

A couple days before our return, we got email notifications that we'd been upgraded on both the longer SJU-to-CLT leg and the shorter CLT-to-DCA leg. Coolness: free alcohol and extra space (we'll ignore the free hospital-quality food). Twenty-four hours before flight-time, got the notification to do web check-in.

It was at this point that it all went sorta sideways. I hit the "Check-in" button and then the "select seats" option. Everything was cool on the SJU-to-CLT leg - other than that our seats weren't together (no biggie, we figured we'd just ask people to trade so we could be together). However, the CLT-to-DCA leg was fuxored. Though both of us had been upgraded and our coach seats de-assigned, there was only one seat selectable for us in First Class. It also wouldn't even let me re-select a coach seat for either of us. Fuck.

So, I clicked on the "contact us" link. I called the number, navigated the call-tree and then was placed on hold for a CSR. Eventually, the CSR came on the line and quickly informed me, "oh, that's an international itinerary: you'll need to talk to the international ticketing desk. I'll transfer you, but here's the number in case you get disconnected..."

I'd never really considered Puerto Rico to be "international" given their legal relationship to the US. However, in retrospect, Puerto Rico does have it's on TLD (pulling up Google redirects you to google.com.pr) and has Spanish as its primary language. So...

At any rate, the CSR transfers me ...to the "international" call-tree (i.e., not a "warm hand-off"). Grr... I navigate the new call-tree and eventually get a new CSR. She finds that the CLT-to-DCA situation requires supervisor override (apparently, there were seats available in first class, but reserved and the supervisor was the only one that could force-allocate me a seat). She puts me on hold while they sort things out. Eventually, she comes back on the line and tells me I've got both my seats but that they're not next to each other. I figure "cool/whatever: we'll sort it out later". She also tells me I'm checked in and all I need to do is go back to the web site and click on the "print boarding passes" button. We say our goodbyes and I go back to my laptop to print out my tix.

The retardation that is US Airway's online reservations system isn't done with me, yet, however. While the website shows that I've now got two seats on each leg of the trip, it only lets me print the tickets for the seats that were allocated prior to my chat with the international reservations CSR. This is problematic, as I really didn't feel like having to ass-around in Charlotte due to not having a printed pass. So, I call US Airways, again. This time, I call their web tech support number, as this seems to be more a web-portal issue than a true ticketing issue. I navigate the call-tree and then wait on hold for a CSR. Eventually the CSR comes on the line. I identify myself and explain my issue. She asks me to hold while she tries to resolve it. Unfortunately, she has about as much success as I had and tells me to just have one of the gate agents print me all four passes when I check my bags. Great. This doesn't exactly give me the warm-fuzzies, but, "what can you do". On the marginal plus side, at least the CSR had the same problems I did. So, it wasn't a PEBKAC error on my part.

The next day, we get to the airport. We get a porter to lug our bags (they don't do the rental carts and Donna always packs heavy). We go through the APHIS/FDA screening, then go to the agent desk. Fortunately, being on a First Class itinerary, there were no lines to wait in. Donna discovers our desk agent is a kindred spirit: her ID-lanyard is printed with skulls and crossbones all over. The agent starts checking in our bags - tagging them and getting our bag-receipts all stapled up. However, she also appears to have issues getting all the tix to print. A supervisor is called over and eventually everything is all sorted out. As a bonus, our SJU-to-CLT leg is re-ticketed so that our seats are next to each other.

Do Poll-Quoters Even Understand the Polls They Quote?

Ok, so, I've now seen references to two different polls that claim to support the TSA's enhanced pat-downs. One is the one that the TSA cites in their blog and one was one cited in the LA Time's news blog. In both cases, the people claiming the polls support their view didn't seem to actually read how the polls were structured.

The poll cited by the TSA in their blogs was what statisticians would refer to as a "non-representative sample". The poll was a random sampling of the population-at-large. It was not a sampling of the traveling-population. In other words, the sample population could be be heavily skewed towards respondents not directly effected by the new policies. If the TSA wanted to be more convincing, they'd have polled actual travelers - particularly frequent-travelers. Then there might be something resembling validity in the results.

The poll cited in the LA Time's news blog uses the misleading claim of "travel professionals". It's used in a way to make the un-careful reader think they're referring to people that fly, on a frequent basis, as part of their job. However, if one bothers to read rather than just skimming (or even just taking a headline at face value), one discovers that the "travel professionals" polled were the people making travel arrangements. It wasn't a poll of people that use those travel arrangements. Much like the poll cited by the TSA, it's not a poll of those directly impacted by the TSA policies.

Unfortunately, there's far too many people out there who take things at face value. There's far too many skimmers. There's far too many "headlines-only" readers. Simply put, there's too many people that are simply lazy in how they choose to inform themselves. News organizations, corporations and anyone in the spin business knows this and take advantage of it.

Not a Two Way Street

It's always kind of bothered me that various businesses and professionals felt it was ok to charge "missed appointment", "flight change" and other types of fees for things I did or failed to do yet, they could do the exact same thing and I was due nothing in return.

Today, I received a semi-intelligible automated phone call from the US Airways flight reservations/notification system. I'm going on a cruise in December and some of the flights I'd scheduled have had their numbers and times changed. Had I initiated such a change, it would have cost me $150. Yet, the airline can do whatever the hell it wants and I'm not due any flight-change refunds or the like.

Oh well. In the end, the changes weren't more than a few minutes on either end. It's just the principal.

Illiterati

It strikes me that, since I've stopped traveling, I've pretty much stopped reading books.

SouthWest Airlines Can Eat a Dick

No: make that a whole bag of dicks. 

Why is it that companies buy other companies, only to change the things that made their acquisition targets a customer preference in the first damned place. From the SWA AirTran-acquisition FAQ:

Q: What about assigned seats?

A: As you know, Southwest does not assign seats. AirTran does offer seat assignments including Business class and Coach. Upon full integration, it is our intent to have a consistent product offering. It is our intent that seat assignments would not be part of that product.

Q: What about dual class service?

A: As you know, Southwest offers one class of service. AirTran offers Business class and Coach. Upon full integration, it is our intent to have a consistent product offering. It is our intent that dual class service would not be part of that product.

So, the two things that I like most about AirTran - and pretty much the only reason I flew them - SouthWest intends to get rid of. Fuck you, SouthWest: I didn't like you and didn't fly you before this. Taking a good, unique brand and destroying some of its best features does rather little to make me ever change my mind about using your services. All you've done is reduced my choices. All you've done is set in motion the destruction of a good flying experience. I hope your entire executive staff, especially your mergers and acquisitions team, dies - slowly and painfully - in a fire. Even better would be for you all to go down in an airwreck in a remote region and have to cannibalize each other to survive the experience. Fuck you all.

I Don't Get It (Frequent Flyer Programs)

At this point in the game, I'm having a hard time understanding many US airline's frequent flyer programs. I mean, it used to be that you earned "miles" that were redeemable for free upgrades and free flights. Some airlines allowed you to spend points on retail items (hell, I once bought Donna an iPod and Bose docking station with UAL miles). Many airlines off credit cards and other partner programs to allow you to earn "mile"s. Unfortunately, particularly in recent years, the airlines have been doing things to make such miles absolutely useless.

Previously, they'd just periodically "adjusted the value" of your miles to make it so you had to redeem more miles to get upgrades or free travel. Not sure how this made sense to anything other than bean counters trying to punch up the bottom line and reduce outstanding liabilities. Over the years, airlines have been (mostly) lowering the pricing of tickets. This lowering of prices has happened in both in absolute terms (e.g., a given flight in 1990 might have been $1000 but the same flight in 2010 costs $400 [before fees]) and in relative terms ($1 had relatively greater buying power in 1990 than it does in 2010). Yet, it costs me more miles to get today's $400 (plus fees) flight than it did to get that $1000 flight in 1990.

While long, long ago, they started partner programs for point earnings, they've changed those, as well. It used to be a frequent flyer mile was a frequent flyer mile - whether earned through seat time or by renting a car or using a linked credit card (etc.). But, these programs were, apparently, too successful. So much so, that the airlines devalued the points earned through partner programs. Yeah, I might still be able to cash them in at the same rates as "real" miles to get free upgrades and flights, but they no longer count towards flight status.

Of late, the airlines have started charging you to use your miles. Want to use those hard-earned miles to take a trip? That will be $150, please. Want to transfer some miles to a friend who wants to take a trip, somewhere? That will be $300, please (dunno whether said friend then has to pay $150 to use those transfered miles, but, somehow, I suspect so).

One wonders why any business partners with airlines, any more. They assume the cost of a partnership program, but it seems like such partnership programs have no reasonable basis for bringing in new customers or retaining prior customers. I mean, why would I use a US Air (etc.) credit card to rent a car from a US Air-affiliated rental agency (etc.). That credit card isn't free, any more and doesn't have an attractive rate. The rental car company slides in a fee for earning points (they ain't giving you "outside" points for free and renting to earn airline points means you aren't earning rental status). So, in order to use that airline credit card with that affiliated rental company, I have to pay more in fees, interest, etc. than were I to use my non-affiliated card and not seek airline points and I have to sacrifice earning status with the rental company. Factor in the devaulation of the points, and the prospect of participating with airline partners creates a, "wow: what a bargain, (not)" situation.

The funny thing is, hotel programs, rental company programs, even stand-alone credit card programs have remained relatively stable. Points aren't broken into tiers based on how you earned them. Points values have stayed relatively the same over time.

Really, airline points programs are yet one more reason to send a big, hearty "FUCK YOU" to the airlines. Personally, I'd love to see every last one of the airlines go bankrupt. Every time I deal with an airline, it's like I'm being paid to be lied to. The points programs. The partner programs. And, oh my god, the ticketing (seriously: don't try to tell me that you're a low priced airline and advertise a $300 flight that, when I hit the purchase button, has become a $500 flight because of all the bullshit fees. Just tell me it's a $500 fucking flight and be done with it).

People used to ask me, when I was doing the travel-based job thing, "how can you stand to travel so much." What they usually meant was the "stuck in a metal tube" part. In truth, it was always a matter of liking being different places and challenges enough to outweigh the unpleasantness that is flying. It used to be enough to outweigh how much I detested dealing with airlines. Yeah, being stuck in a metal tube for hours at a time is inherently unpleasant. Yeah, dealing with the boobs that "make flying 'safe'" is an exercise in incredulity. But, by themselves, they aren't nearly as horrible as just dealing with the airlines.

At this point in the game, if there's any reasonable way to avoid flying, I do. I'd love nothing more than to see all the airlines go bankrupt and cease to operate. I'd love to see every last airline decision make broken and on the streets, asking for hand-outs. "Sure, buddy: have some miles".