What frequent fliers do for status
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Today if my destination is with in a 10hr drive from me, I am driving. Does not even really cost me that much time as with connections, and security it takes about as long to fly anyway that is assuming it is not delayed or cancelled. Of the 10 flights I have taken in the last 3 years or so, 60% of them had some kind of delay or cancellation during one of the legs.
Plus side I have gotten very good at packing density so I can take a weeks worth of provisions in my carry on backpack easily. No checked bags for me....
They now sell you a solution to bypass that step.
Surely a little background check proves your shoes are safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering
> offer a service to solve a nonexistent problem, or offer a service that solves a problem that would not exist without the racket
Operating a racket is called racketeering.
They came up with another racket to skip further in the line lets a private company take a cut for bribing the government to let you skip to the front and buy back some of your time.
Yes and no? Yes, it creates jobs and pays people but it isn't like funds are being used to benefit society. They aren't being used to build roads or schools. There's no evidence to show that these funds are making flights safer either. We're giving up a lot of privacy for this and even giving up more, with the real ID act and pushes for facial recognition technologies. I think a lot of people, including me, would feel better about these inconveniences and the extra money we pay for them, if there was any real evidence to suggest that they actually made us safer. But since there isn't, after two decades of data, I wouldn't blame anyone for calling it a racket (as defined above).
But on top of that, there's further rackets like what you are referring to. But the government also participates in this directly (Clear is indirect) through the TSA precheck.
A racket can have multiple levels and multiple actors.
A well-run IT department will never have data that they prevent IT disasters
1) They can see people attacking the system. We can even often see what these people are attempting to do! A lot of security research is focused on this, figuring out what attackers are trying to do.
2) We have post hoc analysis. We can see lots of attacks and then provide an intervention and see if those decrease. Since terrorist attacks were black swan events you're right that we can't really measure the effect of TSA, but then again, do we need to address black swan events? At least we need to compare the costs and it is pretty clear that the yearly number of increased deaths due to driving alone is higher than the number of deaths from decades of terrorist attacks and hijackings.
I'd say we have pretty good data in both cases to make fairly reasonable conclusions about how effective these interventions are. There's a reason very few people question the need for an IT department. The ones that do don't question it for long after attempting to run without them.
The act of doing your job in IT means problems never come up and you can’t really measure what didn’t happen
[1] https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
Furthermore, if this is a result of correctly interpreting the constitution…our lawmakers should have, and still should, immediately change the constitution.
We really need an explicit right to privacy. Third party doctrine is ridiculous as it applies to gmail, UPS, FedEx. TSA in general should be plainly unconstitutional. Americans should have reasonable rights even while crossing the border. Americans should still have the same rights vs. the US government when they’re not in America (not okay for FBI to tap my phone line while I’m in Germany, I still have the constitution protecting me as a U.S. citizen). Foreigners inside USA also should have full constitutional protections.
2nd amendment needs massive clarification, I don’t even care what just make it clear in plain language.
If we needed a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol…Why wasn’t one needed for weed?
How the Fuck did civil asset forfeiture get ruled to be legal? That needs an amendment.
Why don’t citizens get recompense when the government fucks up and takes all their shit when they read the address on the warrant wrong?
Why is the right to a speedy trial still take over a year often? And why are “innocent until proven guilty” people held in jail that whole time?
How is imprisoning people in Guantanamo forever with no trial constitutional?
Sure, it's legal, but due to the interpretation issue you mentioned, I fully believe it's unconstitutional.
here's the link to that conversation if anyone is interested.
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” is written as plainly as possible though.
Do we as a society really need a constitutional amendment to define what an “infringement” is?
There are lots of horror stories about flying, things can go wrong occasionally, personally I would fly anywhere that's > 3 hours or roughly the break even to get there faster, unless I need a car for some reason. If you are familiar with it it's really not as bad as the horror stories.
That does not seem like things a person not accused or convicted of a crime in a free society should have to be subjected to just to travel, that seems like something you would find in a Authoritarian dystopia novel not a free society
I personally think it’s an unreasonable search (meaning, there’s a less intrusive way to accomplish the legitimate goal that TSA has); it seems like they don’t want to have that tested in court, so the opt-out process avoids giving a pax that standing to sue over it.
I flew out very early one morning and put my toothbrush, etc, in a small plastic bag and stuffed it into my duffel.
The scanner detected the liquid so they pulled me to the side. As soon as the TSA agent saw the bag with the toothbrush she made a "ugh" sound, had an annoyed look on her face, then closed everything back up and let me through.
Which tells me this is a very common occurrence.
The only bright side of flying JetStar at Sydney is getting the new security lines.
The new scanning equipment is so much better, though.
Some US Airports have the new bag scanners, but you still have to remove your shoes, belt, and be scanned by the Millimeter Wave scanner while holding your hands over your head like a criminal
International flights are a whole new beast though.
Same. It's not just the "stand here with no shoes": it's being treated like cattle.
So I bought myself a very nice, second hand, high-end luxury car and it's basically first-class. Except the sound insulation and sound system in my car is much better than in a plane. And I leave exactly when I want. And I take a break when I want.
I hate flying.
I don't like flying either, but as someone who lives near SF I would never consider driving to San Diego for a meeting or conference. I have considered driving to LA, but it just doesn't make sense — especially if I'd have to pay $40-50/night to park my car once I'm there. Taking a flight from SJC to BUR is about as painless as it gets, and the last couple times I did it the planes were mostly empty.
If connections were involved I'd feel differently, but I wouldn't drive instead of taking a 1-2 hour direct flight. I'm curious to know what airport you're near and if most popular destinations involve connections. Or maybe I just don't have a nice enough car, to make the drive more enjoyable!
For a vacation with family though, it can be worth driving because:
- unlike flight ticket cost, fuel cost doesn't go up linearly with the number of people
- when you arrive in San Diego, you already have your car and your child's car seat
- you don't have to commit to a specific return time or day
But I would never drive even to LA, even for a multi-day conference, if I were traveling solo.
I flew from a small airport to Detroit several times this year. My perspective is probably colored by having someone pick me up each time, but it was like 3.5 hours of traveling to fly, with most of that being more or less relaxed, to avoid a 7 hour drive. It was almost cheaper just on gas (and certainly cheaper considering wear and tear).
I didn't state it very clearly, but I'm comparing the TSA screening to the 4-5 additional hours driving would entail over flying.
I found the drive more relaxing, more comfortable, and since I'd need a car at the destination anyway, just about the same degree of practicality.
I basically determined then that 6 hours away was probably my breakeven point at which flying became obviously more practical, but even then it depends on the target airport, traffic, weather, etc.
I certainly don't blink at the prospect of flying from Maryland to San Francisco, and would almost never consider driving instead, but IMO it's hard to fault someone valuing their rights over their time that it downweights flying significantly more than it does in my rankings.
I should probably also factor in that our location affords us a great variety of places we can go by train, and anywhere obviously train-accessible usually makes that a strong option. New York makes almost zero sense to drive to, and while the big knock against trains are the cost, it works out when you consider the cost of parking in New York, and the convenience of showing up at the train station 5 minutes prior to departure.
Huh?
Fly: 1.5hrs for Security / Rental pick up, 2 hrs Leg 1, 1 hr layover, 2 hrs leg 2. Total time: 6.5-7hrs if no delays or problems with aircraft. Both planes small CRJ Regional jets made for people under 100lbs and under 5ft 5in in height, I am neither. Nothing about being on a CRJ jet is "relaxed" at best I can be sure to get off with back pain, and leg pain. $850 for the round trip for airfare... + $250 in local economy rental fees for a car there. Total $1100
Car: 10 hrs of driving, Nice SUV with plently of room. $350 in Rental fees, $400 in Gas for the week (and this was when gas was over $4/gal). Total cost $750. I can leave anytime I want, extend anytime I want, Divert to so some sight seeing anytime I want, and never have to go through security.
However, it’s not cheaper than commercial. Expect about 10k for the license. Renting a small plane is about $175/hour. Owning a plane only makes sense if you plan to fly more than 100 hrs a year.
You need to fly at least once a quarter and have faa checkride every 2 years.
The small planes are very weather dependent.
However, the first time you fly solo you really feel amazing!
I know that engine on time is particularly expensive for airplanes whereas for rental cars it's no factor, but I would also expect the pure rental time to be expensive for airplanes if you use it to go on trips as opposed to standalone flights ending back at the home airfield?
If there's bad weather ... I just wait it out or schedule my event the tail end of the trip. I won't fly commercial unless it's international now.
Off-topic, this got me thinking - usually when we discuss impacts of flights on climate change and solutions we get into discussion of cost and profits vs lives saved. Its a struggle to push trhough anything that costs money.
Yet after 9/11 we have put into place insanely expensive , inconvenient and restrictive system votually overnight. And the average amount of lives is saves is maybe zero, maybe a couple a year.
Why is it so easy to do the latter but so hard to do the former?
Frequent fliers don't deal with any of that. The first thing you grab is TSA Pre, which is offered alone or part of Global Entry (or NEXUS if you don't mind interviewing along the US/Canada border). This restores your security experience to pre-9/11. You don't take anything off, or out, no laptops, etc.
The application fee for TSA Pre and GE is waived with most high-end credit cards.
Then to make sure you don't have to wait in line, you sign up for CLEAR which automatically takes you to the front of the TSA Pre line. This fee is also waived by the Amex Platinum.
Then when you get back, Global Entry or NEXUS ensure you don't wait in the immigration queues either.
Then there are is the privacy, and constitutional issues with all of those programs, and a leniently of other things that I am sure have no problems for unprincipled persons. sadly I am someone of principle, and ethics
Yeah for sure. I agree you certainly shouldn't have to.
> Aside from the inherent classism of it all, which I am often shocked how dual minded people are when they complain about wealth but then absently support these kinds of programs.
I'm not super convinced by this because honestly flying is a luxury product. TSA Pre is like $80 for 5 years or about 1/4 of the average cab fare from town to the airport per year. The fact services like this cost more money because they get you priority access to a luxury good doesn't bother me. Remember you pay taxes and fees just to be on airport property (baked into the ticket), so this extra tax? Meh.
The core service should still of course be better, but it does make sense that your most frequent and ofc lowest-risk users have a more streamlined experience.
> Then there are is the privacy, and constitutional issues with all of those programs.
I guess. My perspective is the relevant agencies all have this information already. They're getting manifests from the airlines and they have your record, travel history, etc. Are they really getting anything new through you signing up? Open to your take though.
Get TSA Precheck or Clear.
Security takes ~10 minutes with TSA Pre Check and 2-3 minutes with clear. There's no way it's not worth it even if you only travel once a year with 2 flights.
The back is big enough to fit a twin mattress, so I did exactly that. I then purchased one of those bags you can strap onto the top. I can now do things like drive down to water that's 4 or 5 hours away and stay for the weekend before coming back (gf loves fishing).
w/i the last month I took it on a 9 hour drive down and back (so 18 hours total) and it ran extremely well for a vehicle that old.
I'm super happy with it and it's one of those things that rolls around in your head until you finally commit and you wish you had done it sooner. So for me, now, unless there's a time reason I wouldn't fly even outside of a 10 hour drive.
And a large part of that is, as you said, the way you're treated like a criminal.
Just thinking about it, I can't wait for summer to show up :)
Pre check lasts five years and my free credit card reimburses the fee.
The card also gives me a free checked bag (which I rarely use). I pack in a roller bag which I often gate check.
Still no water through tsa which is retarded. Guys, just sniff it. Or better yet make the traveler take a big swig. Anything dangerous isn’t even going to make it to the metal detector let alone on the flight.
Just to be clear, this was the software that made the decision about cancellation? (Otherwise, it would be somewhat expected that flights of frequent fliers are less likely cancelled. I suppose they learn to avoid those flights.)
Interestingly, there was a case of this with my wife’s trip to Mexico where her flight on Aeromexico departed on Thursday while a united flight at the same time was canceled since they couldn’t guarantee that the return flight would be able to travel in a timely fashion.
I have noticed a lot of domestic first-class seats or post-purchase upgrades have become cheaper during COVID to get the airline some revenue from that seat rather than upgrading you or I.
I'll take the other benefits, too, and they're "worth it" as long as you don't spend a bunch of money to get them. There's a real dollar benefit to free Economy Plus, checked bags and the mileage multiple; but of course how much that's worth to you depends on what's important to you, let alone the intangibles like pre-boarding or better customer service.
So far, the status and miles I've earned haven't involved spending any money I wouldn't have otherwise. With the sometimes exception of spending a little more to stick with United. Which is of course the point of a loyalty program. But I've never spent more on that increment than I've recovered in benefit on that flight (like from free Economy Plus). But who knows? Maybe I'll get so addicted I'll be tempted to make a "mileage run".
Yay. Let me pay for the privilege of sitting in a cramped seat in a cramped aluminum can longer than I have to.
A better seat (even just middle economy [comfort+ in Delta lingo]) or any priority boarding group is enough to get space.
If you don’t have status, your strategy is a great one. Delta is pretty good at not trying to charge you in that circumstance. It also helps the flyer’s case that their A321 mainstay was configured with a cabin that provides insufficient overhead bins.
Also, all those doubling of miles and other perks allow me to get upgrades for free so when I do have flights I really need to sleep on I can take first class.
I basically skipped getting a coworking spot for a month and would hop on random flights I could book like SAN-JFK round trip same day on delta for only 16,000 skymiles (would net around 5,000 mqms). I would almost always get bumped to first and Deltas wifi is reliable enough to work from the air.
At this point I’ve banked enough MQMs that I just have to hit the spend min on my Amex (easy when you are self employed and can pay taxes on it) to keep platinum for the next 3 years without any flying.
https://news.delta.com/look-ahead-delta-sky-club-updates-lau...
2023 still required getting past the 250k AMEX spend to get the diamond MQD waiver, and that one change (from 25k to 250k) has really cut down on the number of Diamond flyers I see now. I'm back to regular flying now so those MQMs will last me for a while.
Being on an airplane has always made me feel a little ill (from fumes or reduced air pressure?)-- even though at one point I was regularly flying cross country multiple times per week, so I can't imagine voluntarily spending more time in one than strictly necessary.
Last night we watched "Up in the Air" (don't believe the claims that it's a comedy-- it's a drama, and a good one) and I found its depiction of a life of constant air travel and people in the milage rat race quite familiar.
When I first arrived in Tokyo from Detroit, my thought was “well, I guess I live here now, because I’m sure not taking that return flight…”
> When I first arrived in Tokyo from Detroit, my thought was “well, I guess I live here now, because I’m sure not taking that return flight…”
Haha. I've been right there. I've only been back to Europe twice after relocating to the west coast (from DC)-- flying from SFO to Edinburgh was a final straw for me. The trip back I tried to work it out so I could stay on the east coast a couple days before finishing my trip but couldn't make the schedule work.
Airlines should let people just pay the fare and get the miles without flying. Win for the people (saves their time and money), win for the airline (they save on marginal price of jet fuel and food/drinks), and win for the environment.
(No rental protections, no reforms aside from ones like rebates for a hybrid that benefit rich white professor types)
We need to reward folks who go child free or car free as much as we reward companies that frack instead of blow coal.
This year I just went to random European locations doing wfh vacations (not telling my company because it would have needed approval).
I really, really don‘t want to queue for security checks with the dirty masses and their nasty offspring.
Good times.
Another indicator of not being part of the unwashen masses is being able to afford business/first class, so you get the priority security check lane a la carte.
For my specific situation, Etihad usually ended up having the most favorable travel duration, connection time, arrival and departure time, price etc. With Etihad, it's about 4 hours from my hometown to Abu Dhabi (AUH), and 15 hours from there to LAX.
It only took me a couple of to and fro journeys to get the silver card status. And by next year I was a gold card member, with lounge access in Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles. It was hilarious because I was only making a couple of journeys a year.
Also, I see comments here about the TSA screening situation.
Did you know that there's a US customs & immigration + TSA counter at Abu Dhabi?! If you're traveling to the US from Abu Dhabi, you have to get all the immigration processes (passport/visa verification and other stuff) done from the American consular officers at Abu Dhabi [1].
On your passport, the port of entry will be marked as AUH.
And the aircraft will fly as a domestic flight into the domestic terminal of your destination in the US. No immigration procedure in the US because it's already been done before the flight.
Multiple advantages to this:
1. If you anyway have a connecting flight to the US at AUH and have a couple of hours of waiting time, you can get the immigration process done whilst waiting for your connection.
2. (Convoluted logic follows) If for whatever reason you're denied entry to the US, in my case atleast, I would only have a 4 hours return time back to my hometown, as opposed to a 24+ hours of return time if I were denied entry once I physically reached the US. That's after traveling 24+ hours to get there in the first place. Cheaper and more convenient for everyone involved.
3. After your 15 hour flight to the US, you can take your luggage and walk out instead of having to go through the US immigration and customs processes when you're tired after the long journey.
[1] https://www.abudhabiairport.ae/en/services-and-facilities/us...
This is also the case when you fly out of Shannon airport[0]. Incidentally, if you're arriving at LAX, there's another way to "bypass" immigration & customs, but it'll cost you dearly[1].
[0] https://www.shannonairport.ie/passengers/at-the-airport/flyi...
Okay, my post inadvertently makes it sound like AUH is the only airport where those facility is available, but I'm aware it's not :)
Actually, I just searched and found a list of airports outside the US with pre-clearance facility at https://www.cbp.gov/travel/preclearance
Also, I think similar strategies have been adopted for verifying the contents of containers (as in, container ships) to ease the traffic at destination ports in the US.
Like, they verify the containers at the source port and lock it (using some kind of high tech mechanism to prevent tampering).
Don't know too much details though.
> Alas there doesn't seem to be any in Asia
Abu Dhabi — a place with pre-clearance which I've been talking about — is in Asia :)
However, if you intend to travel to Eastern part of Asia (Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan etc) going via Abu Dhabi is inefficient; from LAX it's 15 hours to AUH, and then 10 hours to NRT. Direct LAX to NRT is just around 12 hours.
Apologies of course you're right. I'm too accustomed to conflating Asia = East Asia.
It's commercial pasengers taking extra trips to retain FF perks.
> Their goal: Fly and spend enough to maintain or upgrade their elite status with the carrier they fly most, with the promise of upgrades, free checked bags and bonus miles for the following year.
The title given currently The Frequent Fliers Who Go To Extremes had me wondering if this was to be tales of daring do from those who clock up a million+ line kms in flight on a routine basis.
Apparently the technically correct spelling is "derring" because of a 16th century misprint.
Perhaps being technically correct is not the "best kind of correct" this time.
I toss a mental coin any time I come to type such a phrase and note that we still translate the progenitor "dorryng do" as 'daring to do' and have derring-do littered throughout every volume of Ripping Yarns so it seems passable to spilt the difference. :-)
People typically achieve travel status on their employers dime.
Since the individual personally benefits from gaining status (and reward points), it’s not surprising that people do things not in their employers interest (buying a more expensive ticket, or taking a longer flight) since they benefit.
Why do airlines offer these complex, gamable reward programs? Why do they not simply charge for whatever privileges frequent fliers get?
Seems like the plane is going to fly the route anyway. We’re not talking private jets here.
My piston-engine airplane goes about 3% faster on the same fuel flow (power) at the end of a long flight than the start. That’s the effect of reduced drag from the lower weight.
(https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon...)
extraneous flying results in more production of CO2 in more massive quantities.