“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
The USA Today reports “at least five…flights were disrupted Sunday because of security concerns.” Racial profiling is alive and well. It’s a sad sign of the times when not filing charges for suspicious behavior is newsworthy.
Sadly, national calamities have been better handled without long-lasting disruption to civil liberties.
For my hop from Honolulu to Kahului, I was an a United-marketed codeshare operated by Hawaiian Airlines. HNL is an open airport:
Hawaiian uses Boeing 717’s for its inter-island flights. They feature a first class as well, but for a 100 mile trip, I’m skeptical of the value.
My codeshare meant that I wasn’t able to check-in online or at a kiosk, but it fortunately turned up an exit row seat. I didn’t feel like paying for Internet access while waiting for my flight and Hawaiian doesn’t indicate that its seats are exit rows on the boarding pass, so I almost walked past my seat when boarding.
To reach Honolulu, I flew on United 421 from Newark to Honolulu with a stop in San Francisco to change planes from an A320 to a Boeing 777. Since United’s domestic non-p.s. first class is rather uniform, I’ll omit the standard photo of the seat and legroom for brevity.
United flights to Hawaii have a “Halfway to Hawaii” game sponsored by Hilton. The prize is just a CD; previously, the prizes had ranged from wine to Hawaiian-produced nuts.
I stayed at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani. While the hotel felt old and dated, the prepaid rate of $69 (after a $40 discount from American Express) seemed decent for a hotel on Kauakana Avenue in Waikiki.
The room could have used a bit of work on its view: The parking lot.
I attended StarMegaDo3 last week. To position myself for the start of its North American portion in Chicago, I trekked from from New York via Honolulu and Kahului. Plotted with gcmap, my routing looks like:
In lieu getting my photos online of my trip out of New York to Chicago (via Hawaii) or of the events themselves, I offer the Wall Street Journal’s coverage (for the time being).
The Gogo company representative on FlyerTalk announced that passengers on United’s p.s. service (JFK-LAX and JFK-SFO) will have 30 minutes of complimentary internet access during the month of September.
Depending on how well publicized this is to passengers actually on board these aircraft, service quality should range from normal to a true tragedy of the commons.
Loyalty Traveler reports another Marriott promotion for the fall, running not quite concurrently with their MegaBonus promotion. Earning is limited to United, Delta, British Airways, Lufthansa, GOL/Varig, and LAN.
The bonus is capped at 30k bonus points (or 17 stays). The main advantage to this promotion is that it starts on September 1st. If I stayed at Marriott hotels more frequently (or at least planned to this fall), this promotion would be a helpful addition to the MegaBonus promotion. My offer was for a free night after two stays, up to two free nights. While a 4k mile bonus isn’t as valuable as two free nights, it’s a useful promotion (for the Marriott traveler) beyond that or before the MegaBonus promotion kicks in.
There’s plenty of anecotal views on how to best board an airplane. A new paper showed up in the arXiv last week with experimental results (albeit with limited sample size) for different strategies. Randomized boarding beat back-to-front and the block-based method. Window-middle-aisle (“Wilma”) came in at about 30 seconds faster, but with a sample size of 1 it’s not necessarily statistically significant. The “Steffan” method of boarding, which boards passengers at every other row together, came in slightly faster.
There’s a video on Youtube of their method.
Starwood announced its Triple Up promotion. For stays involving a Thursday or Sunday night, there is a triple SPG point bonus; for all other stays, there is a double SPG point bonus. There’s a few nonparticipating hotels as well. Registration opens on September 6th for stays booked between September 6th through December 18th. Registration closes November 15th.
Priority Club has a brand diversity-driven promotion from September 15 through December 31. Stays earn a 500 point or 100 mile bonus. Staying at 2-4 distinct brands gives a multiplier for a bonus to appear at the beginning of 2012. Registration is currently open.
Marriott has a targeted fall MegaBonus promotion for stays between September 15th through January 15th. My offer was for one free night (at a Category 1-4 hotel) every second stay with a limit of 2 free nights.
I’m not thrilled by any of these in comparison to the three stays for a free night promotion that Starwood ran earlier this year, but alas, it’s better than nothing.
Hyatt announced their newest promotion on FlyerTalk: Every 3k eligible nights earns a 5k point bonus up to a total of 30k bonus points. Registration opens on September 15.
For reference, the Hyatt award chart starts at 5k points per night for Category 1 hotels and works up to 22k points per night for Category 6 hotels.
