This FlyerTalk thread has brought me quite a few laughs about something I’d never even thought about paying attention to. United’s gate monitors always display the first three letters of the last name and first letter of the first name for passengers on the standby list, upgrade list, or confirmed awaiting seats list.
Well, it never occurred to me just how entertaining some of these names could be. From now on I’m getting to the gate extra early for a few extra laughs.
I posted a couple of days ago about Chris Elliott receiving a subpoena for posting a security directive. While he probably shouldn’t have posted it word-for-word, he was helping out the traveling public and there was nothing in there that I’d consider to be confidential (other than the text identifying it as such).
Well, it seems the Department of Homeland security has come to their senses and believes the subpoena is “no longer necessary.” Now, this might have something to do with the fact that they already found the answers they were looking for thanks to the computer they confiscated from another blogger, but I’ll hope the answer is simpler than that and that they just realized the fight wasn’t worth it.
Either way I’m happy for Chris and Steve. Now if Chris would just avoid calling elite status worthless and us elite travelers gremlins I’d be a very happy camper…. 
US Airways is offering a one-time bonus of 1,500 Dividend Miles to those that register and book a ticket on usairways.com by March 31 for travel through July 31.
(Tip of the hat to TMtravelworld)
I can’t believe it, the government was efficient for once. I sent in my US passport for renewal on December 2 and got it back today, exactly four weeks later. Other than the rather draconian, off center picture that the lady at the acceptance facility took of me, I’m kind of impressed!
I feel like such a noob, though. My German passport, which I recently got, has exactly three stamps in it. My (new) US passport has no stamps in it. That might be good when it comes to immigration, so the US immigration wankers officers can stop harassing me because I don’t have enough empty pages and perhaps will stop asking me how I can afford to travel so much (so many things I’ve been tempted to respond with), which might be a good thing. But at the same time it’s fun to have a full passport and occasionally thumb through it and look at all the visas and stamps. To put a slight twist to a Ryan Bingham quote, ”to look at my passport is to know me.”
Anyway, having a new passport can mean only one thing — it’s time to go somewhere! Buenos Aires, Dubai, Dublin, Reykjavik, and Rio, here I come!
Poor, poor Chris Elliott. And while I almost always disagree with him, this time it’s different. I support him. As we all know, the TSA didn’t exactly do a great job making the new security initiatives clear. So in trying to help the public out (for once), Chris Elliott posted the security directive on his website, which wasn’t supposed to be published. Now, aside from the fact that this wasn’t supposed to be made public, I don’t see anything in there that I’d consider confidential or surprising. In other words, Chris wasn’t compromising our national security.
But apparently someone from the government showed up at his house last night with a subpoena, wanting to know who leaked him the document. Overkill much? You’d think they have bigger things to worry about, like, oh, I don’t know, terrorism?
Makes me happy I didn’t post…. oh, nevermind. 
Join us for episode 50 of the Upgrd Podcast. Unfortunately I don’t have a good reason for having missed this one, other than mixing up days. Oops!
Only posting about this because I have a comment or two to make. First of all, thanks to Matt’s fiance for her lovely comment about me. Much appreciated.
More importantly, though, I wish I could have been there to respond to Mike’s comment (around the 15 minute mark). Mike played the audio of the predictions we made for 2009 back in late 2008. Mike said my predictions were “very generic…. I don’t even know if this counts.”
Let’s go through my predictions one by one, shall we?
– Promotions? Check (although fair enough, that’s generic)
– More double elite qlualifying miles promotions? Check
– Hotel promotions, including double stay offers and Hyatt’s Faster Free Nights? Check, check, and check
– Status being awarded to people that are short of actual qualification threshold? Check (see this 200+ post thread in the United forum)
Now, even if Mike doesn’t think so, I’m going to go on the record and say I nailed it.
I guess what I find really funny is Mike’s prediction — “United is going to have some major change announced by the end of the year.” Way to be specific, Mike!
Lufthansa has had a neat tool for a while now, called MySkyStatus. Basically you enter the flights you’ll be taking on their website and they’ll automatically send updates to your Facebook and Twitter accounts about your arrival time, departure time, etc. Till now I’ve been too lazy to actually enter my flights, but I just went through and entered all my planned January travel. I’m not great at staying active on my Twitter account, but I’ll do my best to improve next year. At the very least you’ll know which flights I’m on (for the handful two of you that are interested), and I’ll even do my best to upload good pictures of TSA agents or red carpet lice every once in a while.
On second thought it probably wasn’t the best idea to send these updates to Facebook as well. Most of my “friends” there don’t know about my little hobby, and it’ll probably be more work than anything else to explain to them how or why I’m doing eight flights basically every weekend. Oops!
I’ve been meaning to watch the documentary “One Six Right” forever. It has been recommended to me over and over and over, but my laziness always ends up getting the best of me. Well, in early December a friend passed on the DVD to me, so there were no more excuses. I finally got around to seeing it, and all I can say is “wow!”
“One Six Right” is a documentary about Van Nuys Airport and overall the beauty of flight. It’s great if you like history or just like airport and airplane shots, as the filming is amazing. The movie is just filled with passion, as is evident from all the interviews with pilots, air traffic controllers, and other airplane enthusiasts.
All too often I lose sight of the beauty of flight, which is what first drew me to aviation. It’s easy to do given that I’ve flown over 250,000 miles this year, but now when I think about it I don’t remember the last time I just gazed out of an airplane window for hours on end as I did back when I started. After watching this documentary, though, I think I’ll find myself truly enjoying the beauty of aviation a bit more.
So if you like airplanes, aviation, and history, this one’s for you!
Take a listen to Matthew’s interview with NPR about mileage runs and frequent flyer programs. Well done, Matthew! And yes, if law doesn’t work out for you (which I’m sure it will), you have a career in radio to fall back on.
It’s time for a reader photo. Thanks to Nadia for sending in this one.
Correct Answer: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Winner: Chris
If you’d like your photo featured, please email it to me at onemileatatime@hotmail.com, along with the correct answer.
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