View from the Wing

Okay, so I haven’t left for the airport yet this morning - I can pass along Qantas’ new Aussie Air Pass.

For $999 you get roundtrip airfare from Los Angeles (or Honolulu) or Sydney. $1299 gets roundtrip airfare from New York, and you even get to fly Qantas on the New York-Los Angeles segment.

So far, so good, there are occasionally slightly better prices to Australia but not regularly and not by much.

What you also get is three intra-Autralia flight segments included. The price includes “zone one” destinations of Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Gold Coast Queensland, Hobart and Launceston.

For an additional $200 you can add flights to Cairns, Hamilton Island, Townsville, Alice Springs, Ayers Rock or Darwin. $400 gets you Perth and Broome, but that doesn’t interest me much…

Not bringing my laptop on my travels over the next week, so likely no postings until October 2nd. Please come back then!

My free computer arrived today in two gigantic Dell boxes (one for the box, another for the monitor).

I’ve managed the perfect trifecta, since I also completed the free iPod and free flatscreen offers.

A new Wired magazine piece (hat tip to Ramble On) sounds a skeptical note, reporting that the company operating the free sites is nonresponsive in customer service. True enough, but their business model requires it, and they’re sending out free stuff. They claim to be a victim of their own success, causing too much demand for products that become backordered.

Still, the ferris wheel may stop at some point, and the offer will end. But participants won’t be worse off at most offers require no cash out of pocket.

As for me, the piece offered some encouragement: Gratis Networks may be launching more freebie opportunities soon.

I was talking the other day with a colleague who is considering getting a mileage-earning card. He has a card now that he revolves balances on, and was wondering whether it made sense to switch to a rewards card.

A fairly detailed CardWeb analysis found that rewards cards tend to charge higher rates of interest, and that consumers who revolve balances are better off shooting for the lowest interest rate rather than the best rewards.

That’s only half the story, though, because it doesn’t have to be an “either-or” proposition.

Get two new cards: one card with zero interest on balance transfers (often a teaser during the opening months of card membership) and a second card with the rewards you want. Transfer outstanding balances to the first card and put new charges (that you pay off every month!) onto the second card.

Now, the kicker on the zero interest balance transfer cards is usually that you have to have a charge on the card each month, and interest is applied on the new charge since payments are applied to the transferred balances first. So just put a dollar’s worth of gasoline on the card once a month religiously.

The key, naturally, is to reign in overspending. But there’s no reason you can’t earn rewards without high interest costs for everyday spending you’re able to pay in full each month, just because you have outstanding balances.

A fairly detailed discussion of the best mileage-earning credit cards can be found here.

Sign up for free four-year subscriptions to Maxim and Stuff and one-year subscriptions to Forbes and Details.

I just checked online and my order for a free desktop computer has been sent to the vendor - so I expect shipping in about a week. Not bad for a few minutes work.

See this post for a discussion of the economics fo the deal. See this post for a discussion of how to complete the requirements of the offer as easily as possible and at no cost.

And of course you can also get a free iPod and free flatscreen TV as well.

TSA diverts United flight from Heathrow as a security precaution because Cat Stevens was onboard.

Meanwhile, in another incident of paranoia unrelated to actual security, a Midwest Airlines flight was cancelled when a passenger found Arabic writing in an inflight magazine.

Consolidator Onetravel.com is offering $50 off packages which include air travel.

Enter discount code 50PBBF in the special requests field. The discount won’t be taken right away, but rather sent to the purchaser as a rebate check. Booking must be made by October 31, 2004 and travel complete by November 30, 2005.

I feel so much safer now.

Kathryn Harrington was flying home from vacation last month when screeners at the Tampa, Fla., airport found her bookmark. It’s an 8.5-inch leather strip with small lead weights at each end.


Airport police said it resembled a weighted weapon that could be used to knock people unconscious. So the 52-year-old special education teacher was handcuffed, put into a police car, and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.

Charges were dropped, and the teacher says she’ll never take her bookmark to an airport again.

Update: This longer story has a picture of the menacing $10 bookmark:

Truly appalling. The TSA hasn’t even apologized as far as I can tell. The sad conclusion is that we’ve created an arrogant bureaucracy that terrorizes passengers instead of promoting security.

Amtrak is offering double points plus 3500 bonus Guest Rewards points for every two qualifying roundtrips on the Metroliner or Acela Express through December 15th. Registration is required.

Amtrak is offering a 20% discount on long-distance train award tickets (tickets that cross zones) through October 31st.

Go-Today.com will be offering a special London package for $299 per person (double occupancy) including air, six nights hotel, and Continental breakfast daily.

It will only be available from 9am - 9pm Eastern time on Monday, September 20th.

The fare is valid from New York, with other cities slightly higher (Washington, DC will show up at $399 for instance).

The price doesn’t bring luxury accomodations, but you’ll get a clean, convenient hotel property at an excellent price.

Iraqi Airways has resumed flying.

As of Saturday, Iraqi Airways will fly once daily to Amman and Damascus, Aghabi said. Another route to the United Arab Emirates will be added later, he said, without specifying when.



An Iraqi Airways Boeing 737, flight number IA164, left Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport at 8:30 a.m. bound for Baghdad Airport, Aghabi said. He declined to say how many passengers were on board.



Round-trip airfare from Amman to Baghdad is $750, he said.

The airline is currently operating a new Boeing 737, though it must do so across treacherous skies:

Iraqi insurgents have taken aim at some commercial and military flights over Baghdad, firing rockets at aircraft flying to and from the airport, which also is used by the U.S. military.



To avoid rocket fire, planes are forced to make sharp maneuvers while staying within a secure perimeter over the airport.

The airline is currently working to bring back planes from abroad which they say were grounded in Jordan, Tunisia and Iran. It’s unclear what the operating condition of those aircraft is. None of the other planes in Iraq owned by the airline are in operating condition, and most certainly the carrier has not been subject to an ICAO safety audit.

Interestingly, Iraqi Airways is considering purchase of five Airbus aircraft.

Between October 1 and November 15, Delta is offering a 15% bonus on transfers from American Express Membership rewards of 75,000 points or less and a 20% bonus on transfers of more than 75,000 points. Registration required.

Note that the fine print of the promotion says that pre-registration begins September 20th, though the website is taking registrations now. If you intend to use the promotion I’d go back and re-register in a couple of days.

The fine print also says the offer begins October 1, even though the large print says it begins “now”. This is really annoying, but just be aware that you should wait until October 1 to do any transfers to Delta from Membership Rewards.

Hilton has a sweepstakes with 10 trips for two to the Hilton Waikoloa Village for six nights including roundtrip airfare and 69 3-night Hilton stays.

You can enter once per day. US residents only, but residents of Florida, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico are not eligible.

Via Reason’s Hit & Run, there’s a new blog on airline security, privacy, and civil liberties issues: SecondaryScreening.net.

There some great observations on how easily the government gets around freedom of information act requests via unlimited, unpunishable redaction… that the government has effectively gutted airline privacy policies (so don’t believe what you read on their websites)… and how 1.17 billion people could get free iPods (while 4.687 billion go without iPods and a bit more spam).

Looks like one for the bookmark file.

Man arrested for failing to leave 18% tip at a Lake George, New York restaurant. (Hat tip to David Rowell.)

Sprint is offering a $2 credit to your bill for signing onto your online account.

Alaska Airlines and Delta have announced a partnership that will involve codesharing, reciprocal mileage earning and burning, and lounge access.

No start date has yet been announced. It makes tons of sense, as Delta is weak on the West Coast with a small hub at Salt Lake City as their western base. Alaska partners with Continental and Northwest - both Delta partners - already. Of course, Alaska also partners with American. Come to think of it, they’ll dance with anyone - including KLM (a Northwest/Continental/Delta partner) and Qantas, British Airways, and Cathay Pacific (American partners).

The arrangement between Alaska and Delta is unlikely to include reciprocal upgrade privileges - something that Alaska only extends to Northwest’s elite frequent flyers and then only on a day of departure space available basis, except for travelers on full fare tickets who can confirm upgrades at booking.

Delta frequent flyers will find that Alaska offers outstanding award availability.

American is making award seats to Hawaii available for 5000 miles off the regular coach award price of 35000 miles. The offer is valid for travel through November 18.