View from the Wing

The Department of Homeland Security doesn’t just keep our skies safe from nail clippers, they also protect us from copycat Rubiks Cubes.

When the two agents arrived at the store, the lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube, which he said was an illegal copy of the Rubik’s Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time.


He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.


After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her that Rubik’s Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on the rival toy’s trademark.


Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency’s intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.


“One of the things that our agency’s responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation’s financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications,” she said.

At least they didn’t make her take off her shoes.

The Mayor of Chicago may block Airtran from acquiring ATA’s gates at Chicago-Midway. Airtran’s offer of cash has to be approved by the bankruptcy court and the city of Chicago. Mayor Daley says he’ll only permit the transaction if Airtran will hire all of ATA’s Midway employees — a stupid move Airtran seems to me too smart to agree to.

Queen of Sky, the Delta flight attendant who was suspended for posting pictures of herself (taken in uniform) online, has been fired.

Now the offending pictures are back on her website. And she reports that she has hired a public relations firm.

George W. Bush and John Kerry are ninth cousins twice-removed, and have geneological links to Vlad Dracul, the 15th-century Transylvanian warlord who inspired “Dracula.”

Kerry’s cousin Michael Paine was friends with Lee Harvey Oswald. Paine stored Oswald’s rifle which was used to shoot John F. Kennedy.

Links via Wonkette.

Free toilet paper.

Gary Steiger of Free Frequent Flyer Miles notes a program called Partnership Plus which offers points for surveys on clothing that convert to American and United miles. The potential is 2,000 free miles a year for short surveys each month.

New routes always represent a good chance for award ticket redemption. Since they’re new, the allocated award seats haven’t been taken yet after all.

Air Canada will be flying non-stop from Vancouver to Sydney beginning December 16. If you have United or USAirways miles, this represents a new way to get to Australia.

The BBC is covering the Queen of Sky story about the Delta flight attendant who has been suspending for posting a picture of herself in uniform on her blog.

American Trans Air has filed for bankruptcy. It says it will continue current operations while in Chapter 11.

It hasn’t received debtor-in-possession financing and will instead seek to use cash held as collatoral for the federally back loan that it received. This move generates risk for taxpayers but is similar to what was recently approved in the USAirways bankruptcy filing.

American Trans Air has agreed to sell gates at Midway and landing slots at Reagan National to Airtran. That deal will have to be approved by the bankruptcy court, and creditors may well argue that some other as yet undisclosed offer is superior — so the Airtran deal is hardly done.

Register and shop 10 times at Safeway and Vons between October 29, 2004 and November 30, 2004 and earn 2500 United miles.

Only one trip to the market per day counts, and each qualify trip requires spending of at least $25. The bonus can be earned twice.

Update: Edited to correct the start date of the promotion.

American Express is providing a $100 million loan and prepaying $500 million for Skymiles.

The loan is presumably part of Delta’s process lining up debtor-in-possession financing for a bankruptcy filing. Today’s 8-K filing details the transaction in substantial detail.

American Express, of course, issues the co-branded Delta Amex cards, Delta is a key partner in the Membership Rewards program, and Delta benefits are key to the Platinum and Centurion products.

In other words, Delta needs to keep flying for American Express’ profitability.

When United filed for Chapter 11, BankOne which issues the United Visa, provided $600 million in debtor-in-possession financing. Frequent flyer miles are truly big business. We’ve reached a situation where airlines need to exist for banks’ profitability if for no other reason.

Million miler programs are a bit mysterious. Some airlines reward their frequent flyers with lifetime status after accumulating one million miles.

United offers Premier Executive (mid-tier) elite status after one million flown miles. Delta offers Silver elite after one million flown miles, Gold elite after two million flown miles, and Platinum Elite after four million flown miles.

American offers lifetime Gold status after one million miles accumulated in a frequent flyer account from any source, and lifetime Platinum (mid-tier) elite status after two million miles accumulated in a frequent flyer account from any source. (Though I understand they are reconsidering this and may switch over to flown miles only - but that’s just a rumor.)

In addition to lifetime status, there’s usually a few upgrade certificates to mark the milestone.

The reason the programs are mysterious is that they’re generally ‘unpublished’ and rarely discussed. Programs believe they can change their criteria or terminate the program for new members at any time.

I just learned that this perk is offered by Phillipine Airlines, of all carriers: lifetime elite status after one million flown miles. Twenty-seven have achieved the milestone so far.

Enter promotion code ALOHA and your Aloha Airlines frequent flyer number when enrolling in the Prince Resorts membership program. Through December 31st you’ll receive 250 free AlohaPass miles.

For folks with an interest in the legendary American Express Centurion (”Black”) card, check out this page of benefits for British Centurion card members. (There is currently no U.S. Centurion website, but I understand one is in the works.)

U.K. Centurion cardholders could have gone to the Emmy awards, attended a part with the cast of the Sopranos, and had lunch with Hilary Swank.

A Tongan noble was awarded 10,000 Air New Zealand Airpoints when he was held up 45 minutes at checkin while his identity was verified. As a noble from Tonga, he uses only one name.

Via the Knowledge Problem, Google has a new downloadable tool to search your hard drive.

Participants in Race for the Cure receive a discount code that is valid for 10% off American Airlines flights booked at AA.com for travel through December 31.

You must sign in with your AAdvantage number and enter the promotion code 4D12KD on the confirmation page.

This code is valid on tickets of $160 and up (not including taxes and fees). Some fares are ineligible, but my experience is that you can’t always predict in advance which ones those will be — you just have to price out an itinerary to see.

The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang was estimated to cost 2% of North Korea’s GDP to construct.

It’s 105 stories tall and incomplete. Construction halted in 1992, perhaps for lack of funds. It has 3000 rooms in a country and city with little tourism. Though it can be seen from every part of Pyongyang, it has been removed from the city’s maps.

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.

Via Notiflyer, JetBlue has partnered with American Express Membership Rewards. Beginning December 8th, 1,250 Membership Rewards points will transfer to five JetBlue TrueBlue points.

The Notiflyer headline highlights that this is JetBlue’s first partner for its mileage program.

More important to me is that this represents the addition of another partner for American Express which has been slowly bleeding partners without any additions. Northwest left the program. TWA doesn’t exist anymore. Marriott is leaving at the end of 2004. The program seemed to be dying on the vine, with fewer partners and fees on mileage transfers imposed seven months ago.

The addition of JetBlue to the folks at least gives me some hope and confidence that American Express is still trying to build their program and deliver value.

Alaska Airlines is offering double miles on all Alaska, Horizon, and Delta flights between November 1 and December 15, 2004. Registration is required.

This is great news for Alaska flyers — and non-elite Delta flyers should consider crediting their flights to Alaska Mileage Plan during the promotion period.

Including Delta in the double miles promotion is meant to highlight the new partnership between the two airlines. Beginning November 1 the two airlines offer reciprocal mileage earning and burning opportunities.