Category: airlines

Preventing Pens from Leaking on Airplanes

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

One of my coworkers, T.Scott, had his pen start leaking on him after a recent flight. And, in case it might help anyone else, I thought I’d write a short post about a strategy that has worked pretty well for me. In short, you can generally prevent pens from leaking if you keep them upright (tip pointed-up) during flight.

That way, if the air expands within the chamber (due to a change in air pressure), the air can harmlessly escape through the tip (rather than pushing the ink through it). Typically, I’ll use the pen’s clip to attach it to one of the in-flight safety cards in the seatback in front of me just before takeoff (while keeping the tip pointed up, of course).

PS Some pages that address this topic also recommend removing the cap during flight (while keeping them pen upright) to allow further airflow through the tip of the pen. I’ve had good results without having to remove the cap, myself, but that option is there if you had wanted to take extra precautions.

Airline Credit Cards?

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

My Discover card is expiring soon and so I’m thinking about trying another card. Discover has been fine and, of course, they’ll automatically mail me a new one before this one expires; but, this is the card that I have setup to auto-pay many of my monthly expenses and I’ll have to contact each of those companies which are setup for auto-pay anyway (since they’ll need the new expiration date). So, it would be just as easy to tell them a new credit card number if I found one which I liked more than the Discover.

I’ve given some thought to getting an airline miles card since that would give me something back for my purchases. Of course, I already get 1% back with Discover, but I’m curious whether I might be able to get a bit more from another card. It seems that each airline has its own card and there are also some any-airline cards; and, I’m currently leaning towards a non airline-specific card since I rarely use the same airline from one trip to the next.

I thought there might just be a handful of cards from which to choose, but there seem to be several dozen :-/. I picked out a few of them to compare:

  • Discover Miles Card — little did I know that Discover has its own airline miles card. It has a $29 yearly fee and offers airline tickets at 25,000 miles (up to $500) and 30,000 miles (up to $650).

  • TravelerMiles is a card from Travelers Bank. In addition to tickets at 25,000 miles (up to $500) and 32,000 miles (up to $600), this one also offers discounted tickets at 8,000 miles ($100 off) and 28,000 miles ($400 off). However, I’m couldn’t find a yearly fee listed anywhere (or even a link to apply for the card).

  • CapitalOne has two airline cards — their Go Miles and their Go Miles Ultra cards (the difference is that the Go Miles Ultra card doubles miles on the first year). And, their maximum ticket values are calculated on a multiple of 90; so, for example, 9,000 miles are needed to get a $100 ticket. Calculating for some of the more common mile-amounts, 25,000 miles would work out to a $278 ticket and 30,000 miles would be about $333. Hmm, come to think of it, this card is starting to look kinda lame.

After looking over those, I then found this article at Kiplinger from last August about airline mile cards. The article is fairly general but they also suggest a couple cards for those who are undecided (like me, natch). From Kiplinger:

  • Quicken offers a MasterCard which, contrary to the Kiplinger article, apparently has no annual fee. Interestingly enough, their rewards program is called TravelerMiles and it links to the travelermiles.com site as well — it looks like this is the card that’s tied to the TravelerMiles program. As before, this has tickets at 25,000 miles (up to $500) and 32,000 miles (up to $600.

  • The WorldPoints Visa from MBNA is the other card mentioned. This one has no annual fee, which is a plus, but the lesser maximum ticket values aren’t as high as some of the others — 25,000 miles gets a $400 ticket while 35,000 miles gets a $600 ticket.

Looking over them, I’m still not entirely decided. But, considering that it would probably take me a few years to rack up enough miles to get a free flight, those annual fees may more than offset the higher ticket amounts. So far, the Quicken Mastercard looks tempting — it has no annual fee and its maximum ticket values are on par some of the annual-fee cards. I’m open to any suggestions here.

Airline on A&E

Ashley Bischoff7 Comments

I first heard about A&E’s new reality show Airline from, of all places, NPR’s Marketplace (RealAudio article). Airline is a reality show based around Southwest Airlines:

A camera crew has spent the last six months at Los Angeles International Airport filming the work of Southwest Airlines employees. Is this an employee training video? No, it’s the latest in reality TV. The weekly half-hour show called “Airline” is devoted to the drama that goes on behind the scenes at a big-time carrier. […]

Interestingly enough, even though Southwest granted A&E permission for the initial filming, the producers still had the final say on which segments made it into the show. And, Southwest wasn’t paid for this, though they hope that the show will act as positive advertising for the brand.

They seem to be airing two 1/2 hour episodes back-to-back each week and I recorded last week’s episodes on TiVo just to see what it was like. And I rather enjoy the show — there were no spiteful fights or gossip (unlike some reality shows) but it was surprisingly interesting. And, the Southwest employees generally acted like real people rather than zombie marketdroids.

Airline airs Mondays on A&E at 10/9c and 10:30/9:30c.

Neon Luggage Tags

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

From Fred Langa’s LangaList — a weekly newsletter on upcoming technology and software — is this InformationWeek article on traveling with electronics. One suggestion there is to buy neon luggage tags for sensitive items (so that they’re less appetizing to thieves).

It can be smart to use a generic, nondescript carry-on that doesn’t scream “electronics inside!” And no matter what case you use, make your bag stand out in some way so it can be identified even across a crowded concourse, so a thief will think twice about trying to lift it. Luggage stores and online travel sites carry personalization/identification straps, handle wraps, and (my favorite) oversized, high-visibility fluorescent luggage tags that can help you spot your stuff in a crowd and also make thieves seek less-conspicuous stuff to steal. […]

It sounds like a simple idea, but it makes sense to me.