News and notables from around the interweb:
- Hyatt Gold Passport clarifies its Diamond member breakfast benefit. In a good way. Up to 4 guests registered to the member’s room get free full breakfast in the restaurant when there’s no club lounge or the lounge is closed. It’s the most robust breakfast benefit of any hotel loyalty program.
- Mommy Points highlights the NFL Extra Points card – $400 after $1000 in spend. In many ways not enough to get me excited about a credit card signup bonus but it’s from Barclays, so that helps mix things up a mix from the usual Chase, American Express, and Citibank offerings. I still like the US Airways Mastercard and the Travelocity American Express from Barclays better, however.
- Aeroplan is offering 500 bonus miles for flights on Air Canada booked by December 31 with their iPhone app for travel through January 31. (HT: Notiflyer)
- Adding an infant ticket to a Delta-issued award on Virgin Australia: a tale of horror and woe.
- The TSA’s ‘freeze drill’ which has also been referred to as ‘Code Bravo Sierra’ (get it? “B.S.”) was videotaped at Phoenix airport where passengers were being ordered to stand in place, after having cleared security. I’d have been tempted to say “but Simon didn’t say” though that’s unlikely to go over well.
I actually saw this drill happen awhile back but I forget where. They had like 10 agents spread out along a hallway and stopped everyone for a few seconds then let us all go. The agent near us said it was a drill or training excercise but who knows. Odd.
A similar drill happened while I was exiting security at LAX back in May. It was startling at first, but the officers explained what they were doing, but only when I asked. It lasted for maybe a minute.
This happened to me at SNA a couple of years ago, but it was not a drill. It was the oddest thing that everyone had to stand/sit in place and this lasted for about an hour! Funny thing was, someone actually did blurt out “where’s simon?”. All because someone accidentally walked through the exit.