News and notes from around the interweb:
- St. Maarten beachgoer throws ball at plane. (HT: Hans Mast) Because we didn’t hit peak stupidity at Princess Juliana International Airport last month when a tourist was blown by a Caribbean Airlines 737’s jet blast, hitting her head against concrete.. and dying.
- air berlin is entering a partnership with jetBlue which will ultimate extend to frequent flyer programs at least as long as air berlin remains in business.
- My deep dive into American’s award redemption rules too in the weeds for you? Barclaycard has put together a really nice tutorial on redeeming awards with American AAdvantage. After all, the better use you get from your miles the more you’ll feel like accumulating those miles is a good decision. And that should translate into higher card spend for them.
- After giving up One Fine Stay to Accor, Hyatt is investing in another homesharing company. Making the hotel industry’s shameless political attacks on Airbnb even more hypocritical.
- Surprising things worth packing
- Senate confirms a new head of TSA meet the new boss, same as the old boss — the 13th in 16 years.
TSA Agents in Charlotte Watch News of the TSA’s Failure to Detect Weapons and Bombs, Instead of Searching for Weapons and Bombs (HT: Tocqueville) - How airlines decide which snacks to serve you
- If the price of a jetBlue flight you purchase falls within 14 days of booking, call and the airline will give you a voucher for the difference
Getting a voucher for price drops used to be possible on United and US Airways. https://web.archive.org/web/20140824181803/http://www.upgradetravelbetter.com/2006/03/13/the-black-art-of-repricing-tickets/
I used to do it with United all the time..
UA appears to have resumed the practice. I’m a Platinum and I’ve done it twice in the past couple of months; neither time was I charged any fee, just cheerfully given an ETC for the full amount of the drop.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/1812395-united-voucher-fare-price-change-3.html
Is this a new policy for JetBlue? I know they used to do it regardless of when you booked, and I thought they had stopped this practice completely, but now it’s apparently a 14-day window. Does anyone know if this is published somewhere?
According to this page on Yapta.com, it reflects that the fare difference needs to be $75+ to cover the change fee. It may very well be wrong (which would reflect badly on them since that’s their core biz), but it goes to my question of whether this changed, and if so, when.
http://my.yapta.com/airline-refunds/
Alaska refunds the difference if you buy the ticket on Alaska.com and the price drops on Alaska.com.
Eric, I bet that it’s possible only for people who are Elite enough to be exempt from the change fee, such as Platinums.