Don’t Get Scammed By Fake Hotel Sites and the Happiest Travel Smurfs at Christmas

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I cannot figure out how a law enforcement agency issues a badge without observing how a cadette responds to this predictable situation in a written, verbal, and physical simulation.
    One strike, and you start the program from the beginning.
    In the video, the ‘officer’ told the subject to move according to his instructions, and then shot him for moving.
    Had he simply told him to lay face down with his arms stretched out, at the start, instead of badgering him psychology until he made a wrong move, this would have been a simple arrest.
    The number one command a police officer has is Freeze or Stop, not ‘do the hokie pokie or I will shoot.’ Otherwise the use of deadly force is difficult to justify. The body camera does not help this officers argument or the departments defense against a wrongful death lawsuit.

  2. The lead-off article (hotel “scams”) is a bit misleading; it states that one in four “reported booking on what they thought was a hotel website, only to find later it was another site”. This is not a scam; they are almost certainly referring to the 3rd-party OTA pop-unders that arise when browsing TA, Priceline, etc. A “scam” is fraud, not an advertisement for a booking service.

    That being said, I agree that the surprising fact is that so many people don’t know who they’re giving their information to – as the travel-obsessed, we often forget just how little the “average” (remember that ~90% once a year figure with AA?) traveler knows.

  3. Cops are totally out of control these days! Judge, jury, and executioner. THIS is why even good, law-abiding people don’t care anymore when a cop gets shot…. the more the better!

  4. I am hearing that all foodstuffs will need to come out of the bag at screening, and be screened separately starting Jan 1. Is this true?

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