Feedback from the Frontlines of Travel
"Pleeeease...
"Keep your newsletter free from politics and political references.
"We are and will be bombarded for the next few months from all sides regarding political views.
"Your newsletter should stay focused on travel and stop there." [Ed B.]
[FrequentFlier.com replies - We have readers in both camps on this matter. Some welcome comments with an explicitly political focus, others don't. We may reassess the situation at some point, but for now we will include in this week's issue a few political opinions, and try to steer clear of the overtly political thereafter.]
"Am appreciative you included the 'Rant' about keeping politics out of the Frequent Flyer dialogue. The author was correct, so far as it went.
"The 'state of air travel' is always wrapped in 'politics' of one sort or another. Some of it is in the halls of Congress, and other aspects within the executive boardrooms of the airlines. Lately, it doesn't seem to matter which, given the flying public are the losers. Unless one is willing to concede that it's still a bargain when the cost of a commercial seat from Spokane to Seattle, for example, is less than half a tank of gas at the pump, or from San Francisco to Los Angeles for very little more.
"Everything in a free society is about competition and innovation. Someone or some agency is always trying to gum it up in the meanwhile. The countries that 'own' the oil in the ground are just as likely to be priced out of the market as any other 'here today, gone tomorrow' enterprise or resource. Sooner or later, the bust will be dot.oil as it was with dot.com and more recently dot.bank." [Ed N.]
"In response to Bret in last week's newsletter --
"I'm glad you ended your diatribe about liberal and oil drilling with the way your entire piece sounded, and I mean that in the worst possible sense.
"I'm one of the liberals that Rush has you trained to salivate at and wildly attack and throw blame at-blame that should be rightfully directed at those who laughably call themselves "conservatives", but you have been too well trained by your republican masters to see that! How is increasing the national debt from the 6 Trillion that Clinton was on the way to paying off to 9 Trillion under Bush and the republican controlled Congress in any sense 'conservative'?
"Anyway, if you were able to see past the oily Bush/Cheney propaganda you would see the following facts showing the futility and foolishness of drilling in every piece of open land in America as Bush wants to do.
"Consider these facts:
- To start with, we shouldn't even be having an oil problem since George Bush promised us to bring down the cost of world oil by conquering Iraq and flooding the market with cheap oil! I wonder why that hasn't happened?
- Even if all oil fields are opened, America only contains 3-5% of the world's oil! We can drill in America until we look like a sieve and it won't solve our problem!
- The oil industry is already NOT drilling on almost 70% of the federal oil leases it already owns! Why open up more sensitive places if they are not using what they already have?!
- Why squeeze out and use up every last drop of our own oil-at staggering economic and environmental costs-when we can get it from other countries that are ruining their own environment instead of ours (not a nice thing to do but it's happening). Also what is so terrible about leaving a little bit in the ground in America for future generations?
America is not a third world country (yet) but it's people like you who push us to act like it and are ready to let greedy oil companies drill in and damage any and all pristine parks and wilderness areas just because they have you convinced that by doing that you can keep driving your big SUV! Why emulate the land conservation policies of countries like Madagascar and the Sudan? Aren't we smarter than to plunder our landscape for a quick buck and temporary fix of oil?
"I may be a liberal -- and worse, an environmentalist -- but I'm smart enough to know when the administration and oil companies are selling us a bill of goods when it comes to increased drilling in the US! Maybe it would also be easy to sell you on a quick and easy little war with Iran to get more oil!" [Rich O. - St. Louis]
"While I can feel for all of you fellow readers of the FFC about the surprise you feel, the way you feel taken advantage of, and free becomes a fee situation, I wish to suggest patience. Hopefully the oil price crisis will pass, hopefully the Airline programs will survive, all of us having trusted the various programs with so many thousands of our Frequent Flyer Miles which we so diligently saved and treasured, will stil have roughly equivilent value. Why complain now when our Airlines are just doing their best to continue serving us, and are keeping their FF Programs in place although they could have (with 6 Months notice) simply discontinued them.
"Just be happy that the Airlines do consider our patronage an asset, and have been doing all they can to keep them airbourne. Hang in there folks. Keep flying, Let the various Airline personnel know that we realize they are having a hard time of it too, and give them the kindness of a smiling thank you whenever we can." [Eric R.]
"I was going to send you a rant and I found a similar one had just been posted. I also may have discovered yet another new fee, or two or 4, at US Airways. This started when I was looking to book 4 award tix on USAirways. I could find no open routes to my destination online. It was as if all award seats were taken for several weeks before and after the dates I wanted. I was flexible. I had about an 11 day window to take a 5 day trip and I was looking 8 months ahead of time.
"I decided to call and see what options I had. I spoke to a very friendly agent who found me 4 standard award tickets to my destination that fit into the time window I had. She put the reservation on hold. I was told there would be a $40 fee, per ticket, to book over the phone and that I could avoid the fee if I did it online. I told her I was calling because I didn't see the flights online. Anyway, wrote down all the flights and went online. Sure enough there was no way to book the combinations of flights in my on-hold reservation with miles online. I called back and asked about this. "We are sorry you are having dificulty using our website" No, I wasn't. Your system wasn't showing the same milage options that the phone rep had available. Long story short te wanted to charge me $40 per tix. I went up the chain, explaining that I could not go online to avoide the fee because those flights were not there. bla bla bla. I finally got the $40 per tix fee waved.
"Here is the kicker - In preparing this note to the frequentflier.com I learned there will be a new award processing fee at USairways. So, if I paid the requested $40 per tix for phone, award processing fee, plus tax $10 that would be $75 each for my "free" award tickets." [Brian P.]
Until next week...
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