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Like flying? A lot? Really, really a lot? Like Canada? Like the idea of going through American immigration in Canada? Have I got a deal for you…

Air Canada is rolling out all-you-can-fly fare passes for 3 and 6-month periods. The fares aren’t cheap, per se (fares start at ~$1700 per month), but if you commute between the US and Canada on a regular basis, this could be up your alley.

This nugget in their press release might be handy, too:

In addition, Air Canada is offering automatic top tier Elite frequent flyer status to its customers who purchase a six-month Unlimited ‘Flight Pass to Canada’ subscription at the Latitude fare level starting at $2,360 per month with additional flexibility and benefits.

All “Latitude” passes offer unlimited free upgrades (when available…). Alas, you’ll earn a fixed number of miles per month, depending on the fare level you purchase (10K/month for Tango Plus, 15K/month for Latitude), and you can’t credit the miles to another Star Alliance program.

Details on the 3-month unlimited flight passes are here. 6-month passes are here. The 6-month passes are here.

Related:
- Air Canada’s new menu of fare options
- Air Canada opens ALL seats to frequent flyer redemption
- Checked luggage now costs 20 bucks on lowest Air Canada fares

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The fine folks at the Consumerist got a tell-all e-mail from a former (and presumably disgruntled) employee of Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Included: some info on how to negotiate better rates.

Some are unethical, such as claiming to be an insurance adjustor for State Farm. Don’t do that.

But other tips are helpful, such as:

1. Enterprise doesn’t have any set prices. […] the agent manually types out how much you pay per day and he has authority to make it pretty much whatever he thinks you should pay.
[…]
6. For the best weekend deal call up on Friday sometime before 2pm and say, “I have all my info, drivers license and credit card, can I get a rental all setup so I don’t have to do anything but sign the ticket when I come in?”

The extent to which Enterprise’s rates are negotiable is particularly striking, and potentially useful, if you’re in the market for a rental car and aren’t afraid to haggle.

The whole post is here.

For your entertainment: Thirty seconds of airport luggage conveyor-belt hijinks!

This is what happens when the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport, along with US Airways, puts four planes worth of luggage onto one baggage carousel at the same time.

Video from:
Friday, March 2, 2007
US Airways # 773
Philadelphia to Las Vegas

Thanks to Consumerist.com editor Ben Popken!

Upgraded: Your odds of seeing the Airbus A380 in New York
Want to see the Airbus A380 up close and personal? Lufthansa is bringing the über-jumbo jet to New York (as mentioned previously here), and you can enter their contest to tour the plane. It’s still a long shot, but unless you’re a VIP, this is your only way in. Better hurry: The drawing is March 13, and the plane arrives in NYC March 19.

Upgraded: The civil discourse of travel blogging
The Sydney Morning Herald’s travel blog has a lively comments section, wherein the journalists take guff from their readers, but dish it right back. Barbs such as the French word for “shower” get thrown back and forth in the comments to this post. I have a hard time imagining such an exchange on an American newspaper’s official blog. Viva Australia! (Thanks to reader — and frequent, polite commenter! — S.A. for the tip.)

Upgraded: Surreptitious beverage transportation for ladies
You may recall the Beer Belly, the under-your-clothes beverage bladder that upgrades six-pack abs to a full case. It’s essentially a CamelBak undergarment, most certainly a violation of the TSA’s 3-ounce cutoff for liquids and gels, and your fast-track ticket to a cavity search. But until recently, it the liquid smuggling business was a man’s world. Now, in a celebration of gender equality, there’s a similar product for women, with the beverage storage slightly higher on the torso: The Wine Rack. (via Thrillist; thanks Dr. Vino!)

Downgraded: Blackjack in Vegas
Your odds of coming out ahead when playing the tables in Las Vegas have dropped. Several casinos are reducing the payouts on blackjack from 3:2 to 6:5. You need to check the fine print on the signs at each table. If you want to play single-deck blackjack with 3:2 payouts, you’ll have to head to the El Cortez or Four Queens hotels, though both of these less-than-desirable properties only feature two such tables each. (via Tim Leffel)

Upgraded: Qantas first and business qlass
The Global Traveller points to Qantas’ PR for their soon-to-be-revamped first and business class products. Highlights: pajamas in business class, and the claim that their lounges will be the best in the world.

Downgraded: Daylight savings time
The Wall Street Journal warns that the impending shift to daylight savings time will put international connections out of whack for the coming weeks, as some countries will adjust their clocks but others won’t. But frankly, this has almost always been the case. Europe and the United States always had a week or two’s discrepancy on both the autumn and spring sides. Yes, there will certainly be some connections that are out of whack with the normal schedule for the next few weeks, so if you fly a given route regularly, your typical connections may not be possible for the next few weeks. But the airlines’ timetables should reflect the reality of the new times when you buy the ticket, so just double-check your itineraries. I’ll still take my daylight savings time, thanks.

Upgraded: The number 13
Hotels are no longer enumerating their buildings’ floors incorrectly for the sake of superstition. The 13th floor is making a comeback. The statistics are tinged with irony: “A recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll suggests a large majority of Americans — 87% — would be comfortable with a 13th floor room assignment. But 13% say they’d be bothered by a 13th floor room assignment.”

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If you use US Airways miles to fly internationally, February 21 was a bad day.

On that day, US Airways reorganized their frequent flyer mile award chart (pdf) for international travel on Star Alliance or partner airlines. (Itineraries entirely on US Airways appear to be unchanged.)

Gary Leff compared the old chart to the new chart, and found a few itineraries that now cost more. Most notably:

The first item I’ve noticed is that flights between North America and “South and Central Asia” now run 80,000 miles for coach/120,000 for business/160,000 for first class — up from 60/90/120 thousand respectively.

On the flip side, flights from North America to Africa are cheaper 10,000 miles cheaper than before, in every class. But considering how many more passengers fly to Asia than to Africa, this doesn’t cancel out the price hikes.

But far, far worse than the devaluation of miles is the fact that they didn’t tell anybody. There was no press release, no announcement, and according to reports on FlyerTalk, no mention of the changes on the US Airways website until March 6, 2007. Thumbs down.

At least other airlines, such as United and Delta, gave several months’ warning when they changed their awards programs. Way to stay classy, US Airways!

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The folks at the Flight Wisdom blog sent us a note, pointing out their post on jetBlue’s revision of the contract of carriage (pdf) to incorporate the previously promised “bill of rights.” (The last three pages of the contract contain the “bill of rights” provisions.)

Hats off to jetBlue for making good codifying their promises of vouchers for delays into the legal document that governs all tickets. That’s a good step.

But…

There’s still the matter of the “controllable irregularity.” As you may recall from my previous critique of the jetBlue apologies, the airline built in a huge loophole with the term “controllable irregularity.” If problems could be blamed — even in part — on anything uncontrollable, such as the weather, they wouldn’t owe you ANYTHING. That has now been codified:

Controllable Irregularity as used in Section 36, means a delay, cancellation or diversion that is not caused by a Force Majeure Event. For the sake of clarity, if in a chain of multiple events, the original irregularity is due to a Force Majeure Event, the cause of the subsequent event(s) reasonably related to the original irregularity shall be deemed an Uncontrollable Irregularity.

So by my reading of this, the passengers who were stuck on the taxiways at JFK for hours last month would have been eligible to receive… NOTHING. (corrected below) The weather started the problems, after all. Subsequent human decisions to keep the aircraft waiting and waiting would not have been necessary, had the weather been fine, so we can trace the “original irregularity” back to the weather.

So I’m back to being underwhelmed. Expect the media to celebrate this new jetBlue contract as a glorious event in the history of corporate apologia. But in reality, your rights haven’t improved much.

(Update/Correction: Re-reading the contract, I stand corrected. I read the first part without reading the second part carefully enough. I see that the controllable/uncontrollable distinction is overruled by the time spent on the taxiway, so yes, the February stranded passengers would have gotten vouchers for their trouble. The controlled/uncontrolled distinction really comes into play when passengers are delayed but the plane hasn’t left the gate. Once the decision to leave the gate is taken, then the “ground delay” rules kick in. Sorry for the mixup. Mea culpa. As Cranky says below, I’ve now gone from underwhelmed, to just plain “whelmed.”)

Reader Tanya writes:

I know you’re all about the upgrade, but what about the rental car upgrade? I was offered a free upgrade to an SUV last week. I had reserved an economy or a compact, like I do every other week, and I was happy to drive my fuel-efficient Hyundai Accent or whatever. They wanted to upgrade me to a Ford Explorer. I didn’t want one. I don’t like SUVs, for environmental reasons, as well as the additional cost of gas. (I own my own business, so I care about the bill.) So what’s your take on car upgrades?

I’m with you, Tanya. Like you, I care about the environment — and my wallet — and would rather burn less fuel. Car rentals are the one type of free upgrade that actually end up costing you more, since the upgraded vehicle is typically a gas guzzler.

I’m admittedly pretty spartan with my rental car needs. I like a nice bed and a cushy seat on the plane, but I’m less demanding with my vehicles. Reasonably comfortable (no Kia Rio!), fuel efficient, reliable, and clean? Consider it rented.

Others may have different demands. They may need to transport clients, or a large number of family members, so greater comfort may be an issue. But in that case, they should be reserving an appropriate vehicle in the first place.

Still others might want to satisfy their aspirational fantasies at the rental car counter, so an upgrade might be welcome if they can get a car they’d never buy (or afford.) I can see this argument, especially if the car being offered is genuinely exotic.

There might be other sensible upgrades, for special circumstances, like getting bumped up to a convertible when you’re on vacation in Hawaii. (That’s an upgrade I’ve accepted.)

Remember that upgrades aren’t always a recognition of you as a valued customer. They’re often for the convenience of the agency. I’ve experienced this scenario several times, and in fact, I’ve declined an upgrade more than once.

In those instances, the upgrade is a function of vehicle supply. They upgrade you because they’ve run out of the vehicle category you actually reserved. First they try to upsell you to the higher category, but if you refuse they give you the car anyway. It goes like this:

Them: “Would you like to upgrade to an SUV for only $13.95 extra per day?”
Me: “No thank you, the compact will be fine.”
Them: “It’ll be a much more comfortable ride! Lots more space!”
Me: “No thank you, I prefer the compact.”
Them: “Ok, here are your keys… sign here, etc. etc.”
Me: (looking at the keys or the contract details) “Hey, this is an SUV!”
Them: “Yes, I upgraded you for free.”
Me: “I just told you I didn’t want the SUV. I didn’t want it for $13.95, and I don’t want it free. Thanks, but no thanks. May I please have the compact?”
Them: “Sorry, sir, we’re out of compacts.”

Lucky me…

Love the car upgrade? Hate it? Wish you’d get one? Sound off in comments!

A reminder: Reader mail is always welcome. Just use the “contact” form at the top right of the blog to send a secure e-mail. Don’t forget to indicate how you’d like to be referred to, and if you have a blog or website of your own to which you’d like a linkback.

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The ink had hardly dried on their announcement last month that they would be charging $10 for a second checked bag. Now, Spirit Airlines has rolled out a range of changes, converting the airline into a European-style discount carrier, similar to Ryanair or Easyjet.

The key changes, effective June 20, 2007:

• $5 flat fee for EACH checked bag, up to 50 lbs., if arranged in advance online
• $10 flat fee per checked bag, up to 50 lbs., if you wait until the airport to pay the fee
• All beverages such as coffee, juice, and soda will cost $1 (water is free)
• First class is downgraded to premium economy. It’s renamed “the Big Front Seat.” No more free booze.

Why am I reminded of Andy Borowitz’s “Airlines to Offer Fuel-for-Purchase Option” satire?

Obviously, it’s all meant to reduce costs. But the positive spin that the airline is trying to give these “reforms” doesn’t always add up. In this account, the Spirit chief marketing officer Barry Biffle said that “by having a one-class plane, we can provide better service to all our passengers, not just those sitting in the front.” That makes no damn sense. Just because there’s no first class anymore doesn’t mean that the service in the back will improve! Ahh, marketers.

Adding a fee for all checked luggage is certain to be unpopular. And as Chris Elliott recently suggested, other airlines might be loath to charge for luggage, because it could confer greater liability on them for lost or stolen goods. I’m not sure this is right, since the contract of carriage could nix that, but people coughing up a fee could well be under the heightened impression that the airline owes you more reliable luggage handling.

To “prove” that these provisions lower fares, Spirit is running a fare sale right now. Obviously, it’s too early to know if the changes have any long-term effect on fares.

If fares actually DO go down more than, say, $20 or $30, to cover the cost of checked luggage each way, a few cups of juice, and the value you assign to your own time for making calculations like this one, then this might be okay for consumers.

But it’s still not consumer-friendly in the grand scheme of things: The online travel agencies aren’t yet equipped to show you a real total price, including the add-ons like luggage fees. This means that Spirit will, for the moment, appear cheaper than other airlines on the booking sites, whether the actual final price for you and your needs, once luggage, drinks, etc., are factored in, is cheaper or not.

Comparison shopping just got harder.

Hat tip to to the folks at FlightWisdom!
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I’ve really tried to avoid writing about the passengers’ bill of rights for a few days now. Really, I have.

But as much as I wanted to avoid The Story That Won’t Go Away for a few days, I realize I promised you a post which included some of your answers to my poll (now closed) regarding a bill of rights and its odds of becoming law.

As you may recall from an earlier post, a whopping 69% of you expressed the belief that, yes, a PBOR would become law. If the same poll were taken today, we might see an even bigger number.

Why? Just last week, United joined the club of airlines leaving passengers stuck on board a plane for hours. Seven hours, to be precise. Nice work. And great timing.

PBOR naysayers argue that this doesn’t happen that often, and that this is a case of over-reporting, not a major trend in the air travel experience. So let’s see the numbers! Well, okay, here you go.

An AP report provides some statistics:

To be precise, statistics show that passengers sat for two to five hours on 7,369 flights parked on taxiways before taking off in 2006 — not as rare an occurrence as some airline advocates argue, but still only a tiny fraction of the year’s total 7,141,922 flights. Another 36 airliners were stuck on taxiways for more than five hours after leaving the gate last year, according the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Two more were parked for more than five hours after landing.

Fair enough, 38 total flights stuck for five or more hours is a tiny percentage. 0.0005%, give or take a few decimal points. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something about it.

Imagine a city mayor saying that there were “only 38 murders” in a city that year, so he was going to let the police force go. (No, I’m not saying that being stuck in a plane for hours is equivalent to murder. I’m just saying that a low rate of incidence doesn’t excuse inaction.) And besides, 7,369 flights were stuck on taxiways between 2 and 5 hours. That’s still a small percentage (0.10% of flights) but let’s put that in human terms:

Even if all those delayed planes only carried 50 people each, that comes to more than 350,000 people whose lives were put on hold for hours and hours. That’s big.

(As an aside, I’d love to see the numbers broken down by hour. 2 hour delays and 5 hour delays aren’t comparable, in my view. Anyway…)

So what’s happening? Bills have been introduced in Congress, and will be entering committee for debate. Now, separately, the Department of Transportation is getting in on the game, investigating airline policies, to see what went wrong and how it could be prevented in the future. We’ll see where it leads.

So what did you folks say when asked if a PBOR would pass? Roll the tape.

Yes. Democrats are in power, and the public is sufficiently pissed off. But the devil is in the details. I bet we see a bill that addresses delays, but doesn’t require cash payments.

Yes. The real question is, will any of the various bills of rights floating around actually fix the problem?

No. People have short memories and shallow pockets - won’t want to pay more, and the airlines will tell them that the bill would increase prices.

Yes. If this ever happens to me, I will pop the door and pull the emergency chute and let them arrest me. I’m sure the rest of my fellow passengers would put up bail money.

No. At the last minute, Homeland Security will come out and call this a security risk, and then it will die. Of course that will not be the truth, but welcome to America!

Thanks for these and the many other comments. I think you’re raising the right questions, and you’re appropriately cynical. The unbridled cynicism of the last comment makes me chuckle, but only because it sounds so plausible. Sadly, I think that might be right.

Great moments in border crossings: Switzerland accidentally invades Liechtenstein
Neutral? Not anymore! 170 Swiss soldiers wandered one mile into Liechtenstein territory when they got lost during military exercises. Getting lost isn’t limited to tourists anymore. Maybe they should have invested in the deluxe Swiss Army Knife with the compass.

Putting the “condom” back into “condominium”?
Hotels and restaurants in the Chinese province of Zhejiang are now required to make condoms available for sale (or for free) or face hefty fines. Sounds like they need to follow the lead of hotels that spice up their minibars with alternative offerings…

Converting public spaces to still-life photos: TouristRemover
There are times when you want to take a photo without the presence of human beings, and the TouristRemover application seems like a handy tool. But don’t overdo it! If you do this to all of your travel photos, you’ll be left with boring, sterile images that look like you’ve been touring the site of a neutron bomb explosion.

Coyote cleared for takeoff, runway 27 left
Two planes trying to land at Chicago O’Hare Airport had to abort because of coyotes on the runways. (Coyotes are perhaps one of the ten plagues that will strike airports. Are locusts next?) In fact, the FAA’s statistics show that, from 1990 to 2005, airplanes in the United States struck a total of 66,392 animals, mostly birds. More “exotic” species include 652 white-tailed deer, 198 coyotes, 14 alligators, 11 cats, and 3 moose.

Will travel for Guinness
Guinness is test-marketing a new beer: Guinness Red. If you’re in the UK, you’ll be able to try it locally. If you’re elsewhere, you’ll need to travel a bit if you want a taste. The list of pubs that will feature the new brew can be found here. (The site requires you to state an age and residency. If you’re not in the UK, lie. If you don’t say you live in the UK, you can’t read their site.) Reports from the field are welcomed here. Please let it be better than “New Coke.”

Behind that luggage scanner stands a human being doing
Gary Leff points to a great, in-depth piece in CondeNast Traveler, in which one of their writers, Barbara S. Peterson, applied for (and got) a job at the TSA. For two months, she worked at the agency, and her (LONG) report, is a great read.

After months of impasse, the European Union and the United States have announced a tentative agreement on their proposed so-called open-skies treaty. Details are not yet fully released, but some key points are leaked:

The agreement, announced by the Transportation Department, would allow European airlines to fly from anywhere in the EU to any point in the U.S., and vice versa. For example, it would end restrictions on the number of airlines allowed to fly between the U.S. and London’s Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest. Only four carriers — United Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic — now serve that market.

Putting aside the scheduling nightmare of adding more flights to Heathrow, this sounds like a good step for consumers. More competition, more point-to-point flights, and quite likely lower prices. Sounds good, right? But that’s not where the story ends.

In the past, an open skies deal was stymied by parallel negotiations over airline ownership.:

Another key aspect of the deal, described by a U.S. government official who spoke on condition of anonymity, would enable European companies to own as much as 49.9% — and in some circumstances, more than 50% — of U.S. airlines, up from the current 25% limit. Yet another provision could help Richard Branson’s Virgin Group Ltd. gain regulatory approval needed to launch a U.S. subsidiary, Virgin America Inc.

Virgin America must be fuming at that phrasing — “U.S. subsidiary” — considering their arguments that they’re as American as curly fries and NASCAR. But if it keeps them in business, they may wince, but accept it.

More importantly, this is a significant shift in U.S. policy, if it’s passed. (Congress would still need to ratify such a treaty, and that’s not guaranteed.)

Changed ownership rules are a double-edged sword. In principle, I’ve argued repeatedly that specific bans against foreign ownership are misguided patriotism, and that arbitrary rules like that keep valuable foreign capital out of American aviation.

On the other hand, the proposed open-skies treaty apparently makes it possible for trans-Atlantic mega-mergers, and outright mergers are rarely pro-consumer, since they tend reduce services and raise prices.

But trans-Atlantic mergers might be different: Yes, there might be service reductions and price hikes on the international routes, but the domestic markets on either side wouldn’t be affected much.

Besides, mergers need to be reviewed by federal regulators, regardless of whether they’re between domestic players or between a foreign company and a domestic one. So there’s — at least theoretically — an escape hatch if a merger looks likely to hurt consumers.

So, while the devil is in the details, I’m hoping that this treaty works out. Am I missing something? Hit the comments.

Related:
- Will foreign ownership of airlines mean lower prices?
- More on open skies
- Are open skies dirty skies?
- US-EU open skies treaty dead in the water, so to speak

You’re sitting in coach and have to use the toilet. The line in the back of the plane is huge. So you walk to the front of the plane, perhaps pushing aside the wispy curtain separating first class from the cattle car. But you’re denied: You’re told to return to your own cabin to wait in line at the back of the jet.

Not anymore! Your lavatory is liberated!

At least on American Airlines. Starting today, coach passengers will be allowed to use first class toilets.

The ban on coach passengers using the first class toilets was imposed after 9/11 as a “security measure.” Presumably, passengers congregating at the front of the plane, waiting to pee, was a threat to the pilots. It was dangerous then, but somehow isn’t a threat anymore.

I’ve honestly got mixed feelings about this. The security argument always struck me as suspect, especially after the cockpit doors were reinforced. And I’m glad to see one fewer policy in this society that’s justified by the bugbear of security.

But, as long as the economy toilets aren’t overflowing, I don’t necessarily have a problem with separate bathrooms for first class. You paid for premium seats (or upgraded with your hard-won miles or certificates), so why not get a premium toilet?

So which is preferable? Democratized communal water closets, or a premium pissoir for a premium passenger? Sound off!