Recorded in the beautiful home office of Chateau' Relaxo.
First a few travel updates -
I spent a few nights in Spartanburg, SC, a first for me. In 20 years of travel, I’ve either made Greenville or Columbia base camp for a stay but this project required me to stay in Spartanburg.
The Hampton Inn was still requiring all employees to wear masks, the plexiglass riot shield at the check-in desk was missing and as what is quickly becoming the norm…. there was no daily housekeeping without requesting it.
One new COVID precaution was that they asked all patrons to wear gloves at breakfast, which were provided when selecting their breakfast items.
In episode Episode 137 Things You Forgot Since You Last Traveled I covered things that we forgot since we last traveled. Things like remembering your travel website password, how to hack the hotel room’s thermostat, and how to avoid cancelations fees in case you want to cancel a reservation. Almost 20 episodes later, and I forgot one of the things I talked about…. Credit card expiration dates.
I have two flights in early November, stay tuned for the details of the anti-maskers vs. vaxxers combined with Florida. As I click “purchase” on the first ticket I get an error, so I do like most people and click “purchase” again…. And then I decide to read the error detail which contained a combination of numbers and letters but intertwined with all this was a vague reference to my Southwest Chase Credit Card…. Thank you IT dude locked in a dark room.
And yes the credit card associated with my Southwest profile was completely different from the Southwest Chase credit card in my wallet. Five minutes later I was able to click “purchase” complete the purchase and book my next ticker.
Continuing with the “Things You Forgot Since You Last Traveled” theme this last trip I forgot dress pants, I had dress shirts, dress shoes, and a dress belt but no dress pants….. I’d have gone for a pair of business casual pants…. Nope, just jeans, and shorts.
On the first leg of this trip, Walmart was my best and only choice as a clothier. I left with their best pair of something that could pass as business casual pants that would also match my brown oxford dress shoes…… out the door for less than $12.00
The next stop was the Hilton Garden Inn Brunswick, GA. This is a relatively new property and shares the same lobby as the neighboring Home2 Suites. This seems to be Hiltons plan with new properties. Instead of two separate Hilton properties across the parking lot from each other think hotel Siamese Twins. A shared lobby, shared pool, shared fitness center, and one less exterior wall, this has to be a huge cost saving…. Well done Hilton.
This property still had masked employees and the plexiglass riot shields but offered the amazing Hilton Garden Inn made-to-order breakfast which I could use my $10.00 Hilton property credit for. Safe to say that Thursday mornings Buccee’s Brisket Taco was delicious and much less expensive….. Not so well done on that $10.00 property credit Hilton.
Onto tonight’s topic the October crazy travel roundup.
When it comes to travel one of the first inquiries or questions I hear from baby road warriors revolves around luggage, and it makes sense. When it comes to luggage there are two types… and it’s not hard-shell or soft-sided. The two types of luggage are…. carry on and lost, and the lost part is the launching pad for our first story - “Two Charged in Airline Baggage Scam Involving Over $550,000 in False Claims“
PERNELL ANTHONY JONES, JR., and DONMONICK MARTIN, both of Louisiana were involved in this scam.
According to court documents, this began in 2015 and lasted for five years.
JONES and his co-conspirators submitted over 180 claims to commercial airlines, including American, Alaska, Southwest, United, and JetBlue, requesting over $550,000 in reimbursement for luggage that JONES falsely alleged had been lost. In total, the airlines paid over $300,000 in fraudulent claims. They that JONES would take flights with commercial airlines under false or fictitious identities using fraudulent identification cards. When he arrived at the destination airport, JONES would falsely claim that his baggage had been lost and would request reimbursement to compensate him for his lost luggage.
In the end, Jones and Martin received over $300,000 of the $550,000 that they submitted claims for.
While this scam had several failure points, one of which is the whole false identity angle, but the biggest failure point was that they got greedy, had they stopped at $100.000 or even $150,000 they might have gotten away with it. Here’s a quick business lesson, pigs get fat hogs get slaughtered…. Don’t be a hog.
Here is our first Florida story posted at View From The Wing- Passenger With Bottle Of Wine On Tray Table Drinks It On Short Miami Flight.
Let’s set the stage, an American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Miami, thank you Florida. American Airlines only serves alcohol in first-class, I guess that they’re afraid of a coach cabin revolt, who knows?
On this flight, there was a first-class passenger one passenger was spotted with a full bottle of wine on their tray table.
Where did the bottle come from? You’re not getting a full bottle of win through TSA security…. Remember 3-1-1. This wasn’t an international flight so it wasn’t purchased at the duty-free shop. So this passenger didn’t bring the bottle themselves.
View From The Wing added They’re seated in the aisle and making no attempt to hide it. Instead, the flight attendant poured this passenger a glass of wine, according to our sources, and then gave the man a whole bottle.
For the life of me I can’t figure this one out, so you’ll need to visit View From The Wing to see the picture from R. Tedrow,
You’ll see the passenger, a cup filled with wine, another cup filled with water, a ziplock filled with snacks, an iPad showing God knows what, and then you’ll see the bottle of wine……it’s a bottle of white wine and it’s sealed, completely full and never been opened… there is more to this than what was posted… however welcome to Miami.
Do you gamble? How about playing the lottery? If so, would you take a bet that had 1 in 336 odds? For me probably not but for Alexander Svanevik not a bad deal. Alex unbeknownst to him took those odds and won. What did Alex win?
This came from Twitter. - Alex was the only passenger on an Abu Dhabi to Singapore Etihad flight. The Boeing 787-9 is configured for 336 passengers, and Alex was it. Instead of an airplane sofa, Alex won an airplane house, at least for this trip.
Alex posted what might be one of the greatest tweets ever -
I'm alone on my flight to Singapore.
The pilot makes all announcements starting with "Mr. Alexander".
The best I ever did was the suicide flight from Atlanta to Orlando 20 years ago… it was me and 7 of my closest friends on a Delta wide body, and no one greeted us by name.
If you’ve spent any time listening to the p[odcast you know we have two dogs here at Chateau’ Relaxo. Jessie the yellow lab. Or as I normally say the “Meth Lab” and Skye the most practical Florida dog a Siberian Husky. These dogs don’t travel except for the occasional trip to the vet, but we don’t take them on vacation with us….. The reason is that they’re 50 and 60 lbs of fur and energy. These are in no way support animals, in fact, we are their support humans. In some way, I envy people that have pets they can travel with….. That is until those pets need to use the restroom…. Then I’m not so envious.
This sets the stage for our next story. Earlier this month a couple flying from Lubbock, Texas to Las Vegas, Nevada got a bit of a surprise. When they went to check their bags the scale showed 6lbs over the allowed weight, and as most people do they promptly opened the suitcase to see what could be offloaded to another bag, and that’s when they found Icky, their 6lb Chihuahua napping inside a packed cowboy boot.
Yep, it seems that the husband is a last-minute packer and that Icky is a burrower which apparently is the combination required to send a piece of luggage over the allowed weight limit.
Thankfully one of the Southwest gate agents agreed to dog sit till the couple returned.
Side note this would never have happened with a lab or husky.
In the past, we’ve discussed weird items you can bring on a plane.
For example:
* A bowling ball
* A live lobster
* Fresh eggs
* A cheese grater
* And a megaphone
Note that last one, a megaphone, why not maybe you’re heading to a college football game, maybe you’re heading to Orlando for a cheerleading contest or maybe you want to use it for lecturing passengers about Covid and your beauty.
Well, that’s what happened -
"I brought my microphone. I'm going to use it," the woman says while standing in the aisle when the flight attendant asked her to get back to her seat.
The woman then walks down the aisle as she lectures: "The reason the pandemic started is that nobody here has any more faith because you're all stuck to your stupid devices and you don't even know what reality is anymore."
When the staff eventually pulls her away from the aisle and guides her back to the seat, she yells: "My dog has better sense than any of you."
First, I wish that all planes had some sort of a hatch in the middle of the aisle where lunatics could be ushered to so that they can spend the remainder of the flight.
Second, no one wants to be stuck in an aluminum tube listening to or exposed to lunatics.
Third, pick your controversial platform, COVID, religion, politics, or LGBT none of you lunatics are going to change anyone’s mind.
It’s similar to telling someone that’s freaking out to “calm down”, have you ever once seen that work? Ahhhh, no.
Florida rings in again this month, with one of my favorite themes…. the emergency exit.
We’ve had people use the emergency slide as their resignation letter. We’ve had people use the emergency exit as a means of demonstration. We've had passengers bolt looking to flee carry-on contraband.
Here are the cliff notes.
During deplaning in Miami, a customer on American Airlines flight 920 with service from Cali, Colombia (CLO) to MIA exited the aircraft via an emergency exit. The customer was immediately detained by law enforcement.
The passenger was immediately captured by Customs and Border Protection agents. So this begs to ask why? The “View From The Wing” offered no additional detail, but my thought, it’s Florida and he was stuck on American “The New Spirit” Airlines and he wanted off.
Here’s a sign that things might be returning to normal…. Just a bit.
Live and Let Fly - NAKED WOMAN ROAMS DENVER AIRPORT, MAKING SMALL TALK WITH PASSENGERS
From the post - Carrying a drink in one hand, nothing in the other, and nothing on her body, a naked woman paraded through Denver Airport striking up conversations with passengers before finally being stopped by police.
Best comment to the post - Colorado Woman to Florida Man: Hold my beer.
After a bit of digging it seems this woman might have been having a bit of a medical issue, especially since this didn’t take place in Florida.
This month’s business development question hits close to home. How do you fix the rental car shortage problem?
In the past, we’ve talked about this shortage - Tourists in Hawaii were renting U-Hauls due to the shortage and the fact that a single day rental can be over $500.00. Rental car companies are discouraging one-way rentals, why? They don’t want to lose that car from their rental inventory.
In fact, there’s a vehicle shortage everywhere. For instance, if you want to purchase a new Tesla 3 the lead-time for one is 18 months and the price is steadily increasing and this just might be the reason.
Hertz, the rental car company, Hertz, just announced that they will be purchasing not 1,000, not 10,000 but 100,000 Telsa’s…. That’s about 20% of Hertz’s fleet. 100,000 cars no wonder there’s an 18-month wait.
So while Hertz seems to have solved the rental car shortage, or at least the shortage for Hertz, this may have caused a couple of other challenges.
First, how are you going to charge them? Most Hilton properties have one or two EV charging stations, but that’s not enough to support these new rentals in addition to the current private sector fleet.
That being said on my recent stay in Brunswick GA across the street from the hotel was a Tesla Supercharging location with 24 Superchargers. Apparently, there is over 25,000 superchargers, who knew.
The second, and possibly bigger challenge is end-user adoption. An electric car is very different than a traditional gasoline-powered car. It starts differently, it handles differently and it sounds differently. Now after a few minutes or miles, most drivers will be able to adapt.
Personally, I’m all for the Hertz/Tesla initiative., As for my next rental, I’ll gladly walk past my typical Toyota Corolla of Ford Fusion and head straight for the Tesla.
We’re nearing the end of the episode and what’s missing? It’s the anti-maskers vs. the vaxxers. The reason, too many stories.
* There was the United flight where the drunk anti-masker decided to curse out a flight attendant.
* Frontier Airlines also had an anti-masker curse out a flight attendant.
* Another United flight gave us this, a man who refused to wear a mask on the plane begins yelling "I will break your neck" at two of the flight attendants.
Pretty much status quo.
However one observation, in two of the videos, because now there’s always a video, both gentlemen were wearing baseball caps, backward…… proof that wearing a baseball cap backward lowers your IQ by 10 points.
And here is something that for the life of me I just can’t grasp. When you purchase an airline ticket you agree to wear a seatbelt, it’s a federally mandated law, yet no one b*****s, cusses, or gets in fights when told to buckle up.
The same is true for masks, when you buy a ticket you agree to the federal mandate requiring you to wear a mask. For all that is holy, why are people losing their minds over this?
I’m not crazy about wearing seatbelts on a plane, I’m not crazy about wearing a mask on a plane either, but it’s the law. I guess my other choice is to walk or rent one of those new Hertz Teslas.
That does it, the October crazy travel roundup is over.…. If you want detailed show notes, links and pictures head over to podpage.com/travel-stories/
Leave a message on Anchor, or shoot me an email at TravelFrick@gmail.com.
As I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening.
