TalkMail 5.11.2021

TalkMail 05.15.21 — Carjacked at Knifepoint; Lack of Disclosure of Service Changes; Too Young to Check In Alone; and Much More Trouble viewing? [Click Here]( [flyertalk] TALKMAIL May 15, 2021 [msg] News & Views This section contains the latest news and views pertaining to FlyerTalk and its members. Watch For Possible Shortages of Jet Fuel and Gasoline Due to Cybersecurity Attack on Pipeline Operations The Colonial Pipeline Company recently announced that it was the victim of a cybersecurity attack, which led to the shut down of the operation of its main pipeline — and a possible decrease in the supply of refined fuel may affect at least seven international airports and gasoline stations in 14 states. FlyerTalk members talk about the possible ramifications on what could be a shortage in fuel supplies — and how they may affect travel — in this discussion. [[->]View Thread]( Reminder: Coronavirus and travel Forum on FlyerTalk To keep yourself updated with the latest news and information pertaining to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic — which originated in Wuhan in China prior to spreading to most other countries and territories around the world with a minimum of 158,512,976 confirmed cases and contributed to the deaths of at least 3,296,536 people — please refer to the Coronavirus and travel forum, where you will find plenty of discussions pertaining to this topic. [[->]View Thread]( [msg] Hot Threads “Hot Threads” are not necessarily those with the most content — rather, they are the ones that seem to generate the most interest. They stand out for their timeliness, originality, humor, quality of the information and/or ideas they contain and the concerns they raise. They are listed in no particular order. “This Is a Carjacking. I’ve Got a Knife. DRIVE!” When DustinT returned to his rental car after lunch and sat in the driver’s seat, a man emerged from the passenger seat in the rear with a knife in his hand and said “I’ve got a knife. Drive.” After looking at him, he repeated “This is a carjacking. I’ve got a knife. DRIVE!” What happened next was — well…you need to read the whole story to find out how it ended; and a link to an actual news article which corroborates the story is included. [[->]View Thread]( Should You Earn Points Even If You Do Not Personally Stay in the Hotel Room? After paying almost $1,500.00 for two stays for family members, somthee received points for only one of those stays, which is actually in violation of the terms and conditions of the frequent guest loyalty program in question — but regardless of whether the person who pays for lodging personally stays in the room, should he or she receive the points for the stay? Why is that considered cheating the system? FlyerTalk members debate this issue. [[->]View Thread]( Why is Checking In to a Hotel Alone So Difficult When Younger Than 21 Years Old? Other than hostels, hotel and resort properties generally do not easily allow guests who are younger than 21 years of age to check in alone, as the niece of Redhead found out — and in some cases, guests who are as old as 25 years of age may experience similar issues. What are the reasons why this policy is enforced; are any of those reasons valid; and does a work around exist for it? [[->]View Thread]( Annoying Lack of Disclosure of Service Changes at Hotel Properties Daily housekeeping is considered by adambadam to be a standard hotel service — but upon arriving and checking into a hotel property during a recent stay, rooms were only being serviced every five nights; and no option to opt into something more frequent was available, which is not very useful on a weekend stay. Why do hotel and resort properties not simply disclose of changes in service, which would be useful to guests — especially during a pandemic? [[->]View Thread]( Reasons For the Shortage of Employees in Dining Establishments Restaurants have either subject their customers to long wait times, cut operating hours, or closed permanently altogether due to a shortage of servers, waiters, and other employees as a result of the pandemic; so if you plan on dining out while traveling, exercise some patience — and FlyerTalk members discuss the reasons why hiring employees has been so difficult for dining establishments. Be forewarned that at least one of those reasons is potentially political but definitely topical… [[->]View Thread]( Mask Up — Or Else… During a transcontinental flight, the lead flight attendant used the public address system aboard the airplane to announce that members of the flight crew observed several passengers who were not following protocols and keeping masks on their faces except to eat or drink. Members of the flight crew then walked down the aisles with a poster which was covered in plastic reminding all passengers to “mask up.” Interestingly, that was not the most controversial part of the discussion, as the comment by readywhenyouare of not wanting to be treated like being in day care became the topic of conversation… [[->]View Thread]( Since When Did the Boarding Process Become So LOUD?!? Members of the flight crew shouting greetings; several babies laughing in excitement; passengers yelling and gabbing; blaring announcements from the pilots; and the cacophony of other noises which continued nonstop for 20 minutes during the process of boarding an airplane was “easily the loudest environment I have been in since the shutdown — it felt like a nightclub or loud restaurant” at 4:00 in the afternoon, according to fastflyer. The responses from fellow FlyerTalk members suggest that fastflyer is not merely imaging things — and platbrownguy even performed a sound test to check how many decibels the loud announcements aboard the airplane for his flight registered… [[->]View Thread]( [msg] Notable Quotes Select humorous, insightful, particularly informative or interesting content is posted here while providing whatever context necessary. Traveling Again After Being Fully Vaccinated — Or Never Stopping in the First Place? When gretchendz asked if anyone is flying again after being fully vaccinated, travelmad478 responded: “I never stopped, really. Flew MSY-PHL in early June 2020 to go and retrieve Mr. tm478’s car (it had been languishing in Philadelphia since he moved to New Orleans in early March). Flew MSY-DEN-DIK in late June for a national park vacation in North Dakota. Flew again to PHL in September for visits to friends and family. Flew MSY-DEN for a national park vacation in Colorado in October. Flew again to PHL last month for visits to friends and family. “We are far from COVID deniers and in fact, both participated in the Pfizer vaccine trial (thus we’ve both been vaccinated since August 2020, although we didn’t know that until late January of this year). But we also wanted to live our lives, while mitigating risk as fully as possible with strict mask-wearing, hand-washing, etc. Our vacations were spent in Airbnbs, cooking our own food, and with hiking as the only activity.” [[->]View Thread]( [msg] FlyerTalk Bio In each edition of the TalkMail newsletter, we select a biography posted in a thread called “Who We All Are” and highlight it here for all to see. Get to know your fellow FlyerTalk members! This issue’s bio: aWASFlyer, from December 25, 2019: “Who: Software Developer and (hopefully) Budding Real Estate Entrepreneur “When: I had Southwest Companion Pass and then Matched to United Silver. “How: Traveled Weekly on the IAD-BTV/PBG route for SO and then occasional work travel in SAN/JAX/ALB. Work tickets were always expensive so I’ve got >6k PQD but only 30k PQM. The new changes should affect me pretty positively. “Where: BTV,BOS,PBG,SAN,SFO,SEA,IAD,BWI,DCA,EWR,MCO,ORD,DT W,BGR,YUL “Why: I do voucher running pretty consistently so being the first one called up is important to me. Status helps with that. Economy plus seats are helpful and the reduced mileage awards I used consistently. Otherwise, silver status is pretty useless...LOL. “What: I’ll probably stick around because of there aggressive bumping policy. I still fly the most cost effective airline whenever possible. IAD airport also has much better lounges than DCA/BWI. DCA has a better location though. Certainly looking forward to the continued rollout of polaris class.” [[->]View Thread]( [msg] TalkMail Tips In this section, you will find helpful tips that have been offered by other FlyerTalk members on subjects that range from travel to hygiene and, thankfully, everything in between. Travel Insurance and Cruise Cancellation: Hedging a Bet What are the penalties — if any — if one decides to get travel insurance long after the final payment was submitted for a cruise? As an incentive to book the reservation, the cruise line gave passengers a guarantee of 100 percent credit — less the administration fee of $200.00 — if ranles backs out early up to 15 days before sailing. Can ranles wait until 15 days before sailing to buy the insurance in order to have a better idea as to whether or not the ship will sail? If so, does doing that change the coverage in any way? [[->]View Thread]( Recommendations For a Luxury Safari in South Africa Requested Overwhelmed by all of the information and reviews pertaining to so many luxury safari lodges and tour companies, Travis123 is asking for your recommendations — and he is willing to pay top dollar for about a week of doing game drives and spotting the Big 5 among other incredible wildlife. Can you help by offering your suggestions? [[->]View Thread]( [msg] Expert Hotel Reviews Expert advice is offered by fellow FlyerTalk members on where to stay around the world — and where not to stay. Grand Hyatt Bali No fewer than three FlyerTalk members highly recommend the Grand Hyatt Bali — including exploreaswego, who stayed at this resort property in Indonesia during the pandemic. Find out all of the reasons as to why they all enjoyed their idyllic stays — and be prepared to spend some time reviewing all of the dozens of photographs which all three of them provided. [[->]View Thread]( Hotel Indigo Bangkok Wireless Road There is a lot to like about the Hotel Indigo Bangkok Wireless Road: it is in a good location; the rooms look very nice; it is clearly a refreshing change from a generic Marriott or Hilton; the Wi-Fi worked well; and the rooms are equipped with good quality hardware — so what are the reasons why escape4 does not recommend staying at this hotel property if you find yourself in Thailand? Plenty of photographs accompany this expert hotel review. [[->]View Thread]( [msg] Trip Reports Follow fellow FlyerTalk members vicariously on their journeys around the world and learn from their experiences through the trip reports they have written and posted. Best Trip to Europe Ever? Let us transport ourselves back a few years, when Wiggums proclaimed to have the best trip to Europe ever for three weeks at a total cost of $3,145.00 — which included luxury cars and staying in comfortable hotels while carrying one lone bag — and highlights include castles and palaces, comparing a 1938 Volkswagen Beetle to a 2003 model, museums, food, driving a rental vehicle 260 kilometers per hour on the Autobahn, and flying as a passenger in the first class cabin from Germany to the United States. How was all of this done? See all of the meticulous planning which was involved to ensure that everything went according to plan in at least 21 cities in a minimum of nine countries. [[->]View Thread]( First British Airways Experience — In First Class Fast forward to September of 2019, when mhy experienced traveling as a passenger seated in the World Traveller Plus cabin of a Boeing 747-400 airplane which was operated by British Airways between New York and London on a one-day trip. As a bonus, mhy also experienced a tour of Concorde at Brooklands Museum — which seems appropriate before visiting the Concorde Room lounge at Heathrow Airport prior to the flight to New York. This trip report is well documented with a plethora of photographs. [[->]View Thread]( [msg] Community Page Normally, you can usually travel around the world and meet your fellow FlyerTalk members in person, as there is almost always something going on somewhere on this planet related to FlyerTalk — but due to the cancellations and postponements of such events, this section of the TalkMail newsletter is currently inactive and will remain so until further notice. List of Gatherings of FlyerTalk Members For a comprehensive list of FlyerTalk member gatherings scheduled to have five or more attendees — many of which have been posted to FlyerTalk well in advance so that you have plenty of time to plan and therefore have no excuse not to attend — please refer to the following thread, tirelessly compiled by the moderators of the CommunityBuzz forum. [[->]View Thread]( [msg] TalkMail Recommendations You might wonder — and perhaps even scratch your head — as to how content is provided for the TalkMail newsletter. Part of it is from recommendations by FlyerTalk members such as you. You Can Recommend Discussions on FlyerTalk for the TalkMail Newsletter If you believe that a discussion posted on FlyerTalk should be included in a future issue of the TalkMail newsletter, it is really easy to recommend for that to happen: simply go to the Thread Tools menu option at the top of each discussion; and amongst the choices in the pop-up menu is one called Suggest Thread for TalkMail. Choose that and complete the short form prior to clicking on the Send button. It is that easy; and it will only take a minute or so of your time. Thank you in advance for your valuable input. [[->]Suggest Thread for TalkMail]( Your Feedback is Important Let us know what you think of our TalkMail Newsletter [Give Feedback](mailto: FlyerTalk@travel.ibemail.com) [facebook]( [twitter]( [instagram]( [rss]( [FlyerTalk.com]( is located at 909 North Sepulveda Blvd., 11th Floor El Segundo, CA 90245 This email was sent to {EMAIL}. To unsubscribe, please [click here](. 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