Good morning, and welcome to today's community discussion thread! Today's posts will appear here throughout the day, but this thread is for going off-topic. Did you love/hate something about today's coverage? Are you tracking other news I missed? Or, do you just have a general question about rewards travel? This is the place for your wandering thoughts.
Daily threads stay open for a week, so it's never too late to jump into a recent conversation.
Interesting piece from the WaPo today.
One-star reviews of airports: ‘Feels like psychological torture’
Travelers vent about confusing layouts, surly staff, paltry dining choices and rodents.
Today at 5:00 a.m. EDT
@travelinwilly Great piece, Willy—thanks for sharing! (It worked with my dedicated omaat email. LOL.) Reading through these horror stories makes me flash back to the old, soul-crushing days at the original Velana International Airport... *18-wheeler jacknife screeching* (hard pivot to shilling for my recent Community reviews). That’s why the new MLE terminal arrivals and the departures side with the Koveli Lounge deserve a solid 5 stars by comparison. Bah!
@travelinwilly That's an interesting article. Personally, I have more issue with the airline employees at these places (hello AA/BA flagship check-in 😕 ) than the facilities themselves. Truthfully, I have greatly enjoyed my travels through DFW, CLT, LAX, JFK, ORD, and LHR. But that's just me.
@1990_ Review coming soon! Nothing too bad, just bluntly said "give us a few minutes, we're not open yet" when I tried to get to the check-in. Still, it shouldn't be too much to ask that they should have it open for reasonable hours. This was at around 4:15 AM in preparation for the 6:00 A321XLR out to LAX ☕. So, I had to wait through the regular priority area to drop off the bag. It wasn't a huge ordeal, but it was definitely blunt, which, as an American, I'm used to, but it's not exactly exemplary first class service.
@espresso_frankfurt Within 2 hours before domestic should really be open. Sheesh. Not to mention, the lounges open 4:15AM daily, so... (I guess someone slept in that morning. Bah!) Can't wait for the full review!
@travelinwilly I was able to access it through my Apple News subscription. Thanks for highlighting!
@travelinwilly Thanks Willy, interesting piece. Some seriously imaginative insults there to make it worth reading. Some comments seem to be evidence that they just got out of the wrong side of the bed rather than that the airport had done anything more than just aggressively disappointed them. Buy lounge access, there's a 50% chance the experience will be better.
Still, for any business or service, perceptions matter, so people venting matter. The few people who can choose between airports will choose, and those with choice are often those with enough money to matter to the business. I haven't had any memorably bad airport experiences (unless you count LAX international arrivals on a foreign passport, and one interminable TSA queue at MCO), and few memorably good ones, and I'm not given to volunteering reviews.
I've found it useful to have free WaPo and NYT accounts, they come with a quota of free articles each month, and that number is usually enough to read what I want to.
Love your analysis of monetizing the internet and struggling to find a balance between your work, your passion, your family and the people that work for you and depend on you. Good luck.
Ben (and team), regarding an opportunity for monetisation. I see value in the in your posts stretching back years and where I often find myself searching your older pieces to achieve some niche solutions. Thus I believe there is an opportunity to build in an AI Q&A facility that has access to your (and perhaps limited similar quality partners) posts. There is obviously a cost to running the AI and one that I would be willing to pay up for, incl the ad reduction.
I.e. an example of a question. Q) Im looking to book an AF flight CPT-ATH on Qatar looking to capitalise on the JAL transfer bonus in Capital one. Run me through the pro-cons, considerations and costs.
Now, this answer is buried across many of your posts going back and may need to request updated partner award tables ect but your older pieces would be valuable for context. I appreciate that is a niche question but for the top x% of your community I think they do belong to that niche.
@pjrabie "Q) Im looking to book an AF flight CPT-ATH on Qatar looking to capitalise on the JAL transfer bonus..."
That's an example, a made-up question, and not actually something about which you're asking, is that correct?
@travelinwilly - ps. Im realising that I mistyped the question - Im looking to use the C1 JAL transfer bonus to book an AF or Qatar flight CPT - ATH.
But the intention was that It is an example of a more complex question that i believe higher end users might be asking and for which they might be willing to pay for added insight. I used used a few older OMAAT posts for insights and thats is how the idea came to me. (It also happens to be something Im looking for but I wasnt intending for someone to answer)
I frequently book award flights but am not familiar with JAL milage bank and wanted to catch up on partner availability, costs and other nuances.
@pjrabie "Im realising that I mistyped the question - Im looking to use the C1 JAL transfer bonus to book an AF or Qatar flight CPT - ATH."
Got it, thanks for clarifying, the way you asked it made no sense (as you explained), so thank you for clarifying. I can't answer that for you (and I can see why you were asking about AI), but the obvious answer is to look at routes and dates you want on the JAL website. I didn't know that one could use JAL points for AF awards, so that's good to know.
Good luck to you!
@Ben and @Jeremy, what about a "heart" icon for articles in general? Then Ben can see if people like an article, even if it's not getting a lot of interaction. For example, the article about the father and daughter pilots crossing path on ATC, several people commented that they liked the story, but it might be the sort of thing lots of people liked reading but had no real comment on.