Walking into the TravelCommons studios for this episode felt like walking into a confessional — “Bless me Father for I have sinned; it’s been 6 months since my last podcast…”  I talk about the new TravelCommons web site and the new Facebook fan page. I talk about some recent WiFi experiences — at 35,000 ft and while on vacation in Vietnam — and a bad dining experience in Scottsdale, AZ. I tumbled the numbers on my mileage and frequent sleeper points and, applying some complex division with the help of my iPhone calculator, redirected this year’s remaining travel to maximize my frequent flyer and frequent sleeper status levels.  Finally, after the TSA’s announcement of their “enhanced” pat-down procedures, I give up and let loose with a full-throated rant.  Here’s a direct link to the podcast file or you can listen to it right here by clicking on the arrow below.

Here are the transcript from TravelCommons podcast #84:

• Intro music — Warmth by Makkina
• Coming to you today from the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago, Illinois.  Picking up to the mic, I kinda felt like I was walking into a confessional – “Bless me Father for I have sinned, it’s been 6 months since my last podcast…”  As I mentioned in the last episode, back in May, I wanted to take the summer off to focus on the new job – which I did.  I also wanted to do something with some video, which I did – a 6-minute summary of our summer trip to Vietnam, which is up on the site complete with a bit of an Easter egg at the end.  John Stalvern picked it up – he posted a question on the TravelCommons site – “is that an actual shot of the never-before-identified Mark Peacock at the end?”  Yup, complete with my new-found Vietnamese friend.
• I also rebuilt the TravelCommons site on my own hosting service, pulling away from the BoardingArea site after they stopped paying me.  Not that I blame them – it’s a tough economy and their model is to sell banner ads for blogs.  I don’t think they ever figured out how to monetize a podcast.  So, I got a dump of my content and rebuilt my own TravelCommons site.  Because it’s my own site, I also have complete control.  So, my son built me a new look-&-feel for the site, I loaded a better Twitter feed badge and will put up some additional stuff like polls when I get around to it.
• I also set up a TravelCommons fan page on Facebook.  I don’t know exactly what I’ll do with it yet – right now it’s a mix of some web site content and expanded Twitter posts.  Come by – there’s a “badge” on the web site – “like” it and leave comments/suggestions on the wall.  Help me figure out what to do with it.
• I’ve also been doing a bit of travel.  For those of you who watched the Vietnam video, you saw our itinerary – we toured Vietnam for 12 days and then stopped off in Hong Kong for three days on the way home.  My domestic travel has been a bit boring – mostly to our offices in Scottsdale, Dallas, and Naples, FL, though I have hit Boston and San Diego recently, and have a conference in Orlando coming up.
• Thinking back on my travel last year, in 2009, I miss the trips to New York and San Francisco.  But as we officially hit Autumn and can see December in Chicago quickly approaching – places like Scottsdale and Naples are sounding pretty good again.
• Bridge Music — SP*ANK Vox by Loveshadow

Following Up

• OK, where to start, it’s been so long.  Maybe at the most recent and work my way back.
• In-flight WiFi – I’ve said in past episodes that I’m not a big fan.  35,000 ft is my last refuge of non-connectedness.  It’s when I read, or listen to music, or listen to podcasts, or really crank on my e-mail in-box – cleaning out the backlog of “I’ll read that when I get some time” e-mails…  On my last flight down to Ft Myers, though, I broke down 30 minutes into the flight and bought a WiFi session from GoGo.  The price was $9.95 for my iPad or my netbook; $7.95 for my iPhone or Motorola Droid2.  I ponied up the extra $2 to use a full keyboard.  While I cringed when signing on, it was useful not going dark for 2.5 hours.  Right then, I was in the middle of a number of customer issues.  Being able to run e-mail saved me a 20-minute e-mail session sitting outside the airport Starbucks clearing 25+ e-mail messages.
• The rise and now near-ubiquity of on-line storage/collaboration tools like Microsoft SharePoint has also made me push the GoGo in-flight purchase button.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve clicked on an e-mail message to start reviewing a document and found nothing but a SharePoint link.  It reminds me yet again of the mental gulf between office dwellers and road warriors.  “Whaa… you’re not on the network?” is the refrain whenever I ask someone to send me the actual file.  I hate SharePoint…
• Since I’m on a bit of a rant, I got rudely surprised a couple months back while eating dinner at a restaurant in Scottsdale, AZ.  We’ve talked across many episodes about dining solo in restaurants.  It’s gotten much easier over the past 3-4 years.  It’s a rare restaurant that won’t serve you off the full menu at the bar.  I been to some places where even they have a little tray that evens out the slant of the bar so that your plate won’t slip into your lap.
• So, anyhow, I go to this restaurant – the Zinc Bistro – in the middle of one of the many shopping centers in Scottsdale.  I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner, but he had to bail at the last minute, so when I walked in, I asked if I could eat at the bar.  “Of course,” the hostess said.  I sat down – there was one other guy at the bar – ordered a glass of wine, a frisée salad, and a large order of charcuterie – it was a French place.  I ordered a second glass of wine, pulled out my iPad, and started flipping through the Financial Times app.  A couple of minutes later, an older guy introduced himself to me as the owner and then said, in a nice way, that computers weren’t allowed in the restaurant after sun down because it “spoiled the romantic atmosphere.”
• Really? At first, I thought he was joking.  I looked around – the place was empty.  It was a Wednesday night, in summer, in Arizona.  Not exactly the height of tourist season. I counted less than 10 people in the place, none of which looked to be interested in a romantic atmosphere.  But the guy was serious.  I paid my bill – no tip – and told him I wouldn’t be back.  I always say – You can have an attitude, or you can have my money, but you can’t have both.  This guy chose the attitude.
• OK, two negative rants – need to balance them out with something positive.  One of the biggest surprises of my Vietnam trip was the near ubiquity of free high quality WiFi.  Preparing for the trip, I didn’t plan to use my iPhone much because of the high cost of roaming for cellular data and voice.  I’d keep the phone with me in case of emergency calls and also figured I might download some podcasts off WiFi when in hotels.  When I got there, though, I found WiFi everywhere – almost every restaurant and bar seemed to have WiFi, most of which were open. I’d stand on a street corner waiting for my wife to finish shopping, and I’d have strong signals from 2 or 3 different places.
• Some restaurants did have their Wi-Fi locked with WPA or WEP encryption.  But it was still free – you just had to ask your server for the password.  Unlike in the US where the WiFi is unencrypted but you hit a portal of some sort where you log in, in these restaurants in Saigon or HoiAn, the session was encrypted, so once I put the password into my iPhone, all the over-the-air transmissions were encrypted.  Which, given the emergence of things like Firesheep which lets someone hijack people’s Twitter and Facebook accounts over unencrypted WiFi, seems like a pretty good approach.
• Well, once we figured out the program, the kids and I would be whipping out our devices whenever I’d stop for a beer – which given the heat and humidity in June was pretty often – and we’d ask for the WiFi key while placing our drink orders.  Usually, they’d point to a sign on the wall or bring us a small slip of paper.  However, at one restaurant, the waiter pointed to the little plastic stand-up menu holder.  We looked at it and then looked back at him? Huh? He pointed at the base of the menu holder where it said “Cisco. This is the power of the network”.  All that is the key?  Yup, he nodded.  That was one damn secure key.
• If you have a question, a story, a comment, a travel tip – the voice of the traveler, send it along.  The e-mail address is comments@travelcommons.com, you can send me a Twitter message at mpeacock, or you can post them on the web site at TravelCommons.com.
• Bridge Music — Bored on Your Backside by Trifonic

End-of-Year Status Calculus

• Last week, USAToday had an article about the importance of status to frequent travelers.  A timely article because October is the time every year that frequent travelers take stock of where they are in their various awards programs and figure out how they’re going to distribute their remaining travel to maximize their status.
• Status has become more important in the past few years.  As airlines have become more aggressive with add-on fees, the silver, gold, platinum, premiere cards that exempt their holders from things like baggage fees or added charges for good seats have real monetary value.  Checking a bag and getting an aisle seat in the front of the plane can easily cost $50-$75 a trip without status.  The calculus can be even better stronger with hotels.  Precious metal cards can get you free breakfast and free wireless (for those places that still charge) – saving you, say, $120 over a week’s stay.  You can build a solid business case pretty quick if you need a one more trip to earn status.
• But how to spread that status – is it better to spread it around – be mid-tier status with a couple of airlines and hotels – or should you double-down with just one and go for top tier?
• It depends on what you want and how you travel.  If upgrades are important – flying first class, getting bumped to a suite – then you need to go for top tier status.  As airline seat utilization goes up – the latest figures are over 80% — there are fewer first class seats available.  My United flight down to PHX this week was completely full and a Premiere guy standing next to me – United’s lowest level of status – said he was number 52 on the upgrade list.  With 24 first class seats on that 757 – which is a big first class nowadays – he knew he wasn’t getting out of seat 13E.  But at least his status got him into Economy Plus for free – otherwise that 5 extra inches of legroom would’ve cost him $25-50.
• If you like to use your miles like I do —  my Chicago-to-Saigon flights were on miles and I just booked Chicago-to-Venice flights for next spring — the answer isn’t quite as straight-forward
• As airline load factors and hotel occupancy levels improve, award availability is the first thing to go. Award trips dropped over 10% between 2008 and 2009.  If you’ve doubled-down and have all your miles/points with one airline and one hotel, your ability to use your miles/points when and where you want can be tough.
• My spring trip to Venice is a perfect example. The dates — based on my daughter’s spring break — were inflexible. As was the location — my daughter has always wanted to visit Venice and Verona. I knew this was going to be tough. I gritted my teeth, mixed myself a big cocktail, and started dialing awards desks. American could get me over the Atlantic, but couldn’t get me back. BA couldn’t get me to Heathrow, but could get me to Venice. Eventually, United could get me over on Lufthansa via Frankfurt and back on a double hop via Munich and Heathrow. If I had focused my miles solely on American, I would’ve been $3,000 lighter
• OK, nice bit of theory, but what did I do ?  A little of both, really.  Starting the year, taking a new job, my destinations changed, and United and Marriott — where I had top tier status –  were no longer the most convenient choices for where I needed to go.  So I switched to American and Hilton because, for me, planes and hotels are a means to an end rather than the end itself.
• Being in Chicago, with ORD’s dual hub, I still put some miles on United based on schedule, but put most miles on American. Until this month. Tumbling the numbers, I didn’t think I’d hit Executive Platinum, so I pivoted most of my trips over to United to lock in at least Premiere status.
• On hotels, though, I went deep on Hilton because they were everywhere I needed to be. I hit Gold early on, which gave me free breakfast and WiFi, and will make top-tier Diamond by year end.
• So while strategizing to get early boarding and a free scoop of scrambled eggs may seem a bit pathetic to the occasional traveler, think about the efforts you expend to get a close-in parking space or a good subway seat. At least my scrambled eggs come with a free trip to Venice
• Bridge Music — Bogi Beat Budapest by KarmaHacker

TSA Porn

• Let’s start off by stipulating a well-known fact – I’m not a big fan of the TSA.  Nothing earth-shattering there.  I’ve been pretty frank over the prior 83 episodes of this podcast and in many blog posts.
• And I don’t think that I’m alone.  While there will always be some once-a-year flier who’ll pop up in front of a reporter’s microphone saying “I don’t care how long I wait; I just want to be safe”, I don’t know of any frequent flier who defends the TSA.  We see too much of them.  And while we see the occasional good deed – the Ft Myers’ TSA screener who was helpfully prompting older passengers to pull their toiletries out of their carry-on before they pushed their bags into the X-ray machine – it’s much more common to see them berating fliers at the other end.  Or to see a half-dozen of them standing around a closed screening machine chatting it up while we fliers stew in a 15-minute line.
• But the most frustrating thing is, 9 years after the September 11^th attacks that caused the TSA to be created, every new thing the TSA does seems to make things worse – more inconvenient, and more and more intrusive
• The roll-out of full body scanners is an example of both.  Take shoes and everything metal off – belts, watches, jewelry – stand in the machine with your hands above your head holding your wallet for 5 seconds, then wait another 5-10 seconds for the all-clear, and then go collect your belongings.  And to think that, 5 years ago, I used to rail on this podcast about the inconvenience of taking my shoes off before walking through the metal detector.
• And invasive?  Look, I’m not a prude, but when a TSA screener beats a co-worker because, after a training session with a full body scanner, of jokes about his small “manhood”, I’m not buying the TSA’s line about privacy filters.
• And they’re not using much discretion – there have been articles about screeners coercing a pregnant woman into accepting a scan, or pulling a 12-year-old girl out of line for a full scan – and this after the UK government has forbidden the use of scanners on anyone under 18 because the pictures can violate child pornography laws.
• And now, this week, it just gets better.  The TSA announced on its web site that it’s “implementing new pat-down procedures.” OK, pretty innocuous.  What it doesn’t say is that these “enhanced” procedures will involve the screener running their hand up the inside of your leg. OK, not as invasive as the patdown I got in Amsterdam a few years back when the screener “cupped” my “manhood”, but it’s close – and will be a lot more frequent.
• It does make me wonder why, after 9 years and hundreds of millions of dollars, all the TSA can say, if they’re really honest with themselves – in the quiet of the scanner picture viewing room — is that all they’ve accomplished is to make the lives of their main constituents – the travelers – more miserable with each “improvement” they claim
• Well, I shouldn’t go that far.  They have improved the lives of one group of people – IRS employees.  They’re no longer the most reviled group of government employees.

Closing

• Closing music — iTunes link to Pictures of You by Evangeline
• OK, that’s it, that’s the end of TravelCommons podcast #84
• I hope you all enjoyed this podcast and I hope you decide to stay subscribed.
• The bridge music is from ccMixter
• If you have a story, thought, comment, gripe – the voice of the traveler — send ‘em along, text or MP3 file, to comments@travelcommons.com or to @mpeacock on Twitter, or post them on our website at travelcommons.com. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to send in e-mails, Tweets and post comments on the website
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