Fight Club Edition: Choose Jetblue and Virgin America over United Airlines

Fly Jetblue and Virgin America, and avoid United.

Jetblue and Virgin appear to have more consumer-friendly policies: https://lnkd.in/gZ6AsrR

I don't understand why United didn't keep increasing the value of the replacement voucher above 800 USD until someone accepted. Whatever the amount, it would certainly be cheaper than the cost to its reputation. Also, why are the security forces complying without questioning their role or doing a quick investigation and making their own (nonviolent) recommendations?

Americans are so jaded, they're saying they'll still fly United and they're looking forward to the discounts due to the PR fallout.  I keep trying to warn people: a nation drowning in debt is not truly free, because "free" choices necessitate placing the financial self-interest principle above all else, even morality.

Update on April 28, 2017: United announced changes to its passenger removal process and passenger compensation guidelines.  

Just Sayin'

People intuitively understand segregation is immoral and counterproductive.

Then they drive to their private schools, past the security gate with a guard who can reject anyone for any reason, onto a campus charging 40K+ annually for tuition, and say hello to a professor with legal protections under an MOU unavailable to 85% of the general public.

My former law school, Santa Clara University, is asking for donations. I don't see anywhere that SCU plans to forgive the student loans of graduates who are unemployed; who make under a certain income after five years; or who don't have affluent parents who can help pay off the loans.  Must be an oversight.

I wonder what all the pro-regulation professors would think about a law mandating colleges, as 3rd party beneficiaries, to absorb some percentage of a grad's student loan after 5 years if the student makes less than x dollars (with x dollars tied to tuition cost). This paradigm might cause different tuition rates for different majors, but funding discrimination against liberal arts departments is occurring anyway with students bearing all the risks.

Skyscanner App: Groucho Marx Edition

Skyscanner is an app and website that helps you find cheap airfare. Here's one link to search for flights: Flight Deals (originally posted April 5, 2017 and updated April 2018).

I just joined their rewards and blogging program as an experiment. The advice they give travel bloggers is in-depth and technical, and I'll probably do the least amount of compliance necessary to stay in the program and lurk. So far, it looks like I just have to post two links in each blog post, and I plan on making them as unobtrusive as possible.  [Update: Kelsey from Skyscanner tells me, "you actually don't have to do anything. It’s completely up to you how much or how little you want to talk about Skyscanner."  I may end up liking these people.] 

Groucho Marx once wrote, "I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member." I like being an individual; though there's no "i" in team, there is one in "integrity." Life is all about finding your own voice and making the journey from unfunny happy dippy weatherman to subversive truth-teller. 

Besides, I refuse to do the fake smiles and posed photos (damn the duckface) that have become the norm.  I'm rarely in my own travel pictures. I will admit to using filters (blame Instagram for compromising my originality, but its "rise" filter is perfect for too-dark photos). 

Mind you, I have nothing against people who try to become internet superstars--I just want to contribute something more useful than another picture on the beach. When I travel, I try to talk to as many people as I can and observe the local economy. People may delude themselves about what they enjoy and like, but how people treat others and spend their money and time never lies. 

I'll never forget seeing a beautiful, model-like Cambodian woman walking down a main street. I asked her for directions because Google Maps wasn't getting a sufficient signal, and she repeated my question to a much older, darker-skinned, blue-collar tuk-tuk driver in Khmer. He flashed her a look of scorn as if to say, "You may speak better English than me and wear nicer clothes, but I can still refuse to talk to someone I consider overly flashy and a sell-out." I never got my answer. 

I look for as many "real" moments as I can handle. In the aggregate, they give me clues, "Finding Dory-style," that help me on my journey.   

I'm going to the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, and the land of Fidel (now Raul) Castro. On my last trip, I visited 18 countries in 5 months and didn't blog until the very end, where I promptly spat out all my thoughts in one article: https://goo.gl/2yHs3m. We'll see what happens this time. 

Skyscanner Homepage Link