The Rage Diaries

The air diet

Consider this a public service announcement made well in advance of the holiday season: if you're flying, prepare to pack a lunch.

Obviously, this will be an issue if you're on an all-liquid diet -- unless you're careful to pack your meal in several tiny 1-oz. bottles -- but for the rest of us, it makes financial sense. We all know that airport concessions are pricey. And most airlines are charging for food. Read "Hungry at 3000 Feet? Pay Up" (NYT, Aug 17, 08) and weep at the prospect of paying $10 for a sandwich and chips the next time you fly American to Hawai'i.

I am a little surprised that many personal finance blogs have not tackled the issue of eating well and cheaply while flying. In searching for airplane food alternatives, I found an article from Salon that seems positively quaint with its pre-9/11 assumptions ("Mile-High Meal," Sep 2, 97) and not at all budget-conscious. My own personal recommendations for eating whilst in the air are after the jump.

Cranky post of the day #2: Why is Hawai'i the common denominator here?

After reading the Consumerist post "United Sells Family's Tickets To Someone Else, Ruins Once-In-A-Lifetime Vacation, Then Won't Admit It To Insurance Company," I am only more firm in my conviction that the sooner United Airlines goes out of business, the better off American airline travelers will be. Check out what United Airlines did to one family who had booked a trip to Hawai'i to see their father, who was dying of cancer:

-- The family spent $5000 on full-fare tickets from San Diego to Hawai'i. United pocketed the $5000 for six months, then the day before their flights, told them the flight had been cancelled.

-- When the family was like, "Um, no, because one of our family members who booked under a different reservation just checked in," United claimed they had lost the $5000 reservation. (This after emailing the family the day before to tell them they could check in online.)

-- After getting called on their second lie, United then admitted they had overbooked the flight and sold the seats to someone else.

-- United then said they'd be happy to a) split up the traveling party, and b) deposit them on several different islands five days later (it was to have been a seven-day trip). By the way, one of the proposed splits included separating a developmentally delayed 9-year-old girl from her parents and refusing to let the three of them travel together on the child's first flight.

-- And then when the family finally cancelled the trip because everything -- housing reservations, visiting plans, all of it -- was hosed, United refused to write a letter to the travel insurance company explaining the circumstances for cancellation.

United's actions cost the family more than $10,000 in nonrefundable fees and reservations. And the father died before his children could see him and say goodbye.

I don't know what is more mind-boggling -- that United sold the seats out from under people who had booked them six months ago, or that their customer-facing employees persistently made the exact wrong choice every time they were faced with an opportunity to fix their company's mistake.

Think this sucks? Feel free to contact United's CEO:

Glenn Tilton
United Airlines, 77 W Wacker Dr, Chicago, Il. 60601

or at [email protected].

The takeaway message, however, is that you can't trust United to honor the basic idea that you exchange money for goods and services. And every time I see the United commercials during the Olympics, I'll be thinking of that.

I neither slept well nor looked good

Another red-eye via Jet Blue, and my, how things do and don't change.

What did not change:

-- The full flight. What the hell, people? Leave the red-eye to us cheapskate travelers! Your babies didn't like the full flight any more than I did. We all learned that the hard way.

-- The lack of pillows and blankets. Because why would you want either on an OVERNIGHT FLIGHT?

-- The "hot towel" service and concessions. One moist towelette coming up!

What changed:

-- The "Bliss Kit." We got an elegantly-sealed foil envelope containing one eyeshade (dark blue, with the sprightly blue "seat dreams" silk-screened across it) and two foam ear plugs. And we got nice, travel-sized tubes of Dove Cream Oil Intensive Body Lotion. I'll take that over the spa kit.

I suspect I'm really cranky because it was not the most restful way to spend the wee small hours, miracles of cross-country aviation notwithstanding. And I do think it's interesting how JetBlue's swapping corporate partners in and out on tie-in products. I dig the airline. I just wish ... not so many other people did too. At least, not at the same time as me.

Such a wasted opportunity

So the chance to pop on over to Hawai'i's big island has presented itself, and I'm super-excited about it, and one of the ways I am keeping my spirits up through the always-depressing month of February is by planning the trip. I am sort of familiar with Kaua'i, but I've only ever been to the big island once before and I can guaran-damn-tee you, we will not be staying at the Mauna Kea this time, so I'm sort of starting from scratch.

Although Bigisland.org has been very helpful, I am also looking for recommendations in re: specific beaches and what not, and I thought, "Hey, didn't Samantha Brown do a series, Girl Meets Hawaii, where she hit all the islands? Would not the Travel Channel website have links and information on this?"

Answer: the Travel Channel would not. If you use their internal search engine, you get nothing. I had to find the Girl Meets Hawaii page via an external search engine. And then, I just sort of admired the layout, because clicking on any of the links gives you a 404.

What is even more interesting -- albeit frustrating, if you, like me, have watched any of Samantha Brown's previous shows* and thought, "Hmm, I must follow that up online" -- is that the Travel Channel seems to be deep in denial that they've ever aired anything beside Passport to Latin America. I very distinctly remember Samantha Brown's Passport to Europe series. So did the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, what with them giving Samantha Brown an Emmy for the series. Yet if you go to the Travel Channel and type in "Samantha Brown Europe" in their search engine, all the results lead to you video clip links ... that redirect to a general video portal. I had to go to the Samantha Brown entry in Wikipedia, then to the cites at the bottom, to find this well-hidden guide to the series.

Sadly, the Wikipedia savants were unable to unearth similar gems for Girl Meets Hawaii. I went to see when -- or if -- the show was on, and the listings were, shall we say, less than useful. Also, they're inaccurate: a set for the new Michael Palin show Across the Iron Curtain was listed as Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.

The reason I'm so cheesed about this: because the Travel Channel is really screwing up an opportunity to grab loyal customers who will tune in to their shows and haunt their web sites. I think many food shows do it right. For example, if you're watching Good Eats on Food Network, you can then go to the site and easily find the recipes referenced in a specific episode. Watching hooks you; web-surfing keeps you coming back again and again. You begin to rely on the brand because you know it will deliver what you need when you need it.

For something like travel, it works similarly: watching gives you the enticing visual invitation, and web-surfing should give you the information you need to follow up and learn more. (Or book your trip.) Instead, the Travel Channel seems to offer very little support to its shows, and you end up with third-party destination guides that are nothing like what you saw on TV.

I know that different shows are created by different production companies. What I don't understand is why someone at the Travel Channel hasn't managed to get corporate buy-off on the idea that all its shows, past and present, should have some sort of uniform web presence. I don't understand why the Travel Channel hasn't managed to make "a well-supported show site" part of a standard contract with any production company. As of now, the haphazard travel information linked to the shows, the rotten search tool and the poorly-maintained legacy links only make me less likely to ever consider the Travel Channel's site as a resource.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to unwind by watching some Big Island web cam footage. I'll get my recommendations later.

How 'bout them apples?

Last Saturday, Phil and I played hooky from the house and work to-do lists and headed out to beautiful El Dorado county for a day of picking apples, drinking wine and admiring the fall foliage scattered across the Sierra foothills.

El Dorado's not that far east of Sacramento, so if Sacto's an easy drive for you, you really should head out this week to grab some fruit and pie and alcohol. We love Jodar Winery -- the Cabernet Franc was so good, we were compelled to join the wine club so we could buy some, the Barbera was like a fruit explosion (but a good one), and their dessert wines were sublime. I am not a huge red wine fan, so when I'm all, "My God, I love this port!" you know it's good. Also, one of the guys on-site is a chocolatier and the truffles are to die for. Especially when eaten with the port.

So we also tooled around Apple Hill, and my advice to you is to go in the exact opposite direction of the standstill traffic. This is how we ended up taking the Larsen Dr. loop and finding an excellent little pick-your-own place. It's not listed on the map -- it doesn't even have a sign on the road, other than "Granny Smith Fuji Pick-Your-Own" -- but it's right after the Jack Russell Farm Brewery and right before Ralph's Apple Ranch. Look on the left side of the road. You will be parking in someone's front yard.

So! What always amazes me about picking my own fruit is how irregular and bug-ravaged so many pieces of fruit are. It's a little mind-blowing to think back to all the perfect produce you see in a farmer's market or at a store, and calculate how much more fruit was grown and didn't make it to market. However ugly the apples, they're still tasty, which is why we may have gotten carried away with the thrill of picking our own fruit and taken home 20 pounds of apples.

Because the wine and truffles had worn off by this point, and because I was like, "We are not coming out to Apple Hill without having some sort of apple baked into something," we pulled into Bodhaine Ranch. This was an unexpectedly good decision, as their blackberry-apple-sour cream pie was amazing. All of you need to have some. You can thank me when you do.

Our only regrets: we now have 20 pounds of apples hulking on the kitchen table, and we forgot the camera. Isn't that always how it is on the loveliest days? Anyway, I'm pretty sure a number of local friends and family members will be getting an apple crisp from me soon, and there's applesauce in our future. How do you like to eat your apples?

One of the reasons we just cancelled our summer getaway ...

Over all, this could be a dreadful summer to fly. In the first five months of 2007, more than a quarter of all flights within the United States arrived at least 15 minutes late. And more of those flights were delayed for long stretches, an average of 39 percent longer than a year earlier.

Moreover, in addition to crowded flights, the usual disruptive summer thunderstorms and an overtaxed air traffic control system, travelers could encounter some very grumpy airline employees; after taking big pay cuts and watching airline executives reap some big bonuses, many workers are fed up.

-- "Ugly Airline Math: Planes Late, Fliers Even Later," NYT, Jul 6, 07

Yeah, that's more or less confirmed that I will not be spending any of my precious vacation time sitting around an airport terminal. Because I do not want to spend ALL of my precious vacation time sitting around an airport terminal.

When you read the rest of the article and find out how airlines DON'T count delays like "the flight sat on the tarmac for six hours before it was mercifully cancelled and the passengers released to the tender mercies of customer service" or "the flight was supposed to land in Chicago, but touched down in Indianapolis, so tough cookies for people who had to connect in Chicago," let me know how that sits with you.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

So I didn't want to pre-announce my vacation because that strikes me as being a little "Robbers! Feel free to drop in over the next week!" However, I would love to offer some assorted tidbits from the seven days I spent in Kaua'i.

1. The best ice cream you will ever have in your life will be the stuff you get at Lappert's. I understand that you can now get this frozen food of the gods Fed-Ex'd to your door. However, the website is not clear on whether they'll also bundle in the experience of walking along the beach at night, slurping a coconut fudge macademia nut scoop out of a waffle cone while the stars twinkle overhead and the gently humid air kisses ten years off your face.

Not at all surprising to this former United customer

Consumerist's post on how crappily United Airlines treated a passenger with a broken leg -- and the resultant comments -- only reminded me how much more pleasant my air-traveling life has been in the years since I laid down my comprehensive, non-negotiable United Airlines boycott.

To list the many, many ways in which United manage to wrong me as a passenger in a 22-month period would make my hands fall off in exhaustion; your eyeballs would fall out from fatigue in reading them. Just consider this Tale of Two Reschedulings:

When comes the revolution ...

We're going to the Giants/As game in AT&T park tonight. It's a little weird to see my first As game of 07 in someplace other than the Coliseum, but I figure since it's a pre-season matchup, I can be flexible. This explanation might not fly with some of the people featured in the WSJ's "Opening Day" (Mar 30, 07) -- the folks who are devoted to keeping a streak of opening-day attendance alive:

David Hoffmann has made it to every Cincinnati Reds home opener for 24 years, with a few close calls. April 3, 2000, for example, was Opening Day as well as the due date of his wife, Nancy. So he dragged Mrs. Hoffmann to the game, escorted her to their upper-deck seats for five innings and a 45-minute rain delay, then walked back to the car, which was parked in a free lot a mile away in Kentucky. Several hours later, the streak safely defended, Nancy went into labor with their daughter, Ashlyn.

But this isn't an article about those crazy streak-setters. It's about how crazy streak-setters are getting screwed by two factors: smaller venues for teams, plus team organizations that are now reserving opening-day tickets for people who pony up for pricey multigame packages.

That sort of economic discrimination isn't confined to the MLB. Another WSJ article today, "Class Warfare at the Infinity Pool," details the ways in which resort and hotel guests are being made aware of the perks that come with paying more for your room:

Jacob and Susan Rooksby got a peek at the subtle class distinctions during their January honeymoon at the Paradisus Playa Conchal in Costa Rica, where they paid $800 a night for a junior suite. When they first visited the resort's main pool, dozens of sunbathers clogged the chairs, a volleyball game was under way in the water and a Latin-style band played American hits by the bar. Two days later, they stumbled on a quieter pool, where an attendant was circling with cold towels among the 14 or so guests. But as soon as the couple set down their towels, the attendant asked them to leave. "He said, 'Oh. I'm sorry but this pool is only for Royal Service guests,'" says Mr. Rooksby...

I've never stayed at a resort. I don't know if $800 per night is standard. But I can see being annoyed with being made to feel like a second-class citizen when a five-day honeymoon starts at $4000.

In any event, resort spokespeople in the article all stress how all guests are equal but some guests are more equal than others. Quoth one:

"You are paying more so you are supposed to be getting more," says [Puntacana Resort & Club] spokeswoman Paola Rainieri de Díaz. She adds that hotel staff will ask "refined" customers -- for example, those who arrive on a private plane or who have an American Express black card -- or those who look like they have been to the Caribbean if they want to upgrade at check-in.

I see this as a natural extension of the bargains-at-the-expense-of-service mindset that drives a lot of consumer market segments. Wal-Mart has already showed what people will put up with to get bargains. Now the luxury brands are exploring the opposite end of the spectrum.

It is better to sleep well than to look good

As I swore I would, I took a red-eye on JetBlue back to D.C. last weekend so I could poach myself like a salmon fillet in the ungodly heat+humidity help my mom out with her premarital garage sale.

Here is what I was looking forward to:

Customers on JetBlue's Shut-Eye flights will be treated to the bliss kit, containing bliss breath freshening mint lip balm, bliss lemon+sage body butter, an eyeshade and ear plugs. The airline's night-owl customers can enjoy JetBlue's 36 channels of DIRECTV programming and a selection of FOX movies to make time fly. Still can't sleep? Visit the snack bar in the galley to stretch your legs and help yourself to JetBlue's signature (and free!) unlimited snacks and beverages. (Tasty wines from Best Cellars and cocktails are also available for purchase throughout the flight.) Before arrival, customers will be treated to hot towels and Dunkin' Donuts coffee, orange juice or bottled spring water, refreshed and ready to start the day.

Here is what really happened: we board the plane. It is a full flight, which surprises me, as red-eyes had been the last bastion of the half-full flight. A flight attendant announces, "There will be no blankets or pillows on this flight. [long, pregnant pause] Sorry for the inconvenience."

The couple next to me decides to compensate for this inconvenience by using each other as blankets and pillows. And also spit receptacles and free-form masseuses, if their activities for the next 5.5 hours are any indication.

I am very glad that my insistence on bringing a cashmere sweater to the airport has turned out to be useful instead of merely paranoid.

So we settle down for the flight. The kits are handed out. They are slightly smaller than a greeting card, and not much thicker. There is no tube of lip balm, only a button of goop that you'll punch out of a blister pac and smear on your lips with a travel-grubby finger. The tube of lemon-sage body butter is about the size of a ballpoint-pen cap. The eyeshades are flimsy; the only thing I would have found valuable would have been the earplugs -- if I hadn't already brought my own.

(It is killing me that there's currently an eBay bid for $5.50 for one of these kits. Just pony up another $25 and you'll get at least 16 times the Lemon-Sage body butter you would have gotten in the kit!)

There was no mention made of the snack bar, and during the concession service, the two customers who asked for both cookies and a bag of chips suddenly found themselves playing Oliver Twist, tremulously asking the Workhouse Master if they could have more.

As we prepared to land, the flight attendants flung the "hot towels" at us -- they were diaper wipes, which cooled on contact with our skin.

Now, I didn't fly JetBlue expressly for the alleged spa experience. The fares were cheap, they have a solid customer service record (with me), and they met my travel needs. What I'm quibbling with is the way this whole thing has been packaged as a relaxing experience with amenities. Is it nice that we got the hot "towels"? Maybe. But I would have liked a blanket, a drink refill or a less-crowded flight more.