Author: ssegraves

Airpods Pro – A Few Months In

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I wrote a post in late November about the perfect travel earbuds that focused on my search for earbuds that would fit my needs. After that, I started seriously looking at the AirPods Pro. At first, I really balked at the idea of the AirPods; I thought the stems sticking out of the ears looked really ridiculous and that it was a frivolous purchase. However, a co-worker had recommended them and after some research, I picked up a pair. After having them for a few months, I have to say that I’m impressed. I mostly use the AirPods Pro for listening to music while commuting on the train, or to iPad video when on a plane, or occasionally for phone calls.

apple airpods pro

Audio Consumption

At the time that I bought the AirPods Pro I was traveling to New York City every week, a 5-6 hour flight, depending on winds. I spend my time on planes typically working while listening to music or with a television show on my iPad that I can kind of ignore (I like the noise). The AirPods Pro offer great noise cancellation that reduces the engine noise to a dull hum. It performs less efficiently when it comes to human noise, talking, crying, etc. when on the plane. I don’t know if this is because the headphones are working so hard to reduce the engine noise or if they just struggle with noncontinuous noise.

The audio quality for video is perfect for me, the noise cancellation makes it so I don’t have to have my iPad turned all the way up and the clarity is good enough that I didn’t notice any issues. For music, I am no audiophile but I was happy. The bass is enough for me without being so heavy I can’t enjoy a song. All in all, I am happy to listen to music on the AirPods Pro. When walking around town I typically use transparency mode just to be aware of my surroundings. In NYC this is a huge help to hear sirens or people honking when at crosswalks, etc. As soon as I would get to the subway, I turn on the full noise cancellation and don’t have to hear the screeching of a train coming into the station or other loud noises.

The two big things that I appreciate with the AirPods Pro is that they are comfortable to wear and the single charge life of the earbuds is as advertised, 4.5 hours. I could almost make it from takeoff to landing on a single charge with the AirPods Pro. I typically charged them around halfway through the flight just to make sure I could make a call if needed after landing. My skepticism on the comfort of the earbuds was very strong from the get go, but they proved me wrong. I have no issue leaving AirPods Pro in my ear for significant stretches of time. It took a little bit of trial and error to choose the correctly sized plastic ear insert but once I tested them all, I was able to pick the ones that were best for my comfort.

Calls – Observations

The AirPods Pro have been an up and down experience when it comes to phone calls. Typically I can hear calls just fine but my audio back to the call is frequently broken. I have not been able to pinpoint out why this is but it seems like the Bluetooth connection is a little more flimsy. Having the noise cancellation feature is great for calls because you can be walking down a busy street and hear a call perfectly.

Other Tidbits

I know that a lot of travelers love over the ear noise cancelling headphones but for me, they take up too much space in my bag for only being useful on the plane or in a place where I’m not moving around too much. The only upside of those over the ear headphones or even wired earbuds is being able to plug-in to inflight entertainment on the plane. With the AirPods Pro there is no way to connect to inflight entertainment. Because of this, I carry a wired pair of headphones as well which definitely not what I would like to do.

The other area where I am a little disappointed with the AirPods Pro is keeping them clean. The rubber earpieces seem to be ear wax magnets and they have a piece of mesh that makes them difficult to clean. It takes a bit of finesse to get any kind of cleaning element deep enough into the earpiece to get them clear which is annoying. There also seems to be a tendency of dirt and dust to get into the bottom of the charger which can potentially keep the AirPods Pro from charging when they are in their case. I wish it was easier to keep these elements clean but it’s a small complaint.

Summary

The AirPods Pro fit my needs of a walking around, on the plane, noise cancelling earbud perfectly. The battery life of 4.5 hours without a charge is great and the comfort level of the earbuds themselves allows me to leave them in for extended periods of time. The noise cancellation and transparency mode are really fantastic features that make going from noisy environments to areas where you need more awareness easy and responsive. My only real complaints are that the AirPods Pro are a little difficult to clean and grit/grime can keep them from charging. The phone calls can be hit or miss when it comes to audio but it’s usable for casual conversations. If you are traveling a lot or need some earbuds to walk around town, these are a great option and one that you should seriously consider even if you’ve had doubts about AirPods before.

* This post contains affiliate links to products on Amazon. These links pay me if readers click them.

Quarantine

ssegraves

Quarantine, social distancing, self-isolation, whatever you want to call it, we’re all in the middle of it right now (well, some of us). I am recovering from a nasty ear infection, but otherwise healthy. We’ve only left the house to grab some groceries for some friends who are on a mandatory quarantine for 14 days after being out of the country, to pickup a takeout dinner, and to walk the dog to the park. It is strange to not hear the normal traffic or see people out doing things. Yesterday on my way to pickup takeout I realize that it was the fewest number of cars I have ever seen on the road.

A time before social distancing at Prater Garten in Berlin.

A lot of Portland restaurants are delivering which is great and allows customers to still support them while this is going on. At the same time, a number of restaurants, bars, etc. have closed and sadly I have my doubts that they will ever open their doors again. Closer to us, friends are being laid off due to the lack of work and hours for others are being cut.

This is supposedly a great time for introverts, “we were built for this” is the slogan. I’m an introvert and while I somewhat agree, we as humans are a social species. We enjoy going to a restaurant to share a meal or a bar to have a drink and talk about our lives. Even the small social interactions that we take for granted have been yanked from us, the “good morning” to the bus driver, the small talk with your coffee shop barista, or the banter at a local shop have all suddenly disappeared. Sure we can use Zoom or some other video conferencing software, but being physically close to someone while you talk is a special experience that I don’t think online video mimics.

Patience also seems like a virtue that has vanished during all of this. Grocery stores, where we should be vigilant at keeping distance between each other have become thunderdomes for selfishness. People not patient enough for someone else to pick something are bumping into each other and generally being rude. This is the time for patience to win. I don’t want to be in the stores any longer than I need to be, but there is no reason for us to put each other at risk by rushing. Take a breath, we’ll get through this.

At Home

I will be the first to admit that I am going a little stir crazy. A walk around the neighborhood helps, but I’ve been fighting an ear infection for the last two weeks that has left me temporarily deaf in my left ear. This makes walking an adventure that I’m not necessarily prepared for. I can’t hear things coming from my left so my reaction time is much slower, so getting out of the house isn’t the most fun.

Inside the house I am working my normal job but also trying to come up with things to do. Writing this was on my list. Writing more is next. I have a few programming project ideas that I would like to start and this weekend will be a good opportunity for that. Organizing my wreck of desk is also something I should do, even though it is the one thing that interests me the least.

So, what are you doing with your time? How are you dealing with social distancing?

United Really Doesn’t Want to Give Refunds

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I had a flight scheduled for work travel, heading to Montreal on March 16 and back to Portland on March 19. Due to Covid-19 restrictions I moved that flight to March 30 with a return on April 2. After rebooking, United made a number of route network changes, including get rid of Washington-Dulles to Portland, which made up part of my return from Montreal. I was rebooked via Chicago and thought that was the end of it. I would have a five hour connection and it would be fine.

Yesterday United announced they would stop all flying to Canada on April 1. A few hours later I received another schedule change e-mail from the carrier saying I would now leave Montreal on April 1 at 9:30am and arrive in Portland at 10pm on April 2. This involved a 32 hour connection in Chicago.

To me this type of connection seems unreasonable, so I called United to ask for a refund. I know that their policies have seen a number of changes, including one that said only schedule changes with a 24-hour impact can be refunded. Their latest policy is even more harsh than that.

United International Refunds Policy

So, any flight that is impacted more than six hours can be cancelled but can’t be refunded until after a year has passed. Seems crazy right? I’ve given United money for a flight that no longer flies. So I called United. I was told that there were no options for me to receive a refund. I asked who was going to pay for the hotel bill at O’Hare, or did they expect me to sleep on the floor? This agent was just doing her job and did call a supervisor who also denied my request for a refund.

There is no reason that my money should not be returned to me. Sure, the world is in crisis but if you the airline can’t actually deliver a customer from point A to point B, then it is unreasonable to hold onto their cash until the customer decides to go somewhere else. There is no guarantee that United will be around in a year. What happens to my cash then?

My plan is to dispute the transaction with my credit card provider, file a DOT complaint, and write a note to my Senator. The note will be a summary of the situation and that my belief is that the US government shouldn’t hand out any bailout money to the airlines until this type of stuff is stopped.

If you are facing a similar situation, I’d love for you to comment. Or better yet, write your Senator.

COVID-19, Travel, and the Future

ssegraves

By now I am sure you are all too familiar with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) but I wanted to write about some of my recent travel experiences and what all of this could mean for the future of aviation and travel. I am not a doctor or epidemiologist so my health expertise is limited to what my doctor friends tell me and what I read from the World Health Organization or CDC.


A lot of corporations have already put restrictions on travel. Some have said no travel to places affected by the virus while others have stopped all non-essential travel. The impact that these travel restrictions will have on the travel industry are already being felt. For example, Lufthansa has announced a 50% cut in capacity. That’s huge.

In addition, the extent to which the entire Airbus A380 fleet (14 aircraft) can be temporarily taken out of service in Frankfurt and Munich is currently being examined.

They are even considering grounding the A380 during the cuts!

Danny Lee of the South China Morning Post has also reported on Cathay’s cuts:

Hong Kong’s battered flagship airline will reduce overall flight capacity by about 30 per cent, its chief executive Augustus Tang Kin-wing said on Tuesday.

The carrier, one of Asia’s premium airlines and one of the biggest corporate victims of several months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong, has seen passenger numbers collapse by 50 per cent in recent days, sources said, citing comments from a briefing on Monday led by Mark Hoey, the airline’s general manager of operations.

Again, huge. Cathay has already been struggling with the protests in Hong Kong and are now doing what they can to save cash and keep the airline viable.

On the United States side of things, all of the major carriers have significantly reduced their amount of flying to Asia. These reductions started with China and Hong Kong but have been expanded to Japan, South Korea, and other Asian destinations. A recently leaked internal memo to United Airlines staff stated that the international flight schedule will be reduced by 20% in April and those cuts will likely last until the end of May. Domestic flying will also see cuts of around 10% in April and it is unclear when that capacity will return to the schedule. You can read the full memo on JonNYC’s Twitter post.

All of these cuts add up to real dollars. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has stated that the coronavirus could impact global airline revenue anywhere between $63 billion and $113 billion. There is not much to say to that except, wow. The landscape of the airlines could drastically change by the time this illness is contained and the number of cases starts to dwindle.

*Update – I have left this post in a draft form as I wrote it. As the news has evolved, I have tried to update the post. Some of the latest news from Delta is that bookings are down 25-30% (worse than expected) and that demand erosion is very evident. Not good times for airlines. That’s the story.

My Recent Travel Experiences

For me, my recent flights and overall travel experiences have been relatively uneventful and normal. What has surprised me the most is that the airports I frequent (O’Hare, Portland, Newark, and Montreal) have been very busy even as airline schedules have been reduced. A lot of travelers are wiping down their seat area with sterile wipes and wearing masks and/or gloves. There is also the strange phenomenon of seeing people leave the restroom without washing their hands, a bizarre choice in these times.

Personally I have tried to be more aware of touching my face. It’s more difficult than it seems, especially while I sit and work on my laptop. I think the best advice is not “No face touching” but to be aware of when you are doing it and to make an effort to correct the behavior. There is no way you’re going to stop it completely so don’t beat yourself up over it.

What should you be doing with your travel plans? Make sure the flights and hotels are still open and operating as expected. If you are worried about travel, all three of the major US carriers (Delta, United, and American) are allowing changes for free for flights until late April. Call your airline and move the trip. If you are still planning to take your trip, wash your hands, be aware of how much you touch your face, and cover your mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing.

The Future

I am generally concerned about the airline industry and the travel industry as a whole. A number of airlines are already struggling, cutting massive numbers of flights yet hoping to stay alive long enough for demand to bounce back. A few more months of depressed travel and the potential for airlines being unable to sustain their operations financial becomes much more real. The same could be said for industries where customers showing up is the whole business (restaurants, brick & mortar stores, etc). Fewer people coming in means less cash while expenses stay the same. That’s what concerns me the most.

United’s new elite program

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United started 2020 by implementing a “new” measure for elite qualification. They call them “Premier Qualifying Points” (PQPs) and “Premier Qualifying Flights” (PQFs). United’s claim is that this new system will make determining your qualification numbers easier to track.

We also wanted to get rid of factors like fare class multipliers, which made it harder to track your qualifying activity.

After about a month of flying with this new system implemented, I wanted to share my thoughts, likes, and dislikes of the new program.

Snowy morning at Newark.
I’ll be fairly blunt in my feelings, I think the move to PQPs by United has little to do with how hard it is to track your elite progress and more to do with how much money you spend on them. The old method was not difficult to track, in fact, it was quite simple. There were tables with how much you would earn and United would even show you how much a set of flights would earn during the booking process (they do this for PQPs as well). No, United is looking to thin the ranks of their 1K flyers and the easiest way to do that is to up the amount required to qualify. Distance flown during the year no longer matters, simply the dollars you spend on the airline.

The new way of tracking your progress is not easier, especially if you fly on United’s partners like Lufthansa or Air Canada. You have to figure out how many award miles those partner flights would earn, which is a task in and of itself, see this table a kind FlyerTalk member put together. It is slightly deceptive for United to tout the simplicity of the new program when it really isn’t all that simple.

The other part of United’s new system that I find disingenuous is the fact that for 1K status they require 54 flights or 6,000 more PQPs than the base requirement. 54 flights is a lot of flights and flyers get no bonus or multiplier for flights in a premium cabin. Meaning you could get 18,000 PQPs flying first class across the country every few weeks but not hit 54 flights. My guess is that this is intentional to force those types of flyers to spend more time flying United and their partners.

The good news is that just about every dollar (excluding taxes) spent on United and partners is eligible to earn PQPs. This includes award co-pays, paid upgrades, preferred seat purchases, and economy plus seating subscriptions. So at least you as a customer are being rewarded for the extra cash you spend on United. I don’t know that I would go out of my way to give United that extra cash, but if you are already flying Star Alliance and United then it is a small perk.

Overall, it’s easy to tell how I feel about United’s 2020 changes. I think the airline is focused solely on how much their customers spend and I question how sustainable that is if and when the economy takes a hit. How quickly can the airline turn around and revise the frequent flyer program to accommodate a fluctuating economy? United has had issues rolling out some of the perks of the program, namely the ability to use an increased number of PlusPoints to immediately upgrade an itinerary. It’s a feature that allows you, the traveler, to bypass others on the upgrade list by using more PlusPoints. United is waiting until February to roll this feature out and it’s unclear why. The airline could be having technical issues or, they could be trying to avoid having a rush of PlusPoints used as their validity of January 31, 2020 comes up. My gut says it’s the latter.

I am interested to see how United tweaks the program, if at all. Airlines seem to be chasing the bottom line and with their latest program changes, United seems to be at the front of the chase. People will continue to fly United because they need to get from point A to point B but I don’t know that loyalty beyond that will exist, especially as people realize they won’t requalify. I’d love to hear what you think about United’s program changes, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts.

Best Earbuds for Travel and Everyday Commuting?

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I accidentally left my primary pair of headphones, the BeatsX, at home this week. I resorted to a second pair of earbuds that I keep in my bag but rarely use, the Soundcore Liberty Neos. Neither of these headphones are ideal and with the recent AirPod Pro release I got to thinking, what would be the perfect pair of headphones for me, a heavy traveling, daily subway commuting, talking on the phone user?

The BeatsX are very user friendly, there are controls that allow pause/play and volume, all on the cable that connects the two earbuds. The downsides I have with the BeatsX are the following:

  • The cable connecting the two headphones is a single point of failure. Any kind of fray inside the cable renders the headphones useless.
  • For long term use, they aren’t the most comfortable headphones. After a few hours, I have to remove them or I get a headache.
  • No active noise cancellation. The headphones use the seal between them and your ear to minimize how much outside sound you hear, but it isn’t the greatest and it makes you feel very isolated when walking.

The Soundcore Liberty Neos don’t have a cable between the headphones and the only actions you can perform without using your paired device are moving forward and backward a track. There are no volume controls on the earbuds themselves. However, they are very comfortable and I left them in my ears on an entire transcontinental flight recently without any kind of pain or discomfort during the flight.

This got me thinking though, are the new Airpod Pros worth an investment? What about the Powerbeats Pros? I have been intrigued by the Powerbeats Pro product simply because it’s a more secure in-ear earbud. At the same time, the Airpod Pros have noise cancelling functionality built-in and that is really attractive given all the time I spend on planes or in the subway. Neither of these headphones is cheap so it makes the choice a little more difficult. Ideally I would carry a single pair of headphones. Any suggestions on which ones those should be?

 

* This post contains affiliate links to products on Amazon. These links pay me if readers click them.

Airlines have still not perfected “spend”

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Ever since a number of airlines have implemented a dollars or “spend” calculation into their elite statuses there have been complaints. The complaints have escalated as the required amount of spending has gone up for most levels over the last couple of years. My complaint is a little different in that I understand a need for dollars spent to be used in the awarding of elite status on the carriers, however, the systems that do the calculation are finicky and you, the traveler, have to be diligent in tracking the amount you have spent and what the airline has awarded you.

A few dollars here or there may not seem like a big impact but when you are traveling every week and maybe live in an area that sees frequent fare wars (lower fares), then those few dollars add up over time. A few of my coworkers are in this exact situation. They live in a location where there is a lot of competition and fares frequently reflect that. They also travel every week but even with easily earning elite status with miles flown, they are struggling to meet their airline’s spend requirements.

I recently had a work trip overseas. I was set to fly Portland-San Francisco-Munich-Prague. After arriving in San Francisco my connection to Munich was delayed and I would miss the final leg to Prague. I asked to be moved to San Francisco-Zurich-Prague and was accommodated, making it to my final destination only a little later than planned. After the trip, I was looking at my account activity on United and noticed that I received significantly fewer PQDs (Premier Qualifying Dollars) than what was on my receipt for the trip. I contacted United and they did “correct” the number but it still does not match what I would have originally earned. Knowing that I will earn the needed spend for elite status, I am not going to pursue this any further with United as it really isn’t worth my time, but without looking closely I would not have noticed that I was shorted.

The systems the airlines use for tracking all of their data are complex and the integration between those systems is even more complex, so as one system receives or creates incorrect data it is sent to other systems and the disparity becomes harder to track. For example, elite spend is calculated without fees or taxes associated to the fare. A $500 ticket may only generate $400 of elite spend. If that is somehow miscalculated as $340 then you missed out on $60 that now has to be reconciled in some manner. In some cases the airlines can manually correct the elite spend directly but in others they have to manipulate the underlying ticket.

For my ticket, what I believe happened is that when I was moved to San Francisco-Zurich, my ticket had to be refared, meaning they had to recalculate the value of the ticket and in doing so, moved me to a lower fare than my original ticket. I doubt this was intentional, they were just trying to get me on the flight, but the point is, in changing the ticket, the amount I paid for the ticket was no longer calculated correctly.

The moral of the story: pay attention to your accounts and don’t hesitate to contact the airlines when you see a discrepancy. If the airlines want to enforce spend as an elite qualifying criteria then you need to be diligent in making sure the values are correct.

Something doesn’t add up with this unaccompanied minor story

ssegraves

United at Newark
There is a story coming out today on a number of different news sites stating that United put a 14-year-old passenger on the wrong connecting flight. He was set to go to Stockholm on SAS but ended up on a Eurowings flight to Düsseldorf. Those two flights board next to each other and the gate agents are the same contract staff for both airlines

However, when I read through them, something does not add up.

From the Yahoo News! story:

A parent is blaming “the idiots” at United Airlines for putting his 14-year-old son on the wrong international flight, which would have taken him to Germany, instead of his intended destination, Sweden.

The young boy, Anton Berg, flew as an “unaccompanied minor” on June 30 with United Airlines from Raleigh, Durham, N.C. to Newark, N.J. From there, his connecting flight was supposed to take him directly to his destination, Stockholm, with Scandinavian Airlines, but he got on a flight to Dusseldorf, operated by Eurowings, instead.

So a 14-year-old traveling alone as an unaccompanied minor was put on the wrong connecting flight. Per the same article, United has apologized:

United Airlines has since refunded the $150 fee charged for directing the unaccompanied minor. In a statement provided to Yahoo Lifestyle, a representative said that the airline has “been in frequent contact with the young man’s family to confirm his safety and to apologize for this issue.”

What doesn’t add up is that the story and United’s unaccompanied minor policy don’t match. Add on top of that, the child was connecting onto a partner flight that was being serviced by a contract set of agents and things really get complicated.

From United’s website:

Our unaccompanied minor service is for children who are 5-14 years old and traveling without a parent, legal guardian or someone who is at least 18 years old. These young travelers also need to follow certain requirements for their safety:

  • Unaccompanied minors can only travel on nonstop United or United Express® flights. They can’t use our unaccompanied minor service on codeshare flights and other flights operated by our partner airlines.
  • United does not offer unaccompanied minor service connecting to or from other airlines’ flights.
  • Children younger than 5 can’t travel as unaccompanied minors, even if they’re flying with an older unaccompanied child.
  • Unaccompanied minor service is not available for children older than 14. Young adults ages 15 to 17 can travel alone on any United- or United Express®-operated flight.
  • It costs $150 each way for every two children traveling using the unaccompanied minor service.

The unaccompanied minor “service” is really a fee to make sure that your child makes it from your care to the care of whoever is picking them up from their destination. It is not an escort/babysitting service making sure your kid gets on the correct flight. In this particular case, it sounds like the parents skirted the rules of the program to try and get United to connect their son onto an SAS flight, which is not permitted for an unaccompanied minor (it says so directly in the policy). In fact, part of the reason the airlines don’t offer connections anymore is exactly this scenario, a potentially lost child somewhere in the process.

Once the minor was in the care of the contract agents for SAS and Eurowings, there was another breakdown where it was not understood what flight the child should be on. He was inadvertently directed to the Eurowings flight by their staff, not United’s.

The whole story comes down to the parents trying to be slick and skirt the unaccompanied minor rules and having it backfire. Rather than just roll with the punches they blame the airlines (and really focus on the wrong one in my opinion). The contract staff for the two European carriers screwed up and they need to fix whatever flaw they have that let them issue a boarding pass for the wrong flight.