Author: ssegraves

25 Years of PHP

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I know, I’m a day late… On June 8, 1995 Rasmus Lerdorf announced “Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools)” on a CGI usenet board (now converted to a Google Group). PHP quickly became a great way to make dynamic websites and it is still going strong today. I started using PHP in 2001 and I still turn to it for projects, including this website. Sure it has its quirks and bugs but it has been an evolving language that to this day has a loyal following.

New programming languages have been created and I am sure a lot of people have moved on to them (Node, Go, Rust, etc.) but PHP still drives a large chunk of the internet, something like 80 million websites. I have met a lot of friends because of the language including Chrispian, Patrick, Brad, Brandon, and many others at WordCamp events, or programming meetups. I am really thankful for those friendships.

Anyway, I’m happy for Rasmus Lerdorf and for the language.

United may need a dictionary

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You may remember that I posted about United’s refusal to refund tickets for cancelled flights, instead offering passengers ETCs (electronic travel certificates) for future bookings. During the crazy times we are living, United is trying to preserve as much cash as possible. Their recent earnings call statedearnings call stated a first quarter net loss of $639 million or $7.1 million/day. But, United is still partaking in rather peculiar and misleading behavior. Recently, the airline has skirted Department of Transportation rules for refunds by claiming only cancellations where the customer could not be re-accommodated on another flight within 6 hours of the original were due a refund. The DOT website states the following:

In the following situations, passengers are entitled to a refund of the ticket price and/or associated fees.

Cancelled Flight – A passenger is entitled to a refund if the airline cancelled a flight, regardless of the reason, and the passenger chooses not to travel.

Schedule Change/Significant Delay – A passenger is entitled to a refund if the airline made a significant schedule change and/or significantly delays a flight and the passenger chooses not to travel.

That seems pretty straightforward. If your flight gets cancelled, you get a refund. Full stop. Back to my recent experience, United refused to give a refund for multiple flight cancellations on the same itinerary and the only alternative was to spend the night at O’Hare on my way to Montreal. As a result, I filed a DOT complaint, explaining the situation and giving screenshots of the flight cancellations. A few days later I received a reply from a United representative that my complaint was received and that a refund was being processed. Fast forward 17 business days which is the average refund time with United lately and I received the following in my inbox:

Did you catch that? Here it is as plain text (emphasis mine)

Sometimes forces beyond our control make it hard for us to give you the best experience, and your travel doesn’t go to plan. To thank you for your patience, we’ve gone ahead and refunded your ticket.

The Electronic Travel Certificate may be used for future travel on United – and United Express®-operated flights, and it must be redeemed by the expiration date using the PIN number provided.

I’ve always thought of a refund as a return of my payment back to me. If I pay with cash, the vendor gives me cash back (or a debit card that I can use anywhere). If I pay with a credit card the vendor returns the payment back to the credit card. Apparently, United thinks “refund” means “Electronic Travel Certificate”. Again, they are likely trying to preserve cash but this is not just disingenuous, it’s lying. This is not a refund, it is a credit that you have to use with United. You can’t use that money for something else, like food. All I can think of is a family planning on a taking a vacation when all of the Covid-19 shutdowns begin. Their flights cancel and they call United and are told that they’ll get a refund, then they receive an e-mail like what I got and now they believe they’re out that cash. It is not right that United is playing with words to try and keep as much cash as they can as the airline industry suffers.

All I can think of is Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. United keeps using “refund” in their language but I do not think it means what they think it means.

My advice to you, the traveler, is to be persistent. I followed up with United after receiving this email and after a lengthy back and forth, I clearly explained that I did not cancel the flights voluntarily and that the offered alternative flights were not acceptable. I have since been told that I will receive a refund to my original form of payment in 21 business days… It seems United has a single intern processing all refunds.

Influencer shine begins to dull

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The “influencers” on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms who get paid to push products are starting to see their reach fade as COVID-19 continuestheir reach fade as COVID-19 continues.

For luxury influencers like Israel, it’s an opportunity to reflect on his industry.

“I’m trying to be very real at the moment,” he says, adding that he won’t buy any more Hermes bags this year.

Poor guy.

I have always been a bit grossed out by the influencer culture but the total tone deaf dialog in that article just confirms the sinking feeling in my stomach about the industry.

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

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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

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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.