badice.com – musings for the masses
After a long trip to West Texas I am well rested and back in Houston. We spent six days driving around in the vast expanse that is Big Bend Country and checking out the small towns along the way.
Over the next few days I will be posting pictures from the trip and some different thoughts on dying towns and what happens when pretentious ideas overcome an area.
Nothing like a few aborted landings to get the blood flowing in the morning!
On Wednesday, February 18, 2009, Continental Airlines published a mistake fare from Seattle to Tokyo-Narita for a price of $590 after taxes. The fare was a “B” fare, a type that earns 150% elite miles. By taking red-eye flights, the ticket could be routed through Houston, giving it the earning power of 25,551 elite miles (essentially locking in Continental’s lowest tiered status for a flier). For Continental, this was a rare event, a severely under priced ticket on a business heavy route is not something that they do very often, but for other airlines, this type of thing is common. So mistake fares beg the question, is it ok to buy these tickets knowing that they are mistakes?
I’ll be honest, I bought one of the Continental flights to Tokyo. The thought of passing up the miles was just too hard to bear, but late last night, I made the decision to cancel the ticket and use the money to buy a camera. The length of the trip was the main reason I cancelled because the trip would essentially be me on a plane for close to 48 hours. Also, if I am going to Tokyo, I would like to spend more than a day there exploring all of the sights and I just could not pull that off with the fare.
Where do I stand on mistake fares? It is a little bit of a tricky question, because on one hand, the airline made the mistake and I simply caught it. If I walked into a store and was sold an item for $10 and left but the manager ran after me to tell me that the item was actually $100, I would probably not be too happy and would want to keep the item for the price I paid. On the other hand, if I knew the item was actually $100 but let the clerk charge me the wrong amount, I think there is a moral dilemma. Which is why I am torn, we see these fares as mistakes but the average traveller sees a great price on a trip.
There have been a few cases recently where airlines have refused to honor tickets where they had made a mistake, the one that has plastered the internet is the case of Swiss Airlines publishing a $0 Business Class fare and refusing to honor it. Eventually, Swiss honored some of the tickets, but I have to wonder if they were a little jipped here. The guy that is mentioned in the article knew that the price of $0 was not right, but went ahead and bought the ticket. Yes, Swiss should be on top of their game when publishing fares, but should we not expect our fellow man to have some sort of moral fortitude?
I am not completely convinced either way, but I would like to hear what you think! Leave a comment letting me know where you stand.
My laziness has subsided and the majority of pictures from my trip to Paris and Brussels have been uploaded.
I started on January 15, 2009, with a flight to Newark, New Jersey to meet-up with my friend Steve for our flight to Paris. The Boeing 777 was nearly empty, with passengers only in every other row. This gave me a chance to stretch out and make a bed for myself, leading to some decent rest before arriving in Paris.
Because of amazing tailwinds (upwards of 200 mph), we arrived in Paris in five and a half hours, leaving us to stand in the immigration line for an hour before it opened. A quick trip to Gare du Nord train station to lock up our bags and we were off to explore the city. Notre Dame was the first stop, complete with a self-guided tour. There is a lot of begging that takes place outside on the steps of the cathedral with young girls coming up to tourists asking “Speak English? We need money”.
The next stop was the Louvre and the Arc de Triumphe, both of which are a little underwhelming but interesting. However, I was fascinated with the efficiency of the Paris Metro, especially when I compared it to the system in Brussels (more on that later). In Paris, the trains were on time, for the most part clean, and the system maps were easy to understand.
After the Louvre we decided that our time was limited if we were to catch our high speed train to Brussels, so we made our way back to Gare du Nord, grabbed our bags and hopped on the Thalys, the high speed option to a bunch of different destinations in northwestern Europe. Going 180mph through the French countryside was an experience with closeup objects going by in a blur. The trip only lasted an hour and a half and by 6pm we were in Brussels.
Brussels has life. Not the kind of life you see in Chicago or San Francisco where it is abuzz with busyness but the kind of life where people are cordial and everyone seems to enjoy each other and the city in a pleasant manner. There is a big tourist element and some of the local businesses prey on travelers and their wallets. I noticed my back pocket being brushed a little more than usual, though, I know this is a problem all over the world. The other type of preying I saw was restaurant owners/workers doing a kind of bait-and-switch where they offer great specials outside just to lure customers in, then change prices once the people are seated. My understanding is that the Belgian authorities are attempting to eradicate this behavior and maybe in the near future it will be complete history.
The beers in Belgium deserve their own paragraph, not only in a literary sense but by demand of the taste buds. I do not think I tasted a single bad beer, every single one was pleasing to the palette in their own way. There were a few that I did not prefer, but not because they did not have flavor. All beers brewed in Belgium are required by law to have their own glass, so walking into a pub in Belgium is a lesson in glassware. The bartenders have also mastered the art of pouring beers dependent on their type and each have their own artful way of getting the beer from the bottle to the glass. My favorite beer while there, Chimay, was dark with a fruit and nut after flavor and it lacked the bitter undertones that make dark beer so difficult for people to handle.
The Brussels public transportation system is a complete opposite from the beer. It might be the worst public transportation system in the world, ranking right up there with the BART in San Francisco in terms of platform smells. There are maps of the system everywhere, the only problem is, they are all in different languages and none explain that some “trains” are in fact, buses. So, you walk into a subway station thinking you are catching a train, when in fact you have to be on the surface catching a bus. Not a user friendly setup.
Overall, Brussels is well worth a visit. From beer to food to sights, the city has a lot of them and there is even more outside of Brussels, including Brugge and Antwerp, which are rumored to be wonderful cities.
To see more pictures from Paris, Brussels, and the flights, click here.
This coming weekend, February 6-8, Continental Airlines is hosting a large party, tours, and Q&A sessions for frequent fliers, regardless of what airline a person flies on. The event has already filled up and sounds like it will be even better than last year, which I also attended.
The event is a great opportunity to meet with Continental employees, including the CEO, CFO, and COO, as well as a lot of the front line people you see everyday at the airport. Questions are asked and answers are given in a very straightforward way.
So, I’ll open up the floor to any questions you have. Just post a comment or send me an e-mail and I will do my best to get your question answered by the appropriate person!
I arrived back in Houston from Amsterdam last night after one of the longest travel days I have ever experienced. Originally, six of us planned to fly from Brussels to Newark and go our separate ways from there but Continental decided that was not going to happen.
The plane from Newark to Brussels was delayed for a few hours due to mechanical problems and then ran into weather issues at Newark, delaying the arrival of the plane in Brussels for approximately six hours. My friend and I called Continental and had ourselves rebooked through Amsterdam and then on to Houston. The good news is, we all made it home safely.
The trip was fantastic and Belgium is at the top of my list for another visit. The weather did not cooperate nearly as well as I had hoped but I managed to stay warm most of the time.
Brussels is a very interesting city with a very easily spotted contrast in old and new, classic and modern. The beers are some of the best I have ever had and were dirt cheap compared to their cousins here in the States.
I will be posting pictures from the trip later today and this evening and will hopefully do a full recap at some point this evening.
Today I start a short trip to Paris and Brussels. This trip has been a long time in planning and came together only a few weeks ago. Some friends and I will be meeting up in Brussels and doing a short beer tasting around the city with a side trip to Brugge.
We started planning this in the middle of last year and the fares at the time were completely unreasonable but over time the prices have nose-dived and I was able to find a cheap ticket to Paris and connect to Brussels via the Thalys train.
I will be flying back to the States on Monday, January 19. The flights to and from Paris and Brussels are completely empty. I should have a whole row to sleep in.
Maybe this will become a yearly thing. I decided to post a list of cities I visited in 2008.
One or more nights was spent in all locations except for Amarillo, where we spent an entire day. Cities marked with an asterisk (*) were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.
Continental Airlines flight 1404 has reportedly run-off the runway at Denver International Airport. Smoke was reported to be coming from the wrecked plane. I hope everyone made it off the flight safely.
[EDIT] More information about the crash posted below
There is a lot of information coming out of Denver as to what caused the flight to exit the runway and catch fire. Some reports state that the wing broke-away from the plane and others that weather was a factor. This is all speculation and until the NTSB has had time to explore the crash site we will not know exactly what happened.
The good news is that all passengers and crew made it off of the flight safely and were taken to area hospitals. A few had severe injuries but were listed in stable condition.
Some information on the airplane itself:
I found a few pictures of the 737-500 involved in the crash (here and here)
There is also a Twitter user who was a passenger on the aircraft when it ran off of the runway, 2drinksbehind
It appears that Continental ferried a 737-800 to Denver to pick up the passengers who are stuck in Denver due to the crash.
Continental, my airline of choice, announced launching Houston to Frankfurt service starting November 1, 2009. The route will be flown on a Boeing 767-200, with 25 BusinessFirst and 149 economy seats.
This announcement coincides with Continental’s entrance into the Star Alliance and will be a great compliment to the current Lufthansa flight that services Houston and Frankfurt. In the past, the only option to Frankfurt on Continental was to connect in Newark, now it will be a simple check-in and go.
