{"id":49286,"date":"2015-01-19T17:58:53","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T17:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/19\/flying-the-cattle-car-skies.html"},"modified":"2015-01-19T17:58:53","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T17:58:53","slug":"flying-the-cattle-car-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/19\/flying-the-cattle-car-skies.html","title":{"rendered":"Flying the Cattle Car Skies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear United Airlines:<\/p>\n<p>While I have enjoyed the lowest tier of Frequent Flyer Privilege the last couple of years, due to business travel, I don&#39;t love it so much that, because I didn&#39;t fly enough miles this past year, I&#39;d be willing to spend <b>$2,449<\/b> to reinstate it. Really.<\/p>\n<p>The free Economy Plus upgrades were nice, as was the being able to get on board earlier, and go through the faster TSA line.  But not <i>that<\/i> nice. For overseas flights, I&#39;ll pony up the difference the the few inches extra. For security lines, I have my Trusted Traveler cred.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, United service has gotten progressively worse over the past couple of years. It&#39;s just as convenient to fly Southwest out of Denver, most of the time, and I get free baggage from them as well as drink tickets on my birthday.<\/p>\n<p>$2500? Not bloody likely.<\/p>\n<p>Love,<br \/>Me<\/p>\n<p> <a rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"ot-hashtag\" href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/s\/%23unitedairlines\">#unitedairlines<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div style='text-align:center'><a href='https:\/\/plus.google.com\/photos\/101083456815352083930\/albums\/6106112181461565665\/6106112190598623922'><img src='https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/-axm9kGRITFE\/VL1Er49QMrI\/AAAAAAAC9cc\/d4M1va6c3xk\/20110708_inq_air08-a%255B1%255D.JPG?imgmax=660' style='max-width:650px;' \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div style='text-align:center'>\n<a href='' style='width:50px;height:50px;display:inline-block;background-size:cover;background-image:url();'><\/a>\u00a0\n<\/div>\n<p><span style='font-size:small;'><a href='https:\/\/plus.google.com\/101083456815352083930\/posts\/D2EL6FjeQPx'>View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear United Airlines: While I have enjoyed the lowest tier of Frequent Flyer Privilege the last couple of years, due to business travel, I don&#39;t love it so much that, because I didn&#39;t fly enough miles this past year, I&#39;d be willing to spend $2,449 to reinstate it. Really. The free Economy Plus upgrades were &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/19\/flying-the-cattle-car-skies.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Flying the Cattle Car Skies&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[803],"class_list":["post-49286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","tag-unitedairlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/20110708_inq_air08-a5B15D.JPGimgmax=660.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13363,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/12\/fly_the_friendly_skies_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":49286,"position":0},"title":"Fly the friendly skies","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Jan-09 7:54am","format":false,"excerpt":"Isn't that nice? United informs me, helpfully, that for only $1675, I can buy enough \"Elite Qualifying Miles\" (a bit under 12K) to qualify for United Premier Status, which will...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29823,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/15\/losing-your-luggage-is-one-thing.html","url_meta":{"origin":49286,"position":1},"title":"Losing your luggage is one thing","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 15-Aug-12 10:34am","format":false,"excerpt":".. losing\u00a0a 10-year-old girl is downright awfulWe've sent Kay on a couple of unaccompanied flights, and not only was everything okay, but the airline involved was really paranoid about the whole thing to make sure that she went on and came off and into the appropriate hands.Of course, those flights\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fconsumerist-com.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com%2Fassets%2Fnitedlineee-165x110.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5625,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/09\/travel_notes_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":49286,"position":2},"title":"Travel Notes","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Feb-04 8:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"On the journey home from Sacramento last week ... United's check-in kiosks rock, especially since they are now combining them with baggage service. Only drawback -- you need customer service...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38256,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/15\/fly-the-somewhat-archaic-skies.html","url_meta":{"origin":49286,"position":3},"title":"Fly the Somewhat Archaic Skies","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 15-Jul-13 10:49am","format":false,"excerpt":"Really, United? \u00a0Even after combining your web pages with Continental, your \"Edit E-Mail Address\" is asking about whether I'm receiving \/ sending email on my \"Personal Digital Assistance (Palm, PocketPC, etc.)\"? \u00a0Really?Are you still using smoke signals to communicate with the tower? View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9722,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/03\/superman_return.html","url_meta":{"origin":49286,"position":4},"title":"Superman Returns (soon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-May-06 8:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"The trailer is loose for the upcoming movie ... Overall impressions? Gutsy yet very satisfying move to not simply reboot the movie series, but return to it (ignoring the last...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Comics &amp; Comic Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Comics &amp; Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/superman.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12615,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/10\/buying_privileges.html","url_meta":{"origin":49286,"position":5},"title":"Buying privileges","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 10-Mar-08 8:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So once upon a time, United had frequent flier awards. If you flew X miles with them, you could trade in those miles for flights, but, more important, as you...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}