Closing the cabin door

When I got busy in real life a little over a month ago I truly thought that I'd be back to this blog in a few weeks and would, fairly quickly, get back into the swing of things. Then a funny thing happened: I stopped blogging and realized that I really didn't have any desire to start again. Because of this, I'm shutting down the blog and don't see myself making a return to blogging any time soon. At least, not in the same manner that I've been approaching blogging since I started back in 2006. In that time I've blogged numerous elections, many Houston political events, State politics, some limited national politics and a whole bunch of City of Houston quality of life stuff. I've also dabbled in sports, travel, food and even won an award for my old blog (Lose an Eye, It's a Sport). Right before winning however I shuttered LaE which then guaranteed that I'll never win an award again.

Thank you to everyone who's been reading here all this time, even those of you with whom I disagree. With a few, obvious, exceptions I have always appreciated the banter. Thanks to to my friends at BlogHouston, the late and lamented Texas Watchdog, Perry vs. World and a host of others with whom I've shared many a beer and Idea over the years. Thank you as well to the Political Science Department at St. Thomas University, especially Dr. Taylor for some great reads, good beer and good discussion.

Finally, a shot goes out to the Houston Chronicle and the rest of Texas Lockstep Political Media. If it weren't for y'all, there would have been no blog throughout the years. It was the Houston Chronicle that got me started in blogging, and really their writers, Mrs. White, The writers formerly known as Mrs. White, the Apple Dumpling Gang (all iterations of the Chronicle Editorial Board) truly awful opinion columns and a host of agenda based reporting kept me going. In recent years, as ChronBlog fell off in credibility and relevance, it was the truly awful writing of PolitifarceTX and the "newsish" style of Texas Tribune that kept it interesting. For the last few months, however, I realized that I just don't care. Probably after almost no-one in the TLSPM questioned whether or not hero worship was a good thing did I realize that I'm just tilting at windmills. State political media in Texas is dead, continuing to blog about it is akin to kicking a corpse. Best to just ignore them, for the most part, and move on.

To be fair though, there are some reporters at the Chronicle that do some good work. Brian Rodgers is one, as is Mike Morris (at times) and I still find the writing of Alison Cook to be very entertaining, Hoffman as well. So I'll continue reading them and I'll continue being active on Twitter. I might even decide to post from time to time on sports and travel on another blog, but my blogging political days are behind me.

So that's it then.


Goodbye Houston.

Slow blogging alert as real life intrudes

Due to a busy real (read: paid) life blogging here is going to be on slow-down for the foreseeable future.

I'd love to sit down and blog 4-5 times a week but recent events are making that difficult (at best).

Until then, I'll leave you with some thoughts to ponder:

Travel related:

1. Why have Wi-Fi on a plane with no power ports in the seats? (I'm looking at you United)

2. When was the last time you boarded a United flight that was NOT delayed?  (It's been a while for me)

3. Are you considering flying a route that's booked to a 787? (I'm not, at least for a while)

4. Now that revenue requirements are here, what's going to change in how you travel? (My travel is going to change pretty drastically, I'll outline how in a future post.)


Non-travel related:

1. Is this the worst non-solution to a city made problem this year? (It's got to be pretty close)

2. Is Critical Mass doing more to hurt their cause than help? (Short answer: yes)

3. Has Houston City government lost it? (There is data to make that case.)

4. Is Harris County spending out of control? (Of most concern is that there's a total lack of voter/taxpayer input. These folks are a a spending binge with no end in sight.)

5. Are the Astros at-risk of losing a generation of fans? (Yes)

You'll want to use those United Premier Miles before your status expires....

...or you're going to pay a lot more should something go wrong.

United increases award change fees for non-Premier members effective immediately. Scottrick, Hack My Trip

Talk about a day of United devaluations! It’s still June 18th on the west coast, but I noticed that United has changed its award fees for non-Premier members on tickets issued on or after June 19, 2013.Details in the screenshot below. Premier members are not affected by this change.This does not affect tickets issued on or before June 18, 2013!

In a word, ouch. And boo on United for trying to sneak this through (with no advance notice) when it's expecting to see many travelers falling off of the Premier rolls and onto non-Premier member status once their revenue requirements kick in.  In short, not only does United not want a certain type of passenger on their airline, but they also don't want to make it easy for them to use up their remaining miles as well.  My plan, such as it is, is to use all of my miles before I fully lose United Premier Status in 2015.  I'd advise everyone else to do that as well.  Don't stockpile your miles, because it's only going to get more difficult, and less lucrative, to use them in the future.

The flaw in United's business plan.

Last week I explained my reasons for abandoning my pursuit of Premier status with United given their recent decision to require high revenue requirements for level attainment.  In that story I mentioned that United doesn't have their house in order to attempt to charge a premium that would gather them the high-value, high-ticket price fliers that they're obviously craving.

Then I ran across this story, which placed all of United's flaws into stark relief:

United Airlines forgets toilet paper on 10-hour flight from San Francisco to London. Robin Wilkey, Huffington Post.

Before embarking on a 10-hour international trip from San Francisco to London, the crew for United Flight 931 failed to stock the plane with toilet paper, forcing flight attendants--and passengers--to improvise.
Some of the bathrooms reportedly ran out en route, leading flight attendants to stock them with cocktail napkins instead.
Passenger reactions ranged from eye rolls to outrage.
"That's disgusting, that's just so terrible," said United passenger Gretchen Holland to ABC. "If I'm paying for a ticket, that should include the price of toilet paper, I would think."
United later apologized for the incident, releasing the following statement:

We apologize to our customers on this flight for the inconvenience and would like the opportunity to welcome them back.

 United explained that if the plane had stopped to stock toilet paper once the shortage was discovered, the flight would have been delayed.

Now, I don't fault United for deciding to go ahead with the flight, after all, it would have been much worse had the plane been late and a group of people missed connections.  I do fault them for their ham-handed customer service, ridiculous stuff that shows a remarkable lack of understanding of how to deal with issues and, more importantly, the people who are dealing with them.

It also shows United's increasing lack of attention to details.  The fact is, since the merger, this is a mediocre airline with serious operational issues that is taking a huge gamble in telling a large portion of their loyalty base that they no longer wish to do business with them. On top of that, they're treating the remaining customers like an afterthought.

That United is scrambling for a solution right now is not in question. What will matter is whether or not the industry has the wherewithal to take advantage of United's current weaknesses.  Historically in the industry t he answer is no.  Given that United will probably be OK, but I think there current business plan is doomed to fail.

Where United and I part ways (despite me agreeing with the business decision)

By now, if you're a MileagePlus member, or just interested in traveling, you've probably heard about the recently announced changes to United's MileagePlus program.  Boiled down to it's essence, United is now adding revenue minimums in an attempt to cull out low-value, high-use Premier members by requiring minimum spend.

The new chart is as follows:

It all works out to 10 cents per mile needed to be spent to attain certain levels of status.  However, every dollar you pay in ticket costs will not go to qualifying as a PQD.  To whit:

The following spending counts toward the PQD requirement:

• Base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges
• Flights flown by United, United Express, or Copa Airlines
• Flights operated by a Star Alliance^® or a MileagePlus partner airline and issued on a United ticket (ticket number starting with 016)
• Economy Plus purchases

What this means is that taxes, fees and other government charges will not count toward your PQD making the total outlay required for qualification at various levels much, much* somewhat higher than that. As an example, the screenshot below is a typical fare breakdown (from ITA Matrix) of a United fare from IAH to LHR (London-Heathrow)

In the above example you have not spent approximately $1,100 toward your PQD, you have actually only earned $421* $878. This is without taking into consideration bag fees etc, which are free to an extent for most Premier members.  In order to increase the PQD on this fare, you can buy up to economy plus, greatly increasing the price of the ticket.  So in reality you are only receiving approximately 40-50% of your total outlay in PQD, which raises the cost per mile to somewhere around 20-25 12-13 cents per mile.  In effect, this makes buying an economy plus ticket next to worthless in terms of attaining Premier status.

Here's the thing:  That's exactly what United was trying to do when they rolled this out.  And I agree with their business logic 100%.

Yes, there are going to be those who whinge that "loyalty no longer matters to airlines" and they are about half-right.  Profitable loyalty matters, loyalty that's less (or not) profitable does not.  Especially when that less (or not) profitable loyalty sucks up the majority of available resources.  As I said, I'm OK with this.  It's a decision that United has made and it makes good business sense.  We're just at the moment where United and I part ways.

This is not to suggest that I'll never fly United again.  Flying out of Houston, I most certainly will. I might even fly on them enough to retain Silver Premier status, but I doubt it.  The fact is that I've been remaining loyal to United because there was something that was in it for me.  I would typically pay a little bit more (not a lot more mind you) to stick with the airline because my Gold Premier status made it worth my while.  All of that is changing now.

With the carrot of Premier status gone for the leisure traveler (it's still very much there for the business traveler) it's time to start judging the airlines on their merits, and by price.  United is rarely the cheapest option out of IAH.  Yes, with other airlines you have to connect (and that will be a factor in decisions) but those connections are often less dodgy than with UA because their planes have a tendency to be on time more often.  The fact is United, at this moment, is a very unreliable airline in relation to the rest of the industry.  Not only do they do a poor job of getting you to your destination on time, but their service is sub-par and their planes are (to be nice) starting to show their age.  While United has done some work to upgrade their premium cabins, their economy product is among the worst in the industry, especially on trans-continental flights.

The way I see it United is taking a big risk.  When everything started falling apart after the merger United lost a lot of high-value customers.  They seem to be thinking that, by culling the Premier ranks through revenue requirements, they're going to bring these passengers back into the fold.  The problem that I see is that United is still charging premium prices for an average product and hoping that people overlook that while they continue to get their house in order.

Because of all this the way I travel will most certainly change.  I'm going to be much more price conscious and will start to look at a la carte offerings (such as premium economy) much more closely as it relates to total ticket price. For those of you reading this of a credit card lean, I'm beginning to think that the airline branded credit card (unless you're not a light packer) is going to become somewhat worthless as other cards offer better points/miles values and increase flexibility.

Why limit yourself to one carrier when you have a choice of several?

*Note: As CW on twitter pointed out to me here. I made an error reading the fare schedule from Matrix software.  YQ is, of course, included. As always, I appreciate the free proof-reading.

How to take advantage of #BadMedia (Houston Ecomentalist Edition)

Last week I touched on some poor reporting by Chron Transportation reporter Dug Begley surrounding a ruling for a temporary injunction in Wisconsin that didn't do exactly what transit activists were suggesting.  This fact hasn't stopped Houston Tomorrow from doubling down on the mis-characterization of the ruling, and even going one step further and using the lazy reporting as a mask for credibility by appealing to the authority of a story they, quite obviously, fed to Houston's former newspaper of record.

Federal judge says sprawl, transit, must factor in to highway building decisions. Matt Dietrichson, Houston Tomorrow

A Wisconsin court ruling may require planners across the country to publicly consider the effects on sprawl and transit before approving highway expansions, according to The Houston Chronicle:

Never mind that the ruling, in no way, states what they are suggesting (a fact that was clearly established by reading the request for a temporary injunction). The real problem here is that Houston Tomorrow is using the implied authority of the Chronicle in a story where they provided much of the opinion themselves. 

Wisconsin court ruling could mean Houston thinks more about transit, Dug Begley, Chron.com

“It feels like it is almost the sky is the limit for our team on these kinds of issues to stop wasteful highway building and increase transit,” said Jay Blazek Crossley, program development and research director with Houston Tomorrow, an urban planning nonprofit.

(...)

Crossley said past decisions in the Houston region — building the Grand Parkway and Texas 288, widening U.S. 290 — were made with the full knowledge they would benefit future users and open up more land for development. The Wisconsin ruling, if it stands, helps ensure that planners have to explicitly study the effects of sprawl in a wider capacity than they do now, and have that discussion publicly.
“I think what the judge is talking about is meaningful public input,” Crossley said.

In fact, other than the snippet from the Natural Resources Defense council ALL of the "expert opinion" offered up in Begley's story comes from: Jay Blazek Crosby, Head of program development and research for......Houston Tomorrow.

So basically, Houston Tomorrow (and several other transit activists) displayed a stunning lack of knowledge about the trial process, were able to convince a reporter (who was either lazy or also possessed the same lack of knowledge about the legal process) to run a story touting the "ruling" as a potential game changer based SOLELY on their opinion, without bothering to include a dissenting opinion, and then touted that same story as being objective proof their opinions are correct.

Cozy relationship isn't it?