Weekly Roundup

Boeing CEO Out, Fake Service Animals, & Marriott Assault [Roundup]

Charlie Mortling

Mar 31, 2024 — 6 min read

This week has mellowed out in terms of drama, however we still saw some pretty big news headlines and the internet exploding over some fake service animals. It was a very opinionated week. The biggest headline of them all saw Boeing's CEO stepping down.

There were a couple of articles that I saw floating around about the Boeing CEO leaving, I think the general feeling is that it's a good thing to see management change and hopefully a better person fills those shoes. I also saw some opinionated articles saying that concerns about Boeing planes are overrated. I find this untrue as their recent overall record has shown they've learned nothing from the first two 737 MAX crashes.

For still some somber news, but not as saddening, Hyatt announced point changes to almost 200 hotels with most increasing their point redemptions. I love Hyatt hotels, they're always in a different class compared to Marriott or Hilton. My problem is that they don't have many hotels around the world, so working on status with them is difficult. I still think they're the best point value redemptions.

Just have to plug another guest article by me over at Eye of the Flyer. United has had a number of highly publicized incidents in the past few weeks. As such, the company announced that the FAA will be looking closer into their operations. As discussed in the article, this shouldn't concern anyone. Airline inspected keep us all safe.

Robinhood burst out on the news cycle this week, offering a 3x points card, which is unheard of in the credit card space. There are only a select few cards offering 2x points, and as pointed out, there's no way this is going to last. It will be used and abused and within just a few months we could see them putting heavy restrictions on these cards.

In all my years of point redemptions, I've never really had to think about replacing my frequent flyer number on a point ticket. It might be because that I mostly use my points to redeem business or first class tickets, where the majority of the perks I would get with my status are included with the ticket. However, this is inline with Alaska's terms, so I'm not sure why people are so mad.

Whenever I watch movies on an IFE screen (which is rare these days), I always seem to see a content warning about a movie being edited for any number of reasons. I am someone who doesn't want to see parts of movies being cut out just because, but I understand if a move features nudity. You never know who is sitting by you on a plane or who can see your screen. You're not watching the move alone, you have silent audience all around you.

The reason why I love my Chase Sapphire Reserve card over my American Express Platinum card is the restaurant access that it has. However, it seems like that's all coming to an end as Chase is axing the restaurant benefit from their cards. This leaves little value to me for Priority Pass, and I'm sure we'll see some people cancelling their cards because of this.

Fake service animals are a pain, I wish there were more punishments for someone lying about their service animals or fake documentation. While I am not saying that the dog in this situation was fake, I am speaking in general terms that it always seems like fake service animal owners get a slap on the risk. I would be ok with an airline ban if someone is found to have a fake service animal.

TSA PreCheck is the best, I don't care about the long lines more than I care about removing things from my luggage just to repack them again. It's nice to see more international carriers being added to this list. One stand out mention is New Pacific Airlines, which announced this week they are ceasing scheduled service and going to an all charter operation. 😦

I highly encourage everyone to always check their doors when they enter a hotel room, make sure they close all the way, and always use the secondary locking latches on the door. This man seems to have been jailed multiple times before for similar actions, and hopefully he will see some actual jail time. I'm not entirely sure how this guest could have missed a non-functioning door.