Steal Boingo wireless by clearing your cookies

by Grant Martin on

If you’ve got time to kill at the airport, wireless can be a life saver. In most terminals, however, wireless isn’t free, and three out of four of the available providers charge an arm and a leg for service. So what’s a cheapskate to do to access his Facebook account without paying through the nose?

Steal wireless, of course. Most people know that if they stand with the proximity of an airline lounge, many of the clubs have unsecured wireless networks. Other open signals can proliferate through the terminal as well, and its not uncommon to see people wandering around the empty halls, holding up notebooks to the sky.

Another way that one can score free wireless comes by using a loophole in the Boingo “sponsored ad” service. Many (not all) Boingo hotspots offer a few minutes free for those willing to jump through a hoop or watch an ad or try out a free service. In JFK’s terminal 8, one can get 20 minutes of free service by trying out Microsoft’s substandard search engine, Bing.

Boingo and your web browser calculate this time using what’s called a cookie, a small thread of data that’s stored on your computer. And cookies, like all security tidbits, are removable. All that you have to do is clear your cookies, reload the Boingo page a few times and reclick the free service ad. In Firefox, it goes like this:

  • Connect to the Boingo hotspot.
  • If you don’t immediately see an ad for sponsored service, reload the page or navigate around a bit on the Boingo website. It’s possible that this market doesn’t have a sponsor, so don’t be disappointed if nothing pops up.
  • Jump through the hoops for free service.
  • Update your Facebook status, Tweet what underpants you’re wearing and stalk your new love interest online.
  • When you run out of time, click Edit|Preferences|Privacy|Show Cookies
  • Ignoring all of your embarassing stored cookies, navigate down to “boingo.aero” or anything with boingo in it.
  • Click “Remove Cookies”
  • Reload the Boingo connection page. If necessary, disconnect from the wifi network and reconnect.
  • Repeat

Easy as pie, and before you know it, it’ll be boarding time. Happy browsing!

Increasing airline baggage fees displayed in pretty colors and numbers

by Scott Carmichael on

This chart shows the increase in airline baggage fees during the the last couple of quarters. As you can see, American Airlines and Delta Airlines grew from around 40 million Dollars in Q2 2008 to 118 million Dollars in Q2 of this year. You did read that correctly – they each made 118 million Dollars in just one quarter, just off baggage fees.

The total money generated from baggage fees in 2009 between these 10 carriers is 1.23 billion Dollars. And those numbers are only for the first two quarters. With the current new generation of baggage fees, we are on track to reach about 3 billion Dollars for the entire year.

Baggage fees are here to stay, and when you see that airlines can make 118 million in just a couple of months, you’ll understand why.

(Data based off Department Of Transportation data)

People like to fly during the holidays – and the airlines want to exploit that

by Scott Carmichael on

The airfare specialists over at Farecompare.com came across something rather unsettling a couple of days ago. When looking at the fares airlines loaded into the various booking systems, they noticed that American Airlines started adding a $10 fee applied to all flights on the Sunday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 29) and Jan. 2 and 3.

Shortly after that, United Airlines pulled the same stunt, followed by Delta Airlines. Essentially, this “Miscellaneous surcharge” is a way for the airlines to make a huge amount of money on the days people need them the most.

It may not be as pathetic as the new British Airways seat selection fee we wrote about, but it comes pretty damn close.

These holiday tickets are historically the most expensive of the season, but making all that extra cash isn’t enough for the airlines. The only way to stay away from this bogus surcharge is to avoid the three days mentioned above, or to pick an airline that has not (yet) chosen to climb on board the silly surcharge bandwagon.

Save time at checkin with elite status

by Grant Martin on

At 6PM on a Friday afternoon, New York‘s JFK airport is hopping. Part of it is, rather, just the check-in counter. The everyday, economy check-in counter, to be specific. Scores of passengers-to-be swarm the kiosks, some swiping credit cards, some punching buttions, some pulling their hair in distress. Those that successfully navigate the digital mayhem are funnelled into the luggage line, a mess of carts, passengers and boarding passes waiting to be processed by the half dozen, red jacketed agents at the far end of the hall.

Contrast. Thirty meters away from the economy check-in, the business/first/elite station is a sea of tranquility. Three rows of details, the first, a line of leather chairs where waiting travelers pick at their newspapers and wait for God knows what to happen. The second, a sea of poles and cords, a maze of manmade rows designed to channel customers into specific lines. Three passengers wait for their turn. The third: a long row of ticket agents and customer service representatives, silently working, waving new customers out of line. It’s nearly relaxing.

And it’s a good illustration of the massive gap between the everyday customer and the revered “elite” or business passenger that the airlines so desire. My trip through the elite line? Six minutes, four of which I spent repacking my bag.

Do yourself a favor this year and hit that elite status tier with your favorite airline — usually you need to fly 25k miles to reach that point, but there are tons of specials out there right now that will save you time and money. Hit that threshold and you’re on easy street through 2011, as you enjoy faster checkin, upgrades to first class and a hefty baggage allowance. You’ll love it — we promise.

British Airways innovates in the “new fees” department with a seat selection fee

by Scott Carmichael on

Dear readers – it is official; British Airways has lost its frikkin mind.

Starting October 7th, the UK airline will be charging pretty hefty fees for anyone who wants to make a seat selection at the time of booking (something offered for free by most civilized airlines in the world).

The fees start at $15 for a domestic UK seat selection, and go to $30 for World Traveler and World Traveler Plus, and an insulting $90 for their business class product. Those still stupid enough to pay for a First Class seat still get to pick their favorite for free.

If you don’t want to play along, then you can select your seat 24 hours in advance for free, which will be after everyone else has picked the best seats, most likely forcing you and your family to sit in the middle seat spread throughout the plane.

I’m going to say it right away – this new move is disgusting, and shows how pathetic the airlines have become. Can you imagine paying $3400 for a business class ticket, then being asked to fork over another $90 just so you can get a decent seat? It gets even better – British Airways clearly understands that the exit row seats are very popular, so they keep those blocked until 10 days before the flight, and want $75 per person, per segment.

What this means to your wallet is this; lets assume that you and your wife are flying from New York to Amsterdam, and would like to sit together with your three teenagers. Your first segment will cost $150, then $75 on the London to Amsterdam flight. Then of course that same price for the flights back. Would you pay $450 for decent seats, or would you just pick a better airline?

The only silver lining is that elite passengers can still select their favorite seat for free, and that passengers traveling with kids (2-11) or kids traveling on their own can select a seat three days before departure without paying the fee. Which in my opinion is still just as insulting, because by then, the open seat selection will be miserable. A chart showing the changes can be found here.

It is obvious that we are in a new era of air travel, and that the airlines have lost all respect for their passengers. It’s going to be a bumpy ride, and I suspect we’ll start seeing more of these stupid fees pop up every week. There is bound to be an airline HQ somewhere in the world where someone reads about these new British Airways seat fees and says “hey, we can do that too”.

(Via Consumerist.com)