More ways to earn miles: Hilton offers 6x mileage bonus

by Grant Martin on

Mileage promotions from Delta are coming in hot and heavy, and those on the ball with some of their most recent promotions are set to make quite the killing in a pretty short time.

Their latest promotion is in collaboration with Hilton‘s points program, HHonors. From now until the end of February, each time you spend more than two nights at a Hilton hotel they’ll give you six times the miles that you would normally earn.

Right now, HHonors is set up on a tiered program where you can earn any variety of airline miles based upon how much you spend at their hotel — but most members earn a fixed 500 miles per stay at a hotel. With this new promotion, you’ll now earn 3,000, or, just under 1/8 of a domestic round trip ticket.

You might not immediately think that’s very much, but combine that with the partner bonus promotion or any other of the generous offers that the airline is currently putting up and your miles can accumulate pretty quickly.

Sign up for the promotion at Hilton’s website here.

Woman flies plane…with her feet

by Jeffrey White on

Meet the first and only licensed pilot in the United States with no arms.

That’s right.

Her name is Jessica Cox. She was born with a birth defect and has been forced to live her entire life using just her feet for everyday things, from text messaging and playing the piano to putting in her contact lenses.

She’s a black belt in tae kwon do who had a long-held fear of flying. So what did she do? She went ahead and got her pilot license, and can now fly solo using just her feet to fly and land her plane.

“It’s even hard for me to believe when I’m talking about it,” she tells an interviewer. “You just do it.”

Watch this video — it’s pretty amazing stuff.

And for an additional video of Jessica doing maintenance on her plane, check out this CNN video.

What other women are making headlines in the skies?


Galley Gossip: A question (and a poll) about breastfeeding on the airplane

by Heather Poole on

Dear Heather,

Is it okay to breastfeed on the airplane–specifically take-off and landing. Do the flight attendants allow it? Do you need to cover up?

Maggie R.

Dear Maggie,

Of course it’s okay to breastfeed on the airplane! And if you are going to do it, take off and landing is the best time to do it. A constant swallowing motion will help ease those little ears in a pressurized cabin when a pacifier just won’t cut it.

While flight attendants do allow breastfeeding, there are always a few bad apples in the bunch who may throw a hissy fit if you are showing too much skin – or any skin at all. Therefore I suggest you cover up with a blanket you’ve brought from home. Don’t depend on the airline to provide you a blanket, since most airlines do not carry blankets anymore and some even charge for blankets. Not to mention the filth and bacteria that probably live on those synthetic blankets. Or just use whatever you want to keep those prying eyes off your chest. Trust me, you are not imagining those glares, and even worse, those who stare.

“A man can not not look at a breast. If I see a breast I have to look at it. It could be an eighty year-old woman, but if there’s a nipple involved I’m looking. I’m sorry, I can’t help it, a breast is a breast,” said the husband a man who prefers to remain anonymous.

Unfortunately (or would that be fortunately?) not everyone feels the same as the man above, especially when the breast in question belongs to a woman caring for a child. Sure it’s socially acceptable to come onboard scantily dressed (and whine about the airlines not having blankets) and flaunt it down the aisle, but to use that same breast to feed a hungry baby is still a tad bit controversial for some reason. STILL.

Your question, Maggie, reminds me of an incident I experienced aboard a flight from New York to Los Angeles just a few months ago…

I was sitting on the jumpseat chatting with a passenger, when another passenger came to the back of the airplane carrying an infant in her arm and holding hands with a little girl who looked to be about two or three. The young mother stood in front of the lavatory door squinting.

“It’s vacant,” I told her.

She blushed. “I need to breastfeed, so it may take awhile. Just knock if someone needs to use the bathroom and I’ll come out.”

I gave her a look, the are-you-crazy-look, because as a mother of a two year-old I know it’s not easy sharing that tiny space just to change a diaper, let alone sharing it with a toddler and an infant who needs to be fed. Seriously, no one should be stuck in that germ infested port-o-potty for any length of time, particularly a newborn!

“You don’t want to do it at your seat?” I asked the mother of two very quiet children, and when I asked this question I could feel the eyes of the other flight attendants glaring at me. I looked at them, smiled, and then looked back at the passenger. “Because you can do it at your seat. If you want. But if you don’t want to that’s fine also.”

“Well…there’s a little boy sitting beside me and…I don’t know…I’ll just go in here.”

“It’s up to you,” I said, and like that the lavatory door shut and the vacant sign changed to occupied.

I know a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the idea of a breastfeeding mother sitting next to them, or even near them, on the airplane. It’s normal to feel that way. But it’s also normal to breastfeed a baby! Even on the airplane.

“Yeah well I once had this woman on my flight pull down the top of her sundress and breastfeed a child that was big enough to sit in the seat. Right out in the open. She wasn’t hiding a thing. The kid looked to be about five or six years old!” my mother said when I told her about what I was writing.

Thankfully most mothers who breastfeed are usually very good about doing what needs to be done without anyone knowing it’s even happening. Sure there are a few mothers out there who are not discreet, who do not care to be discreet, mothers who make even me uncomfortable, especially when I have to reach over the boob to place a drink on the tray table, but the majority of mothers I come into contact with feel a little weird about breastfeeding on an airplane, just as weird as you do about seeing a baby being breastfed on the airplane. But a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do! Better a breastfed baby than a crying baby I say. So unless the kid is big enough to….well…you know, JUST BIG, as in real big, give the mom a break! It’s not easy traveling with a baby.

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Photo of mother and child courtesy of Bertabetti

A handy guide to help you wade through airline rules and restrictions

by Jamie Rhein on

While I was packing yesterday for my daughter’s and my trip to Denmark, I asked her if she wanted to take a lightweight shawl to use as a blanket on the airplane.

“Don’t they give you blankets?” she asked.

Maybe. Some airlines charge extra for a blanket and pillow. Jet Blue already does. U.S. Airways is going to start soon.

In another conversation yesterday, this one on the phone, my father told me that he decided against checking a second bag on his Delta flight from Columbus to JFK in New York when he found out that this would cost him $50. On December 5, that fee will go down to $25.

My dad’s plane was an hour late leaving Columbus yesterday, and he said that the JFK connection to Albany was a hassle to navigate. Perhaps, that’s why the extra baggage fees seem unreasonable. Plane travel is anything but heavenly.

Blanket fees, bag fees, reservation fees, carry-on size changes, meals or no meals, drinks or no drinks, working toilet or no working toilet–just kidding on that one–are details that make air travel more confusing than it used to be.

Sure, buy the plane ticket, but don’t think you’re done paying for the cost of getting from here to there. Keep some extra cash on hand because you’re bound to need it for something when you fly.

In this comprehensive article at Smarter Travel, Tim Winship covers 25 policy changes that are coming to various airlines. When trying to find the best deal, knowing an airline’s checked baggage policy, for example, can make a difference as to how pricey a cheap ticket may become.

One point Winship makes is that complaining can work. When United received complaints galore from passengers who were miffed about paying for meals on overseas flights, the airlines dropped that charge.

If there is anything that’s certain, as soon as you learn an airline’s policy, it’s going to change.

American Airlines to begin charging fees even for non-passengers?

by Jeffrey White on

In an effort to get your day off with a little chuckle, I give you this story from the Onion, spoofing the fee-crazy culture that our airline industry has become.

American Airlines, like 99 percent of US airlines, is charging for pretty much everything these days, even as it maintains a level of performance that ranks dead last among its competitors according to some surveys. Is it really going too far to think AA might devise a way of charging fees for non-passengers?

Well, obviously. But here at Gadling, we’ve been speculating for some time about other fees that airlines might begin charging soon. Maybe one for carry-ons? Or one for couples who insist on kissing during flights? How about charging passengers by their weight?

Anything is possible, I guess.