Why all the Lies About Cell Phones On Airplanes?

Using Cell Phones on Airplane Myth

What is CheapOAir & Is It Legit?

What experiences have you had booking through CheapOAir? I am booking a flight and found the site is $100 cheaper than every other site including Kayak, Travelocity, Orbitz, and the airline's website. It sounds too good to be true?  Has anyone had any experience with the service?

Tips: 

Be mindful of the fact that you are buying tickets for consolidators. If you do not know what that means, you may want to do a Google search. With them, there is nothing wrong, but you should be an educated customer. When you book from a third party, read your ticket's terms and conditions carefully. You will normally pay additional fees that are not levied by the airlines. 

Perhaps the largest value with them right now would be their buy now, pay later tickets. If you want to buy a ticket after you are hoping Covid will end, a low deposit could help you minimize your financial loss, should the pandemic stretch out longer than planned for.

If you are inclined to change your own itinerary, Cheapo is not for you, because the fees are steep.

The only problem that came up is the same sort of problem you get with using most third-parties. When I missed my connecting flight due to a storm delay on my first flight, it was hell trying to talk to someone about getting a new flight and accommodations for the night since I didn't book through the airline. Still a cheap flight, though.

There were quite a few additional fees, buying checked bags, etc. that showed up as you completed the purchase that brought the price up.

What is CheapOAir?

CheapOair partners with more than 400 carriers, including Air France, Jet Blue, Spirit Airlines, and United Airlines. Comparing airline, hotel, or cruise options and booking them at your leisure is simple on the online travel platform.  Every fare comes with the price-match guarantee of CheapOair-if you find a cheaper price within 24 hours of booking for the very same itinerary, CheapOair matches it and refunds you the difference.

Signing up with CheapOair helps you to control your travel directly from your account, review previous transactions, and monitor flights. For every $1 spent, members will have the added advantage of collecting points, which can lead to discounts of up to 20 percent for flights and 55 percent on hotel bookings. 

Members can also gain points by recommending to friends and family members or by using a credit card from CheapOair, which can be used to earn points for regular transactions, flights, hotels, and car rentals. 

CheapOair lets you browse cheap flight offers through its online booking system at more than 30,000 domestic and foreign locations. To have discounted stays, the organization also partners with hotels, motels, and resorts. With Enterprise, Alamo, and Budget by CheapOair, you can get additional savings.

CheapOair's service rates start at $25 per ticket and extend on all domestic or international U.S. flights. Because of special circumstances, these fees can vary, including business and first-class airfares or fares for unaccompanied minors. The table below shows the most common service fees from CheapOair.

Here is more info on CheapOAir fees. 

Southwest Airlines Canceling Flights & Major Scheduling Problems

Something happened with Southwest Airline's automated rescheduling of flights in the last few days. I talked with a customer service representative today who said 90% of the calls today were regarding this scheduling issue.  Flights are getting consolidated but aren't being rebooked correctly.  

We recommend that you double-check what flight Southwest Airlines rescheduled you.  I had two one way flights that were changed wildly incorrectly.  

Thankfully Southwest Airlines has wonderful customer service and will accommodate your needs but it will require a phone call likely to make a change.  It also won't cost you anything and you might possibly benefit from changing the flight to a better time or date. 

Here is the sample email letter you will receive. 

We want to make you aware of a change we’ve made to your upcoming trip. This was done proactively due to a Southwest flight schedule change on your day of travel.

Please review your new itinerary below. Your reservation is confirmed and no further action is required.

In the event this new itinerary does not work for you, we are offering the opportunity to change your flight date(s) and/or time(s) by up to 14 days from the original travel date at no additional cost in accordance with our established re-accommodation practices.

For expedited service, you can change your flight at www.southwest.com/rebook3 within three days of the delivery of this email. Flights with no additional cost will display as “Available”. Should you need further assistance, you can reach a Southwest Representative at 1-800-IFLY-SWA (1-800-435-9792). * Please keep in mind that wait times may be very high at this time.

We look forward to seeing you onboard soon.

-Your friends at Southwest

Southwest Airlines Request A Call Back Has Major Problems

Southwest Automatic Request A Call Back Has Major Issues

For several years Southwest has had a problem with its automatic call back feature.  Instead of waiting on hold for 5, 10 or 20 minutes call customer service at their phone number 800-435-9792 it gives you the option of calling you back.  When the system does call you back and you follow the instructions to of hitting any key when " " is on the line.   It just hangs up.

I have even experimented with turning WiFi calling off on the phone and the problem still persists.  I also added the Southwest 800 number to my phone book so it wouldn't be blocked.  The reason I am writing about the problem is that apparent customer service is aware of it based on this discussion Serious Problems.  Yet nothing has been done to fix the issue in the last two years.

I assume Southwest is a problem outsourcing their call back feature to a third party telecom company.  I would like to know what telecom company is providing this service and would love to call them out also in this blog post.  Southwest always has had great customer service and this happens to be something that does not seem to be getting resolved.   I would bet AT&T and/or Verizon are providing this 8000 call back service and scamming Southwest by dropping calls and then charging them for each call.  Wouldn't put it past them to do this.  

This hangup problem has occurred with me several hundred times and it's annoying and wastes my time.  The problem seems to happen most when the wait is longer than 10 minutes.  Please chime in below under discussion and let us know if you have had similar issues with customer service.

I am also a huge fan of Southwest Airlines and think they are light years above every other airline by far.  I think their customer service is amazing when you can reach them and love their credit card point system.  Hopefully, enough people will read this post so they can do something to fix the problem.  Comments appreciated.  

Free Live Streaming Wifi Dish TV on Southwest Airlines is Awesome!

Free Live Streaming WiFi Dish TV on Southwest Airlines is Awesome

I enjoyed 3 hours of live TV on a recent flight to my laptop, iPad, and iPod.  It was easy to use and was free. If you want internet access this is an additional cost of $4 to $8 depending on the length of your flight.

Using your own laptop, tablet, or smartphone, you will have unlimited access to both live channels and on-demand television shows at no cost.  You can watch CNBC, Fox, MSNBC, Golf Channel, NBC, NFL, and a bunch of other stations.  See more available content & stations below.

What kind of device do I need?

You will be able to test your device prior to purchasing TV or movies. The inflight entertainment offerings are available on WiFi-enabled devices (802.11g/n) that meet the following minimum requirements:

Windows Devises Minimum Requirements

• Operating System: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Browser: Internet Explorer 7.x (or higher), Firefox 11.x (or higher), Google Chrome 18.x (or higher).
• Plug-ins: Adobe Flash Player 10.0.22 (or higher)

Apple Minimum Requirements (iPad, iPod, Macs)

• Operating System: OSX 10.6.x, or 10.7.x
• Browser: Safari 5.x (or higer), Firefox 11.x (or higher), Google Chrome 18.x (or higher)
• Plug-ins: Adobe Flash Player 10.0.22 or higher
• iOS Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S, iPod touch: 3rd & 4th generation, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.

Android Requirements: Only select devices are supported at this time.

The live TV channel lineup includes: Bravo CNBC FOX 5 New York (WNYW) FOX Business Network FOX News Channel Golf Channel MLB.com (Major League Baseball), when games are available MSNBC NBC 4 (WNBC) NFL Network Select episodes from: 30 Rock Downton Abbey Grimm House Law & Order Law & Order: SVU Parenthood Parks and Recreation Royal Pains Smash The Office Top Chef Up All Night Whitney Available movies: Babe Back To The Future Definitely, Maybe Despicable Me Field of Dreams Jurassic Park King Kong Letters to Juliet Man on a Ledge Meet the Fockers Nanny McPhee Notting Hill Once Pride and Prejudice Red The Adjustment Bureau The Bourne Identity The Bourne Supremacy The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift The Hunger Games The Mummy The Three Musketeers The Twilight Saga: Eclipse The Twilight Saga: New Moon Tower Heist Twilight Warrior

How To Use iPad or Phone as Boarding Pass

Paperless Boarding Pass on iPhone Wallet

Save a tree and the hassle of printing a boarding pass.  A paperless boarding pass enables airline passengers to download their boarding pass on their cell phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs). This innovative approach streamlines the customer experience while heightening the ability to detect fraudulent boarding passes. Each paperless boarding pass is displayed as an encrypted two-dimensional bar code along with passenger and flight information. TSA security officers use scanners to validate the authenticity of the boarding pass at the checkpoint.

Airlines will make this option available when passengers choose their method of boarding pass delivery.  Here is an example of using the boarding pass on an iPhone.  The 2nd example is how to save your boarding pass as a PDF file by printing it.  Then email the PDF to yourself and save it to your iPad, iPhone, Android Phone or tablet device.  It is important that you download and save the document prior to arriving at the airport.  You don't want to mess with trying to download the document at the airport if the network is congested.

Save Boarding Pass as PDF File

iPhone Boarding Pass

iPad Boarding Pass

 

Free Gogo Inflight Wifi from Google Chrome

Kudos to Google and Gogo this holiday season! Google Chrome (the browser team) has partnered with AirTran Airways, Delta, and Virgin America to offer free Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi on every domestic flight from November 20, 2010 through January 2, 2011. These participating airlines have outfitted their entire domestic fleet with Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi, and we expect more connected passengers this holiday season than ever before! Just bring a Wi-Fi enabled laptop or smartphone and stay onboard.

Google is also promoting its Chrome browser in anticipation of this become a very powerful mobile platform that will help solve many of the rendering problems web surfers have when going to a website that is not WAP enabled. Many think this could be very disruptive to the iPhone app and Android application development business. In theory, this will allow you to go to any web page from your mobile phone using Chrome.