In the news

They’ve definitely already thought about how to make money off the air people need on their space vehicles.

It’s also always ‘unique pieces’ with these things. A friendly jeweller will have appraised them well over market value in the last year and got it accepted by the insurers.

Absolutely no way even the most idiotic rich person doesn’t keep £10m of jewels in a safe at home.

Just don't expect the police to be as interested in umm... someone who has

violated the sanctuary of the victims' home

if it's your house and they've nicked your bike and a few hundred quids worth of other stuff and made a bit of a mess.

Jimmy Carter’s death at 100 just made me realise that Joe Biden’s state funeral is likely to be presided over by a maga president.

That's why the ultra rich want us to go to mars

They're all going to be MAGA presidents. Maybe "Trump" will become an honorific title the way "Caesar" did.

And then you have the ultra rich to whom money is like the air we breathe.

If you want an unpleasant day or so, read Robert Heinlein's "The cat who walked through walls", in which the athorities on the moon charge for air and people who can't pay up are thrown through airlocks. The one person who complains about this turns out to be a communist saboteur, because Heinlein really was a fucking fascist.

BA have changed their loyalty program from “attainable by choosing to use them when you have the choice for business and leisure travel” to “spend a fortune”, I had been maintaining my membership by using them to fly back to the UK for my parents birthdays and Christmas but that’s no longer an option.

Interesting move- they clearly want the people who buy business class tickets to NY for the weekend, I wonder if ejecting everyone else will prove to be wise?

Probably not a particularly universally relevant news there D.
But it is an odd move. Though in keeping with them persistently getting a little shitter for a while.

I’m sure it’s not, but it’s a huge move for BA to make, and it’s culturally a big deal in Britain.

The glass half empty here is that a lot of people stop using them for short haul and then their European routes get pruned back sharply, which (if said routes are profitable) might be an issue.

air travel is a bizarre industry, i would guess tesco know more about loyalty schemes.

supermarkets and airlines do seem to share a common goal of shitting on everyone else, including supply chain, customers and the environment. airlines barely turn a profit most of the time so can't help wondering why they even bother?

it’s culturally a big deal in Britain.

not sure about this. i think Prince Andrew is probably about as popular as BA although I don't have any evidence to back that up.

all i can say is that of those people i know who fly regularly, none give a f*** about whether it's with BA or anyone else.

I don't know anyone who's flown with B.A., I thought his whole thing was not getting on planes.

lol - that B.A is way more popular than the no-sweat prince.

I think that depends on how they fly- if it’s always business class and above then membership of a loyalty scheme such as BA is essentially meaningless- what it does is give someone flying in economy some of the perks of business travel.

So! Meaningless to those who fly on expensive tickets, very much not for those who fly on the cheaper ones.

You'll still earn Tier Points on every eligible flight. Only now, your Tier Points will be based on the price of your flight, rather than the distance you fly. We believe it’s a simpler way to reward your loyalty

so now it's based on spend rather than miles?

a bit like club card points before they moved on to randomly changing the prices of everything.

Yes- before you could be somewhat clever with routes and classes of travel and get silver fairly cheaply, now it’s just raw spend- £7,500 for Silver and a frankly vulgar £20,000 for Gold.

Which really does mean it makes no sense to flyers like me- I kept silver because it gave me an extra luggage allowance that meant I could take a bike for free on economy tickets.

The extra nuance being that stuff like air passenger duty is excluded which makes up a large proportion of economy fares but much less of business/first fares.

I've barely flown since COVID but prior to that the loyalty scheme did have a hefty influence on choice of airline.

BA have been getting worse for years though so this isn't particularly surprising.

Same- flew a lot before Covid, hardly at all afterwards but did make sure I did just enough to roll over Silver. Just enough≠7.5 bags.

My first thought was probably uninsured.

They make a lot of cash with their debit and credit card programmes.

would insurance pay out if you left the window open? I doubt it

If you want an unpleasant day or so, read Robert Heinlein

Ftfy

But he wrote starship troopers. Is the film that different from the book.

The film is a satire, the book is not.

Some things he wrote aren't dripping with fascist/libertarian tropes, but if he were still around he'd be a MAGA hat.