sbdc

Because I’ve been flying them for years and have platinum status I end up on a lot of American Airlines flights. I check in online and print my own boarding passes from their site to save myself the hassle of lines at the airport. As you might recall many airlines implemented ‘print at home’ passes in the last few years to help cut costs on their end and it’s a good idea. Last weekend I printed a pass and got this:

Click through to the photo for additional notes and a larger version. When I clicked print boarding pass I didn’t just get my boarding pass as you can see. I also got a short list of suggestions of things to do in the city I was flying to and a bunch of ads. A bunch of full color ads. A bunch of full color ads that mostly indicate I should click them. Yes, this is annoying and stupid.

Here’s why:

• I have pay to print the ads. If they were in black and white that would be one thing, but they are full color and color ink isn’t cheap. This is totally inconsiderate that AA is making money by selling an ad that I then have to pay to produce.
• The ads are useless to the advertiser. As you can see in the larger version of the pic, most of the ads are for something online - requiring you to click them to gain any benefit to the advertiser. Basically they bought and ad that can’t be used in it’s intended format. Maybe you could argue some name recognition, but is annoyance what they want to be associated with?
• The ads are useless to me. Since I can’t click an ad on a printed page it’s a 100% waste for me. If the ad was a coupon I could take somewhere for a discount that might provide some value. As it stands, that isn’t the case.
• Travel guide also fails. Since AA doesn’t know anything about me, the suggestions as to what I might enjoy doing in the city are worthless. If they’d partnered with some other site that knew what kind of things I’m into that might be cool. Again, since they don’t the suggestions are things like “Golden Gate Bridge” or names of people who I suspect might be performing or talking or something but I have no context for who they are. Of course, many of these suggestions are links, which again are useless once printed.

The bullshit of all this is that this company Sojern, that handles the ads is scamming everyone. They’ve convinced the airlines that this is useful their customers - it isn’t. They’ve convinced the advertisers that this will bring them some business - it won’t. And they’ve offloaded the cost to people who gain nothing from the whole situation.

This is so disappointing because again it’s a sign of major companies completely missing it. This had potential to be cool. Partnering with a site that knows something more about me could make the suggestions somewhat useful, or a quick glance at their previous records to see if I’ve been to that city before might help tailor it a bit more. If I’m flying to a city that I’m in 20 times a year, the most obvious tourist suggestions might not be fitting for me. The ads could be coupons. Give me a $1 off a coffee at the Starbucks at the airport, or 10% off at one of the airport shops. That would be useful and have value to me. Ads that I can’t click from a printed piece of paper don’t. If they have to have something online with links, promote it as that - after I print my pass give me an option to check out a page with this info full of links and ads. Then I can at least use them.

Me: “Hi, can you tell me the status of the pickup I scheduled?”
UPS: “Yes of course, looks like your pickup is scheduled to be picked up by 3PM”
Me: “Right”
UPS: “Anything else I can help you with?”
Me: “Yes, I want to know the status of the pick up, it’s 3:10 and it hasn’t been picked up yet.”
UPS: “Oh, I see. I can put in a call to the station and they can look into it.”
Me: “But what do I do?”
UPS: “Will you still be there for a while?”
Me: “What is a while?”
UPS: “A few hours”
Me: “Not really, that’s why I scheduled the pick up for 3pm rather than end of the day, I need to leave”
UPS: “I can have someone at the station contact you in the next 2 hours to let you know when someone will be there to pick it up.”
Me: “Did I do something wrong when I scheduled this? Because I really needed it picked up by 3.”
UPS: “No, it looks like you did everything correctly.”
Me: “But a driver might not come by until after 5PM anyway?”
UPS: “That’s correct. Anything else I can help you with today?”

Wow. I really don’t know what else to say about this. Last night when I was heading out to an election party I was still pretty convinced that no matter what the polls were showing we’d all soon be living under a McCain/Palin Whitehouse. The last 8 years have been full of “that couldn’t possibly happen” leading into “omg how did that happen” so even with so much support for Obama in my immediate circle, I wasn’t convinced.

My first clue that something might be different this time was Ohio going for Obama with no struggle at all. I was kind of in shock, I’d gotten used to the returns being super close until the last minute so that getting pegged early on was not what I was expecting. Follow that up with everyone, including FOX News calling it for Obama before the polls even closed in some places and I was blown away. I’d forgotten what it was like not to have weeks of recounts and disputed votes. I’m in SF right now and the town was going insane. Seriously, look at this:

That was happening in the Mission. 19th and Valencia. One of the last places in the country I would expect a crowd of people waving American flags. But sure enough it happened. I talked to people today who said for the first time in their lives they hung flags in and out of their houses and finally understood what patriotism is all about. That’s kind of a big deal if you think about it. But this isn’t just impactful to previously skeptical Americans. There’s massive global impact here as well.

As you know I travel a lot and a good chunk of that is outside of the US. I’m constantly faced with people from other countries saying “well, you are cool enough but obviously you are the exception, the rest of your country must be idiots to have voted for that Bush guy.” When I try to tell people that not everyone voted for him, and even people who did vote for him aren’t 100% down which his actions over the last several years they usually scoff and point out of the country didn’t like him he’s get kicked out, so clearly people are behind him. General disgust aside, that has lead to deeper discussions about how great the US used to be, and how the Bush presidency is clearly a sign it’s going down the tubes. That’s not something I heard from one person in one country, it’s a feeling I got repeatedly all over the world. The US electing Obama over McCain is a clear message to everyone else on this planet that the US isn’t happy with the leadership we’ve had and we want something to change. This is good for all of us. Joi posted about this as well and it’s worth reading his take. Ian’s take is also worth checking out.

But let’s talk about McCain for a second, as I said I wasn’t convinced until he walked out and started his concession speech that it was really happening. And that speech was one of the best I’d ever seen. I’ve mentioned before that I was previously a McCain supporter (even at one point calling for a McCain/Hillary ticket) but his actions in this election turned me away. His choice of Palin as VP totally backfired and I lost count how many die hard republican friends of mine voted against their own party for the first time in their lives just to ensure she stayed out of the Whitehouse. If McCain hadn’t played politics and had been giving speeches like that one for the rest of this election he probably would have won, or it would have been a much closer race.

Obama’s speech was exactly what a President-elect should have said. I haven’t been a huge fan of Obama either and disagree on a few points but even I cheered as he spoke. That is what a leader should sound like, and for the first time in my life I see a US president that people actually want to rally behind, that they want to support and not just point out how much the other guy sucks. I saw people voting for someone instead of against someone, and that is truly remarkable. What happens now is going to be interesting, but I think we as a country are taking the first steps towards making things better rather than worse.

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In the past few years I’ve had to rent more than my fair share of rental cars. I’ve rented from Hertz, Enterprise, Budget, Dollar, and a handful of smaller local companies. Some of those were better than others, but rarely did I find a reason to try to go back to the same rental company the next time. In fact after joining Hertz’s loyalty program hoping that I could establish some kind of regular purchase/reward deal with them I found myself constantly playing middle man between what Hertz corporate would tell me, and the privately owned Hertz Local Edition shops that acted like Hertz corporate was screwing them and it was my fault. Combined with them frequently not even having cars available I gave up.

I bitched about this on twitter and someone suggested I try out National and holy crap, I can’t believe I never tried them before. I’m seriously kicking myself for the last 2 years of rentals that weren’t with them. As a member of their Emerald Club (free sign up online) you get to choose any car on the lot and all at the same price. Yeah, a minivan costs the same as a compact, a cost which is generally cheaper than what you’d get a piece of crap car from any other place. For instance, I have a Toyota Prius for a week right now, it’s costing me $170. Last time I rented from them I had a Nissan Altima for a weekend, that was under $100. And seriously, they have rad cars, they aren’t the super cheep-o model you’ve never heard of, I’ve got a Prius right now for crying out loud.

Anyway, literally this is the first time I’ve ever been amped about renting a car so I thought I’m pass that on here.