Get 100,000 Miles a Second Time, Eating in Asia, Bonus Points in Europe, and Revenue-Based Programs Spreading (Bits ‘n Pieces for January 17, 2014)

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. RE: MH370, I don’t think the Ledgerwood hypothesis is all that “out there”. In fact, that was my first reaction upon hearing of the strange circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the aircraft. As I told my husband, there is a lot of pirating of ships in the South China Sea area, why not an aircraft worth $250 +/- million USD? Not a bad heist.

  2. @kimmie

    I agree, I don’t think that the Ledgerwood hypothesis is all that “out there” either.

    After all, we still don’t have the proverbial body.

  3. @kimme & Dan – So MH370 landed safely at some remote airport in Asia? And it’s doing what now? Sitting on the tarmac, using its cloaking device to make it invisible to satellites? Or did it use stealth technology to make it all the way into a hangar without being picked up by airport radar? And what about any one of the hundreds of passengers or airport workers who would have seen it in the air or on the ground? They’re all in on it too, right? Seriously, what are you people talking about?

  4. You know what? I give up. We never landed on the moon. Seven different people shot JFK. Aliens have been living happily in New Mexico for 70 years. And MH370 is just chillin’ on the tarmac at Narita.

  5. @Jonathan

    We’re talking about a B777 that was fueled for six hours and never made it to its intended destination. That’s the same one, right? There’s been no sign of aircraft parts, bodies, fuel, or baggage floating on a body of water. Nobody has reported seeing any signs of a fire.

    Still with me? Are we talking about the same thing? There’s no sign of it. Period. Or at least no sign that any country is officially willing to confirm.

    I have to be honest with you, I don’t know jack about central Asia. Closest I’ve been is Turkey, India, and Nepal.

    First, do you think all of these airports in that region have high tech radar? Even in the US, we have plenty of decomissioned air force bases that have plenty of space to put that thing down without requiring all of this high tech infrastructure or people in place — you certainly don’t need a radar to land a 777.

    Second, what makes you think it even landed at an airport? For all I know, they cleared a few thousand feet of brush in a remote area with no cell phone coverage and got the thing on the ground in one piece.

    Back to your wise crack about being picked up on satellites — since you think it was picked up on a satellites, then why haven’t we found its location yet? (FTR, I think it is on a satellite photo or three somewhere, but we have to find it. It’s like playing where’s waldo.)

  6. @Jonathan–MH370 had all tracking info shut down. How hard is it to land and aircraft on a cleared strip in the middle of rural nowhere in Central Asia or Indonesia? And yes, the aircraft can just be sitting there, sure, why not? Stripped or intact, it’s worth serious money on the black market—all those electronics, engines, you name it. Back “in the day” I had friends who worked as pilots for hire, flying DC3s and DC10s into rural strips in Latin America for questionable purposes.

    BTW, we now know that tracking information was shut off intentionally. The hypothesis of suicide doesn’t make sense, because if you’re planning suicide, you don’t care who finds you, you’re dead. Only when you’re alive do you care about being tracked.

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