Rapid Travel Chai

Editor’s note: BoardingArea is a distribution network of independent blogs, each with independent editorial. This post, as well as any post on any blog on BoardingArea, solely represents the views of that blog, and does not necessarily represent the views of BoardingArea or other blogs on the network. The following post solely represents the views of this blog, Rapid Travel Chai.

Hello to all the ‘this is travel, not politics’ readers of BoardingArea.

Usually you get your wish:

In 2016, I wrote Republicans Buy Gift Cards, Too. I referenced Rick Steves’ position that ‘travel is a political act’. BoardingArea blog Live and Let’s Fly shared Rick Steves’ 2024 endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for US president. The comments section has flown fast with cries about ‘sticking to travel’. The comments have many pro or con arguments that are not themselves travel-related. Let’s stick to travel here, then.

I have some experience of the US and the world to assert that travel is, indeed, a political act. Travel exists in societal and political settings, not a separate, imaginary escape.

I have lived in seven US states (Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, and Washington) and spent a decade abroad (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Japan). I have spent a large part of my adult non-work life in travel to every country in the world. I do not claim to be an ‘expert’. I am, though, a keen observer of the US and the world. Nowhere is travel separate from politics.

Powerful, Triangulating Cowardice

Few points travelers go without an Amazon Prime subscription. Many derive side or whole incomes from buying groups. Amazon is a major source of product for buying groups and gift card reselling.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has as much ‘f-you’ money as anyone, anywhere. Yet, as the owner of the Washington Post (of which I am a paid subscriber), he showed extreme moral cowardice by last-minute spiking the paper’s planned editorial board 2024 endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for US president. His mealy-mouthed justification for the decision, without providing reasoning for the timing of it, can be read here. A joint letter by 21 Washington Post columnists in response to the decision is here, and many individual pieces as well as notable silence by some, can be seen scrolling the main opinion page.

Mr. Bezos put ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ on the masthead. Now, he is trying a bit of hedging. He, and everyone in the country, know that one, and only one, US presidential candidate will, if elected, target, threaten, and harm specific individuals and businesses based on personal pique and vendetta. Every hedge and moral compromise advances this authoritarian playbook.

Many powerful people and institutions have failed the country with their own triangulation of potential personal gain. Everyday people must be the ones, at long last, to show moral courage. A broad, determined effort of civic-minded people can continue the American experiment.

Points Travelers Lap Up Public Largess

Other than the billionaire class, how many groups benefit, maximize, and optimize to gain as much from robust public and private institutions as points travelers? Yet as a group, our bouts of cognitive dissonance are strong.

Point travelers, regularly:

• Rail against big government yet run to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) with even trivial complaints.
• Ditto for airline-related complaints to the Department of Transportation (DoT).
• Moan about excessive regulation but expect airlines and air traffic control to have impeccable safety records.
• Compliment hospitality workers to finagle upgrades and freebies, yet savage them for organizing for better working conditions and compensation.

Points libertarians are a vocal lot who profess to oppose government and regulation.

They rely on:

• Public communications networks for their online manufactured spend
• Public roads and other infrastructure for their in-person manufactured spend
• A common law legal system that allows them to oppose private financial institutions vastly more powerful than them

Quite a few ‘MS whales’ have public sector jobs that provide stability and work schedules that facilitate their manufactured spend.

They privately gloat about flexible work schedules, yet jump to tell others to work harder and be more self-reliant.

Points libertarians are for exactly the public services they use, and against what everybody else uses.

If You Can Tell that Delta SkyMiles is Untrustworthy

A large measure of the virulence of the 2024 US elections is that the presidential candidate of one of the two major political parties is devoted to a politics of hate and harm to others.

His supporters, often hesitant to openly cop to what they support, obscure it. They lash out with ‘bothsidesism’ and ‘whatab0utism’. Unconcealed, fantastical lies are commonplace.

Anyone who can decipher an airline award chart or a credit card rewards program is capable of quality information-seeking, recognizing and opposing disinformation and misinformation, and being civically engaged.

If you can identify that Delta SkyMiles is untrustworthy and tell people you shouldn’t put miles with them, then you can do the same for a political candidate.

The civic duty is not simply to vote. The civic duty is to be an informed voter and vote accordingly.

We should not give ourselves a pass that ‘it doesn’t matter who wins’ or ‘both parties are the same’ or excuse-making rationalizations for how we vote. We must recognize and take public responsibility for the consequences of our votes or non-votes.

Upset About Limited Flight Award Seats to Asia? Blame the Brokers, Right?

Brokers will not get any love on this blog. As long as there is demand for their services, they will exist.

Want more US-Asia premium cabin award seats? We need more trans-Pacific flights and morally justifiable overflights of Russia (which are huge cost savings to use polar routes). Here’s a two-point plan that addresses the systemic geopolitical causes of the award seat shortage:

1. Total defeat of the Russian military, regime change and demilitarization of Russia, restoration of Ukraine’s full territorial integrity, so that Russia overflights resume.
2. Major economic rebound and liberalization of China’s economy to have sufficient demand to China for airlines to economically restore something like 2019 flight levels (current demand is low, with more demand one-way China to US).

Do those two and you’ll see more ANA and JAL premium cabin award seats available to book.

I made this point in an award travel chat today in answer to a question about issues with trans-Pacific award availability. Saying brokers are the problem was not ‘political’. Stating the underlying geopolitical issues activating the brokers was rebuked as “…far outside the scope of this chat and award travel. Let’s keep it topical in here.” Yet, this is exactly why there are few award travel options US to Asia right now. Be part of the political process to solve those and you’ll see more award seats.

‘Stick to Travel’ Issues at Stake in the 2024 US Election:

Some ‘stick to travel’ issues at stake in the 2024 election:

• Existence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• A Department of Transportation that works for safety in transportation and advocates for travelers
• Existence of the National Weather Service
• Air Traffic Control by qualified public servants
• United States Postal Service service reductions
• Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission/Department of Transportation review of corporate mergers and acquisitions to ensure customer benefit (e.g. Albertsons-Kroger combination, if it happens, may harm manufactured spend in a number of geographies)
• Disenfranchisement efforts targeting US citizens living abroad
• Disenfranchisement efforts targeting US military stationed abroad
• Tariffs that will harm the US economy, with knock-on effects to travel and to travelers with international business
• Diplomatic disputes that may impact visa-waiver and visa-issuance for international travel
• Liming or ending access to immunizations, with knock-on effects imposed by other countries on US travelers
• Rights and compensation for travel and hospitality industry workers
• Independent freedom of movement within the US for women and vulnerable groups
• Access to emergency healthcare when traveling within the US for women and vulnerable groups
• LGBTQ+ protections within the US
• Rights of naturalized US citizens
• Legal immigration

Endorsement: Points Travelers that ‘Stick to Travel’ Have One Clear Choice

One candidate for president, an un-adjudicated seditionist, openly threatens all these ‘stick to travel’ issues. Those who support him do not take him at his word. Those who oppose him take him at his word.

One candidate for president threatens none of these ‘stick to travel’ issues. From the perspective of points travelers, this candidate may improve some, ignore some, and worsen some. All this will be within Constitutional processes and with respect for the separation of powers among the co-equal branches of government:

• This candidate will be a normal president, as with 44 of 45 prior
• This candidate will make a genuine, sustained effort to be President to all Americans
• This candidate will not make capricious verbal attacks on individuals, companies, or institutions
• This candidate will not instigate or condone political violence
• Aspects of this candidate’s administration will be liked by many Americans
• Aspects of this candidate’s administration will be disliked by many Americans
• This candidate’s political party is not rubber-stamp ideologues; they will regularly and openly disagree with policy proposals
• There will be an election in 2028

Rapid Travel Chai endorses Vice President Kamala Harris for US President and Tim Walz for US Vice President in the 2024 election.

News Sources That I Pay to Read:

Robust news media is essential to civil society, as flawed as it is.

Here is a list of news and politics-related publications that I pay for subscriptions. I included a few that, budget-permitting, I am looking to subscribe.

Free sources are not listed.

Sources that I access via the library to not financially support (such as National Review), are not listed.

This is not an endorsement of the entirety of any publication. The base-level requirement is that the publication be intellectually honest in its editorial. The only exception to that is the Wall Street Journal. As intellectually dishonest as the editorial and opinion pages are, the rest of the paper is intellectually honest and among the highest-quality reporting found anywhere in English.

Note: substack publications I have included my refer-a-friend links that get bonus subscription months.

Special recognition:

The Bulwark is the leading publication of intellectually honest conservatives. I believe it is the best $80 you can spend in this election. Their focus groups, their podcasts, their videos, so much incredible dedication, patriotism, and defense of the Constitution.

Newspapers:

• Barron’s
• Financial Times (UK)
• Minneapolis Star-Tribune
• The New York Times (despite the continual, egregious headlines and framing of articles, see below, Breaking the News and American Crisis)
• Nikkei Asia (Japan)
• The Seattle Times
• The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
• The Wall Street Journal
• The Washington Post

Magazines:

• The Atlantic (especially the work of Anne Applebaum and David Frum)
• The Economist
• Harper’s
• New York (especially the work of Jonathan Chait)
• The New Yorker and companion The Political Scene Podcast (especially the work of Jane Mayer on money in politics)
• Seattle Magazine
• SeattleMet
• Texas Monthly
• Washingtonian
• Various educational and lifestyle magazines, not news-focused

Newsletters:

• Breaking the News
• The Browser
• The Best of Journalism
• Sinica
• The Status Kuo

Newsletters that I am considering to subscribe, budget-allowing:

• American Crisis
• The Liberal Patriot
• Noahpinion
• Sinocism
• Slow Boring