Kyle + Tips

Category: Flying

  • Hot girls on planes

    HOT SEAT-MATE CALCULATOR I’ve spent a lot of time on planes. To pass the time I watch movies, listen to music, read the airline magazine and memorize stats on their aircraft fleet, and look out the window. Occasionally I’ll have a conversation with my seat-mate. With no cell service, and generally no internet, there’s a lot…

  • Surviving ultra long-haul flights

    This year thus far I’ve taken a number of ultra long-haul flights; one trip to Sydney from Denver, and another to Capetown from New York. On one hand they are miserable affairs, on the other it’s pretty amazing how you can be on the other size of the world in less than a day. Here…

  • When flying Southwest

    Despite it’s lack of frills Southwest is one of the better domestic carriers. The only annoying thing is the stupid cattle-call boarding process getting the general public to behave like the sheep that they are. Getting to the point; my advice when flying Southwest is to set a calendar reminder in your phone when you…

  • Getting that cheap flight

    There are all sorts of techniques and theories for getting cheap flights. Buy on Tuesdays. Book travel that leaves mid-week. Look for deals via Twitter. The list can go on and on. My number one trick for getting good deals is simply to know what the average price is and be able to buy when…

  • Airport ground staff have the power

    If you’ve ever tried to call up an airline reservation line to make some kind of change to your flight chances are they didn’t do it out of the kindness of their heart, and instead stuck you with some huge change fee. It took me a number of times before I realized that these people…

  • Snag a free exit row seat

    It’s pretty standard practice nowadays for airlines to charge an extra fee for ‘premium seats’ such as the bulkhead and exit rows. I usually balk at the extra charge which can sometimes be 50% of the cost of the flight segment and so do a lot of other people it seems, which is why they often…

  • Pay half as much for in-flight WiFi

    So this is part flier tip, part tech hack; but you can pay almost half as much for wireless access for your laptop when flying. The trick is that the in-flight internet companies (GoGo etc) have much cheaper pricing for smartphones as they do for laptops. As of posting this smartphones were $7.95, laptops were…

  • Liquids in carry on

    Heads up – from personal observations you don’t really need to follow that stupid ‘put liquids in a zip lock back and scan it separately thing’. The regulations say you do, but my experience is that you don’t. I still make sure nothing is over 100ml, but I never bother taking it out of my…

  • Flying from NYC to LAX or SFO

    Not all direct flights between New York and the west coast cities are created equal. United runs a special service called ‘p.s.’ (premium service) between LAX and SFO to JFK. It’s a Boeing 757 in a three-class configuration that only has 110 seats, which is way less than a 757 in a standard configuration. The classes…

  • Always print/email your boarding pass before you go to the airport

    Although many airlines and airports are moving towards boarding passes you can show on your smartphone, many still require the paper kind. If and when you can, you should always have this before you go to the airport. Why? Most airport kiosks cut off printing boarding passes 45-60 minutes before your flight time. In reality…