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Secret Flight rules and you

Secret Flight rules and you

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Thrillist has one of the more comprehensive wrap-ups of current Federal Airline rules/laws for when you get delayed or your flight canceled. Turns out, you’re entitled to MUCH more than they usually offer. Here’s some of the more surprising ones below.

Getting bumped:

  • If you’re involuntarily bumped from a flight because it’s overbooked, do not settle for mostly useless vouchers. The US Department of Transportation DOT requires they must compensate you, in cash, up to $1,350
    • If the delay is going to cost you more than the airline is offering, like a non-refundable hotel reservation or miss a private helicopter ride, you’ve got 30 days to try and get as much money out of them as you can. But once you cash the check they give you, there is no more room to dispute.
  • If you are bumped from a flight and arrive between one and two hours past your original arrival time on a domestic flight (between 1-4 hours on international), they owe you compensation up to $675. For flights more than 2 hours late, you are entitled to 400% of your one-way fare.

Booking:

  • If you book directly with an airline (not through a portal), then you can always cancel within 24 hours of making a flight without penalty. Some allow you to cancel for much longer than that – up until 24 hours before the flight itself in some cases.
  • Do not buy a big block of tickets together if several of you are traveling the same flight. There are different price levels for different batch sized tickets. You might find buying 2 tickets together costs $99/each. But buying 4 together cost $299/each. Buying individually almost always is better.

Delays

  • Back in the old days, Rule 240 required airlines to book you on a competitors airline if you were significantly delayed or flight canceled. That ended with deregulation in 1978, but they will still do it if you ask nicely and/or have elite status. The best chance for success is to find 2-3 flights on the internet (do the homework for them) and politely see if they can do anything for you. Options on with the same airline produce best results.
  • If a flight is severely delayed (2+ hours) or canceled, schedule change, or route change – you can get a full refund on a non-refundable fare. They won’t tell you this, but you can. You are also entitled to baggage fees, early boarding fees, premium seats, etc. But be polite, they don’t have to do this by law. Often they’ll give you those perks on the return flight if applicable.

Transfers to another airlines

  • If you get rebooked on a different carrier, they must cover all expenses and extra fees. Some have even used this to upgrade to first class once they transfer over, but your mileage may vary.
  • Do not let them cancel the ticket for your old flight! It’s still good to use another time. They’ll often try and cancel the original ticket onsite and make it appear to be normal procedure. It’s not. Politely ask to be switched but not cancel the existing reservation

European rules

  • If your flight is canceled because of a non-weather related issue, it’s required by law they put you up in a hotel AND feed you. You also must receive a full refund for a canceled flight within 7 days. The EU also has a lit of delay compensation guidelines, ranging from 250 Euros for short flights delayed under 3 hours up to 600 euros for flights between EU and non-EU airports. So, if your flight home to the US is delayed, you’re still entitled to compensation.

Lost Luggage

  • If your bag is delayed or lost, airlines will often placate you with $25-$50/day. DOT says that these companies owe you up to $3,500 in liability for domestic US trips – SO LONG AS YOU HAVE RECEIPTS and can prove the ‘relative value’ of what was in your bag. Example: If you were flying to a wedding with a tux, the bag is delayed and you have to buy another tux for the event – then keep the receipt and file it. If you were skiing and had to buy new gear because of the loss/delay, then do so and submit it. If you can’t prove you had a big need for the item at the time, then you might not get reimbursement. Some folks have gotten whole new wardrobe sets, but you must prove value of what was in the suitcase plus its need on the other side.

Stuck on a plane

  • No airline can keep you on a plane more than 3 hours (domestic) or 4 hours international. After that, they MUST let you off the plane. After 2 hours, they must get food and water carts running.
Backdoor IRA’s with Turbotax 2017

Backdoor IRA’s with Turbotax 2017

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Ok – Turbotax 2017 has a problem with its entry ordering when handling backdoor Roth IRA’s. If you just follow the normal wizards, you’ll end up with the incorrect information for your IRA contributions either: pay too much tax or be informed you have to pay a penalty for having gone over the IRA contribution limits.

The solution comes in several parts to get the wizard to figure out the right data. Here’s 3 major pitfalls I hit:

  1. If you do automated imports of statements from your financial institute, or you simply enter your IRA contributions/transfers to Roth IRA on page 1/’Wages & Income’ section of your federal taxes BEFORE you enter the ‘Traditional and Roth IRA Contributions’ section on the ‘Deductions & Credits’ page 2, then it often calculates your backdoor Roth IRA incorrectly.
  2. Double-entry and confusion around the word ‘contributed’. You only ‘contributed’ to a traditional IRA. You didn’t contribute to your Roth IRA, you transferred money to it. This can lead to overpayment.
  3. Confusion about conversions and recharacterizations. They seem interchangeable, but are very different tax terms that result in massively different calculations and even severe penalties if done wrong.

 

Solutions and information:

There are number of write-ups on this topic, but here’s the ones that helped:

 

Checking your 8606 form

Once you’ve done the steps above, you should verify the generated 8606 form is correct. Have Turbotax generate a PDF with the worksheets and find the 8606 form. Here’s a site that has a great, and complete, description of backdoor Roth IRA handling shows you what your 1040 and generated 8606 forms should look like.

 

Studies increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congests cities, not reduce it

Studies increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congests cities, not reduce it

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One promise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft was fewer cars clogging city streets. But studies suggest the opposite: that ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles and their own feet and putting them in cars instead.

Read more of the studies cited on this interesting article from the AP:

It seems almost obvious when you stop and think about it. I guess we all fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” but only slightly less well known is this: Jevons paradox:

In economics, Jevons paradox occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises because of increasing demand. The Jevons paradox is perhaps the most widely known paradox in environmental economics.
I’ll be spending 4 days at Gold Butte fire watchtower

I’ll be spending 4 days at Gold Butte fire watchtower

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Despite many adventures, my Oregon bucket list never seems to shrink. As soon as I knock an item or two off, it grows by 5 more. Last year saw horseback riding with Kiger mustangs and summitting the snow-covered Steens mountains. It also saw me hot-spring soaking and finding pianos on the playa of the Alvord Desert. This year is shaping up to knock another item off my list: staying at one of the few remaining mountaintop fire watch towers.

Due to their harsh and remote locations, fewer than 20 are left in Oregon and many are only open short portions of the year. Reservations are required, and getting a reservation is hard as they are almost always booked solid for the 6 month window of dates the moment they become available. One must diligently visit the reservation site very early every morning (east coast time no less) when dates are opened. After getting one of the rare reservations last year, I was thwarted when the road to the Lake of the Woods tower washed out and closed it for almost all of 2017 and 2018. This year, after about 2 months of on and off trying, I managed to get a 4 day reservation for the exceptional Gold Butte lookout. It’s located via hike out onto the summit of the butte and is known for having some of the most spectacular views of all the watchtowers.

It’s also a historic building. It was originally built in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps and usually manned by a married couple. During WW II, it was part of the Aircraft Warning System as an early invasion watchtower. In the 1970/80’s it was heavily damaged by carpenter ants. It might have been demolished like other towers if not for the efforts of the Sand Mountain Society – a fire tower preservation and restoration group. They painstakingly numbered pieces then rebuilt and replaced damaged sections exactly as it was first built, making a stay there almost exactly as it would have been in the 30’s.

Staying at one of the fire towers requires that you backpack in everything you need: water, food, and supplies. Firewood, a bed, table, fire stove, pit toilet and a few small items are provided – but there is no power, no phones, and it’s miles to your nearest neighbor. During the day you can read, hike, swim or fish at the nearby lake, or greet other hikers visiting the summit. The evenings you can watch the unbelievable sunsets and cook in the woodburning stove, then drift to sleep miles from civilization.

I’m personally looking forward to it more than my next trip abroad. I can’t wait.

Here’s a good write-up and video about the lookout

Jason really is at the bottom of a lake

Jason really is at the bottom of a lake

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Remember the end of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives where Megan and Tommy manage to trap Jason in the bottom of Crystal Lake? Well, it seems that some random person has recreated this scene by planting a Jason statue, complete with mask and machete, 120 feet deep in a Minnesotan lake that is supposedly very popular with divers!

Nebula jazz

Nebula jazz

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Marcin Nowrotek’s abstract experimental short film was created with a Kinect sensor and volumetric digital effects to transform a scene of jazz musicians into the most beautiful music visualizer we’ve ever seen – as the sounds from the instruments influence the imagery.

Boundary Break

Boundary Break

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Ever wanted to see where the mysterious G-man went when you saw him walk off-screen in Half-life, or whats behind mysterious doors in Fallout 4, or where Pyramid Head goes in Silent Hill 2, or how they do in-game mirrors?

Shesez has a Youtube series called Boundary Break. You might remember my previous post about Slippy Slides and his series Slippin Out, but I’ve found Shesez’s series to be much better and cover many more games.

Here’s some good ones to whet your appetite and show you all the crazy tricks developers use to make your favorite games:

Slippin Out – revealing how games are made using noclip/fly mode

Slippin Out – revealing how games are made using noclip/fly mode

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Have you ever wanted to see what’s behind doors that were locked in your favorite games, or see where that monster came from down the tunnel that you could not go?

Slippy Slides has a YouTube channel which is super cool. He plays all your favorite games, in noclip/fly mode and reveals all kinds of secrets. Mario Cart, Resident Evil, The Evil Within, Alien Isolation, Grand Theft Auto, and others. Check it out!