Tag Archive for: Frequent

Frequent Flier Claims to have Cheat Code for Free Checked Bags

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If you’re a frequent flier, you’ve probably picked up some methods to save money.

For instance, if you don’t want to fork over the extra cash for an economy-plus seat, you can check the flight map to see if there are any available empty seats. If you’re the last person to board the plane, there’s a chance there will be an economy-plus seat unfilled, so you can just slide right into it. Flight attendants may just give you the benefit of the doubt and let you sit there without hassling you about it. (Hint: this trick probably works best if you’re traveling alone.)

A similar hack can usually be employed with checked luggage. Sure, not keeping your belongings with you is a bit of a pain, and if you only need a small carry-on piece of luggage, you’re going to want to keep it with you on the airplane and toss it in an overhead bin. All other baggage gets tossed in the plane’s storage area. But that means having to wait at the baggage carousel and, depending on the type of ticket you purchase, paying for a checked bag.

But there’s a way around forking over the cash for that checked baggage fee, according to TikTok user Nicole Nina (@hutravelstheworld) who is a self-proclaimed solo traveler who is always jet setting with a decent amount of luggage.

She said that there’s a way to ensure airlines like United and American will check your bags for free, you just need to be willing to get them past security and to a gate agent, who will more than likely be eager to take care of that for you to conserve overhead bin space.

“OK, this is my hack for never paying for a checked bag, and I always travel with so many bags and I always pay for the most basic economy seat,” she explains in the clip. “This is only for airlines like United, American, Lufthansa, Iberia, whatever. This isn’t for like Spirit, RyanAir, EasyJet.”

Nina says that the aforementioned “premium” airlines have begun charging for checked bags or even carry-ons, but she’s found a workaround.

“You have to check in online and then just download it to your phone—your ticket—and then go through security,” she says. “Go to your gate, and then just be like,…

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Ransomware attacks becoming more frequent

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MAIDTONE, KENT, UK.  — Ransomware attackers have been targeting the food, beverage and agriculture industries in recent years. From 2018 to May 2023, about 157 businesses were known to have been hit by the attacks, according to a Comparitech study, and 696,832 individual records were breached.

Maple Leaf Foods, Inc., Toronto, and JBS USA, Greeley, Colo., have been attacked during the past few years. The most pressing problem these companies face is downtime, which caused around $1.36 billion in downtime losses.

Indeed, following a cyberattack that occurred at Maple Leaf Foods in November 2022, the company had to find “manual workarounds” to keep operations going.

“A ransomware attack can cause around a week (of) downtime, therefore a weeks’ worth of revenue loss is huge,” said Rebecca Moody, head of research at Comparitech, a company focused on helping businesses improve cybersecurity.

The food and beverage industry has seen an uptick, in particular food processing, in attacks over the past year because of the disruption it causes to the manufacturing processes.

“I think what it boils down to with the food and beverage industry (is) it’s not so much about the data, but with the industry is you’ve got customers to serve, manufacturing processes, (and) you need to fulfill orders,” Ms. Moody said. “Once they (attackers) encrypt the systems, you go down immediately and your business stops, money stops coming in. So the quickest way to get yourself out of it is to pay the ransom. I think that’s the primary focus within this industry is to cause massive disruption.”

Downtime from attacks may be between a couple of hours of disruption or seven months of systems not being at full capacity, according to the study. The study also stated the average downtime from attacks increased dramatically in 2021 with over 11.5 days lost on average.

Attacks may come in various forms, like system encryption and “leakware”, but phishing emails are the most common.

“Employees will get an email that has a link in it and (if opened) releases the ransomware into the system,” Ms. Moody said.

She added there are a few things employees can look for in a phishing email, which may help…

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Frequent travelers will love these new charging technologies – CNBC

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Frequent travelers will love these new charging technologies  CNBC

New charging technologies like gallium nitride (GaN) and Power Delivery (PD) deliver smaller, more powerful chargers and battery packs that can charge all of …

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