Charge! The case for never letting your phone go dead in an airport

Frequent travelers, you've doubtless heard that there's a new TSA rule that "from some airports" (undefined; TSA always likes keeping us -- and the bad guys -- on edge), if you're traveling back to the U.S. from another country with an electronic device, you'd better be able to turn it on. Dead battery? Tell your device goodbye. It can't travel, and maybe you can't, either. At the very least, you'll be subjected for more screening.

We understand there's a specific terrorist threat that prompted this action, but, obviously, it does add yet another complication to travel. Your devices -- cell phones, Kindles, iPads, laptops, everything -- MUST be charged up at all times. This requires you to carry many types of chargers, and it's not a bad idea to also bring along a small portable charger in case, as is often the case, you find your phone running low at an airport before your journey is over and all the plugs already are occupied.

When should you make sure your devices are fully charged? All the time. Not just when you're coming back from abroad. Because now we're hearing reports (unconfirmed, I will warn) that some TSA folks are forcing people to turn on electronics on domestic flights. Yes, those within the U.S. And because Austin-Bergstrom International has consistently been one of the most stringent in the U.S. for TSA checks, from my personal experience (this is the only airport that sometimes makes me take off metal-free sandals in the Pre-check line), I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to be asked to turn on my phone here. I don't expect it, but I wouldn't be surprised. I make it a policy never to be surprised by new TSA procedures. Toward that end, I try to travel with as few things as possible that matter deeply to me. I must have my wallet and phone. Beyond that, I consider all my stuff expendable, because who's to say when the bad guys might suddenly start creating bombs in bras, curling irons or cough drops?


Also, of course, you should plan for spending more time in the security line. British papers are already reporting longer lines at some airports, including Heathrow, where phones are being examined. For that matter, I've noticed that the TSA folks who look in the bag-scanning machine have been examining things much more closely -- and for a longer period of time -- at all the airports I've been through this summer.

Finally, I will note that some reports mention that TSA will also be taking a closer look at shoes. They're welcome to inspect mine. They seem to like to do that anyway.

Five reasons to go to South Padre Island right now

Don't you just hate that I'm doing that? Going with the "five reasons" peg and using that "right now" imperative that's so excruciatingly trendy in travel writing right now? Me, too. But here we go with a summary gleaned from the trip to my South Padre Island condo from which I've just returned -- with a healthy sun glow and seriously ratty beach hair:

1. The weather is perfect. OK, I'm talking about right now -- it could change at any minute -- but the temps are in the 80s with a nice breeze. It's Texas, it's summer, and it's not 100. Go quickly, before that's no longer the case.

2. The seaweed invasion has slowed significantly. Although the mounds of already-raked seaweed against the dunes do, sadly, made the beach smaller than usual at high tide, the tide goes back out again, and the amount of seaweed washing ashore right now -- as opposed to what's been going on for about three months -- is the usual, small daily amount. Keep in mind that seaweed is good for the dunes, and try not to be bummed when you see it.

3. There are more ways to enjoy the water than ever. To parasailing, surfing, wind surfing, kiteboarding, kayaking, fishing, dolphin cruising, stand-up paddle boarding and personal watercraft zooming (always my least favorite), add two distinctly South Padre cruises: (1) The Black Dragon Pirate Cruise -- a thrilling pirate-themed cruise on a tricked-out pirate ship that typically also includes a chance to see dophins (book it in nearby Port Isabel next to Pirates Landing) and (2) a sunset dinner cruise (book it behind Laguna Bob's bar) that includes grilled shrimp and fajitas, along with music.

4. Fireworks all summer long: Thursday and Friday nights over the bay (watch from Louie's Backyard or Coconuts) and Saturday night over the beach (Clayton's Beach Bar). Oooh. Aaaah.

5.  Sand Castles. There's a new Sand Castle Trail guiding you to about 30 (they come and go; it's sand) professional castles around the island, and numerous of those pros offer sand-sculpting lessons (The Amazin' Walter, Sandy Feet, Andy Hancock -- google any of them; they're all great fun). It's the new hot activity on the island.

Check Below For Errors

I advise you to check this post for errors, because surely I've made one. More likely, four or five. I draw this conclusion from the fact that I typically have to go back at least several times when I'm trying to book a flight because I've filled something out wrong or neglected one of the many boxes.

"Check below for errors," I am directed in red. Sure enough, I find that I have not de-selected buying trip insurance. So I check the box: No, I will travel without insurance ("you idiot," is implied). Once again: "Check below for errors." Ah. I see when the first error was flagged, the secret (not-so-secret these days, because everybody demands it) three-number code on the back of my card depopulated its space. I fill it in again. "Check below for errors." Ah. Forgot to accept the terms and conditions. "Check below for errors." Dangit, now the trip insurance thing has depopulated and I have to fill it in again.

It all gets pretty confusing, in large part because we have to decline the opportunity to spend more money on numerous occasions. OK, on this particular booking I had to accept an extra fee because when it came time to select my seat, only seats carrying an extra $19 charge were available. One seat cost $19 merely to sit next to a window. The others were $19 for more leg room. So I chose both the leg room and a window seat for $19. But I'd have preferred a middle seat free (or, rather, for the $149 I agreed to pay for the one-way ticket), American Airlines.

Anyway, having filled out all the various blanks, I'm flying my flight. The good news is: Barring any crises, this is the last airplane flight I will book for 2014. My blood pressure's about to go way down.

UPDATE: American said "Check below for errors." Through Twitter, I'm told that I could decline to pick any of the extra-$19 seats on the map and just wait until I got to the airport for a seat assignment. I didn't see that option listed, and every seat besides the extra-pay seats was x-ed out on the map. I'd sort of feel like I was flying standby, waiting to see if business travelers declined all the extra-pay seats so I could have one. But that's the way things are these days. Anyway, having made that correction, I await notifications of more.

Making my peace with little planes

Whine of the Day: I really don't like flying on commuter planes. They're small, which means they flap in the breeze more. Their pilots are typically underpaid. There's often no room for a decent-sized carry-on, which means I have to pay $50 more for a checked bag. They're late more often, and they lose luggage more often.

But I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm going to be on regional jets more than ever. A recent flight to JFK on JetBlue was on a big jet when I booked it and selected seats, but by the time we traveled, it had become a regional jet. There we were in the back of the plane, flapping in the breeze. Still, at least JetBlue includes its in-flight entertainment system in its smaller jets. It was a fine flight, and we managed to get our bags onboard (also, JetBlue allows a free checked bag -- so far; we're hearing that policy won't last).

I fly frequently from Austin or Dallas to Louisville, Kentucky, because my father and brother's family live there. There's only one way to get to SDF nonstop from DFW, and that's on American Airlines. Up to now, I've been able to get big jets in both directions. But when I tried to book a September flight, I saw that only if I'm willing to fly at 6 a.m. can I avoid American Eagle (which uses Mesa Airlines for most of its flights). Because I can't drive in the dark, I can't take that flight. Mesa Airlines it is. And I'm not a fan. My husband and I plan to drive up in September, but we can't do that for every visit.

Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines is offering all sorts of interesting routes from Dallas Love Field to Louisville -- through Baltimore and Fort Lauderdale. From Austin, I can still fly to SDF through Chicago Midway. And will. So far, Southwest isn't flying anything smaller than a 737.

While I'm at it, let me whine again about JetBlue dropping its SFO-AUS route. For 1.5 months, Virgin America added a second, daytime flight, but that stops in September, meaning that if I want to arrive in San Francisco before 7 p.m., I'm forced onto United . . . on a regional jet.

What's going on, of course, is airline consolidation. Gates are being freed up at the big New York and D.C. airports, and airlines are repositioning their larger jets, leaving the dinky ones for smaller airports that they choose not to abandon altogether. I should feel fortunate, I suppose, that I still have the smaller jets to climb aboard.

Why it's hard to choose which airline to be mad(dest) at

I've been mad at airlines for a long time. It all started when they took the food away, even though I hated the food. This, I admit, was silly on my part. They was so much rampant madness to come.

Maybe ten years ago, I started getting mad at specific airlines. Delta came up first. In retrospect, its offense was fairly minor, but it galled me at the time: It rebooked a flight I'd booked through Atlanta, giving me a 20-minute connection time that, in Atlanta, is quite impossible. So, I knew I needed to rebook. In order to do that I had to sit on hold for three hours. I considered that unacceptable and swore: No more Delta. (The flight I ultimately took nearly landed on its wing at JFK, but given the high winds, I found that easy to forgive.)

After that -- I guess this might be five years ago -- American Airlines infuriated me for the way it handled massive cancellations of MD-80 flights for reinspections. Let's set aside the fact that it should have seen the FAA's directive for inspections coming and not be mad about that. Let's say AA couldn't help grounding its entire MD-80 fleet for reinspection. It was the way it was handled that made me exceedingly mad. I was in LA, having arrived on a nonstop from Austin: MD-80, the sole craft the airline flew out of/into Austin. Instead of announcing at the start of the day that no MD-80s would be flying that day, AA canceled them one my one, moment to moment, rebooking my flight five times within six hours and still leaving me stranded at LAX, at which point I paid $350 and flew home on Southwest. I considered the entire day needlessly deceptive and swore off AA.

My options at that point were narrowed to United, Southwest and newcomer JetBlue, which I quickly fell in love with, but we all know how love at first sight goes. Back to that later. My next enemy became United. Pretty much everyone fell out of love with United and Continental when they merged, but I didn't fly them that much anyway, so United didn't encounter my wrath until last summer, when I flew it through San Francisco to SEA-TAC. Now, I knew very well that planes would be late that day because SFO was a runway down because of a crash. But United chose not to acknowledge that.

We were two hours late out of Austin. Fine. Understandable. But once we got to SFO, the delays were acknowledged in only hourly increments and only on the boards, with various explanations posted: weather, inbound aircraft, etc. There was not one agent in all of Terminal 3 willing to give us any information on when, exactly, we might get to depart that terminal (and I know Terminal 3 is all lovely after a renovation, but I seriously never wanted to see it again). Again: It was not the delays that infuriated me. It was the total lack of communication and disregard for passengers. Finally, we did board, arriving in Seattle at 4 a.m. Ever try to rent a car at an airport at 4 a.m.? United went on my no-fly list.

So, wonderful JetBlue: Wonderful until airline consolidation again bit me in the posterior. JetBlue didn't merge, but AA and US Airways did, freeing up Reagan-Washington gates for JetBlue, which dumped AUS-SFO in order to add Reagan flights. OK. Understandable. But, once again, it's the way it was handled: I got a "flight time change" customary email about an already-booked JetBlue flight. I put off reading it, assuming it was the usual two-minute change. A day later, I did read it and learned that my August flight to SFO would be through Long Beach. Odd. I called and was informed that JetBlue was dropping the route. I'd have to go through Long Beach. Well, OK. But the email didn't mention the flight home. What's up with that? What's up with that, I learned, was that there was no flight home. Not even through Long Beach. And JetBlue wasn't going to tell me that until I bothered to call. Not cool. Not even with a full refund plus $50 of scrip I'll never use because I've amassed zillions of JetBlue miles figuring to use them for SFO, my favorite place. Guess I'll be flying to Boston a lot.

But I can't stay mad at JetBlue. I can't, because I'm running out of options. I can't fly Southwest to everywhere, especially because its tickets have become pretty much as expensive as everybody else's, with worse connections and no seat assignments (something that bothers my husband more than it does me). If it weren't for the free bag, I'm not sure I'd like Southwest as much as I do. I wish it would stop calling itself a low-cost carrier when it is not. I'm getting a little mad.

Meanwhile, an especially nice coach flight across the pond on a B777 made me sort of fall back in love with American, whose flight attendants were wonderful, even in the face of a fairly dreadful bunch of demanding passengers (yes, you, guy in front of me who ordered water nonstop and left your feet in the aisle to trip them). This, in spite of the fact that AA tried to reroute my JFK-LHR trip across the pond through, um, Raleigh. A phone call fixed that without any time on hold, thank you.

Anyway: It's hard to stay mad at any one airline when they're all so maddening. I've decided to just wipe the slate clean and book whoever will carry me for the least amount of money, except for Allegiant, Spirit and Frontier, which are just too hideously maddening to mention.

United's carry-on policy: Must your personal item be backpack-shaped?

As you've probably heard, United is using new bag-sizer templates to make sure what you take onto the plane is the size they'd like it to be. And my only objection has to do with the personal item size. We'll get to that in a moment.

I have absolutely no objection to the airline trying to put an end to people trying to cram massive suitcases into the overhead bins. The size that United allows -- the same size that American Airlines and Delta Air Lines list as acceptable on their web pages -- is 22 by 14 by 9. This is a small suitcase, but it absolutely is sufficient for a week in Europe, I'm here to tell you. (Of course, it's a bit tougher on men, who have much bigger shoes. But my husband can do it.) I haven't seen this size limit for overhead bins enforced at all in recent years, and the result is people having to push and push to get their behemoths into the bins. The push, of course, is partly the result of people trying avoid bag fees, and I don't blame them for that. But I do blame them for packing badly.

The under-the-seat thing is quite another matter. United now says that your personal item is only acceptable if it is 9 by 10 by 17. That's the size of a small backpack. OK. Fine. But it's also the SHAPE of a small backpack. Some of us -- say, over the age of 30 -- carry cloth bags or satchels rather than backpacks. They are not rectangular. They will not fit into the sizer.

Here's a more acceptable policy for grownups: American Airlines says the dimensions of your personal item can't be more than 36 inches. That allows a 15 by 15 by 5 square canvas bag to be placed under the seat in front of me.  I have taken such a bag on every U.S.-based airline. It fits quite easily, without cramming, under every commercial airline's seat. (I'm not talking about commuter planes here. I don't fly on those, and they can have a lot less space both in overhead bins and under seats.)

Delta just might have the most reasonable personal item policy of all, and it's rare (never?) that I accuse Delta of being reasonable. Delta's policy is that the item must fit under the seat, period. It doesn't have to be backpack-shaped, square or any other particular shape.

My experience with United recently is that it has a whole lot of rules but not a whole lot of customer service. The airlines I fly most are JetBlue, Southwest and American, and because I pack efficiently, I don't foresee a problem on those. I have a good many United miles, though, and I'm going to need to use those. Which mean, I guess, I need to go buy a backpack.

The top four reasons I hate top five lists

"Five great places to eat duck fat." "Top ten beaches on the Gulf Coast." On and on and on it goes, the top five, top 10 and -- sometimes -- top 50. What if I like 13 beaches on the Gulf Coast? What if there's really only one place that does duck fat right?

Herewith, the top four reasons that I hate top five lists:

1. There are rarely exactly five things -- not four, not six -- that fit the category.

2. They're frequently aggregated lists. Some dude sitting in an office feeds "top five duck fat" into Google and rewrites the results to look original. (Yes, I know. Some of us do really personally research top-five lists. But I have the feeling that more do not.)

3. They're the trendy new way to deal with travel writing so that nobody has to be exposed to the ickiness of narrative. I happen to like narrative. Doing it right takes lots of reporting, of course, and not "we went here and then we went there." I think we have bad travel writing to blame, in part, for the popularity of top 5 and top 10 lists.

4. People actually believe these lists and adhere to them too strictly. Sure, I like to see what my fellow travelersdo so I can try to repeat the experiences. But if you only go to what others consider the top five restaurants in Des Moines, you'll never really know Des Moines.

That's it. No five. Deal with it.