John Fund on the state of our airports

00:00:00
Speaker 1: And we continue at two oh five in the afternoon on the John Phillips Show, Mister Randy wanings in Culver City, John, the.

00:00:07
Speaker 2: Latest Paul from Berkeley shows Californians support the billionaire tax. Oh great, I'm telling you right now it's because of all those Tom Steyer ads.

00:00:18
Speaker 3: They want to stick it to him.

00:00:21
Speaker 1: So every last business is going to end up in Florida. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is the telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. Well, if you've seen the images online from airports like oh, I don't know the airport in Houston, those TSA lines were about as clogged as Rosie O'Donnell's arteries. The President announced that he is going to send ice to alleviate some of that pain. But some airports are doing better than others. Joining us talk about this and much much more is our Hell who is a journalist and he's currently the national affairs reporter for National Review Online and a senior editor at The American Spectator. You can follow him on x at John fund John fun Welcome.

00:01:14
Speaker 4: Pleasure. I managed to get back through Miami Airport from a foreign trip on Saturday. I thought I was experiencing a rave. There were so many people there.

00:01:27
Speaker 3: You know.

00:01:27
Speaker 1: True story when they first tried to sell me unclear, which I did purchase thanks to one of my credit cards, and I now enjoy. When I'm at most airports, they asked me if I wanted to go Claire, and I said to the guy, now, I don't want anything to do with scientology.

00:01:47
Speaker 4: Well, look, foreigners cannot understand how the United States is the only major country in the world that operates our airports the way that we do. Every other country, of consequence, I think, except with Soto and Swaziland, have a public private partnership largely owned by the airlines or a private agency run their air traffic control and their airport security. The Israelis, who know more about security than anyone in the world, have private contractors doing the work for lalscreting the passengers. We, on the other hand, have this outloaded system where the same regulatory body, the federal Evsian administration, that's supposed to promote aviation, is also the one that's supposed to regulate and protect us. And it doesn't make any sense. And let me tell you, San Francisco Airport. There are no lines. There are no problems at San Francisco Airport because they've managed to jump through all the regulatory hoops in a loophole in the law, and they have private contractors at San Francisco Airport, at Kansas City Airport and eighteen other air ports in the country. They're working, their people are getting paychecks, and the rest of us are suffering.

00:03:07
Speaker 1: Our airports in this country are so bad, just in general, whether you're talking about TSA or anything else. Compared to airports in foreign countries, where you look at the prices of what you pay for a bottle of water or a sandwich or whatever, it's like you're at the sphere in Las Vegas. They gouge you fifteen ways from Sunday and they seem to enjoy doing it. And the condition of our airports is also appalling. You go to these foreign countries and they look like chic males. You go to Lax you feel like you're in the waiting room at an STD clinic.

00:03:44
Speaker 4: Well, look, we have a problem with public infrastructure in this country. The French, the French of all people, just finished a new subway line in Paris and it costs less than one eight with the a people mover out at Lax Airport is going to cost us and it's still not running in time for the soccer games.

00:04:09
Speaker 2: Well, we'll be lucky at this point if it's ready for the Olympics.

00:04:14
Speaker 4: You said it. I have to tell you, the Lax people mover may shove aside the California High Speed Rail disaster as the most unbelievable failure of public infrastructure in the country. The unions and the contractors and the builders have got a hold of a taxpayer dollar and they're not letting it go.

00:04:38
Speaker 1: What's wild is in southern California, at least the regional airports are fantastic. You go to Long Beach Airport, it's great. You go to Palm Springs, it's like you're walking back into time in the nineteen sixties at a sheet private airport, John Wayne, it's a dream.

00:04:57
Speaker 2: Burbank love it. Lax So it looked like it got bombed.

00:05:04
Speaker 4: Well, I have to tell you, I think Lax is just reflective of all of the problems that Los Angeles has because the airport authority there is pretty much under the control of either the Board of Silly Supervisors or the mayor's office or various other bureaucracies, and it's run like a public utility, except there's no accountability and you can't you can't depend on anything. I believe that the future of this country, if we're going to have real aviation, is we're going to have to literally just go over to other countries, you know, countries that actually run hubs that work like he throw in Frankfurt and Germany and say, look, just bring your best people over here and we'll well, we'll send them to Tijuana, or we'll send them somewhere, but they're not working for us.

00:05:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a disgrace.

00:05:57
Speaker 1: We don't have world class airports here because our hospitals are so much better than everyone else else's, our universities are better than everyone else's. Yet for whatever reason, we cannot make an airport that can compete with some of these airports around the globe.

00:06:14
Speaker 4: Well, I have to say there are a few airports that have improved dramatically, even though it cost a whole lot. If you fly into New York's LaGuardia, you will be impressed. It's no longer the broken down third world you know rat trap that it used to be, but it came at an enormous price, and at least it works. You go to others, some other airports, there's some big improvements. You know, Austin, Texas is a good airport. Phoenix, I like Phoenix is a good airport. But these mega airports controlled by politicians, their friends, and business and the unions, and they basically are there as a toll gate. They're not an airport. They're a tollgate. As you said, they're there to charge you for everything. It's the Las Vegas mentality of everything has to cost five times more than it should, and the Las Vegas mentality is basically the same mentality we have at our airports.

00:07:08
Speaker 1: Let's shift gears here for a second and talk about a ballot initiative that looks like it's going to qualify for the November ballot here in California that would require a picture id for individuals in California to cast a ballot. I haven't seen any polling numbers on this specific proposal, but I have seen numbers nationwide, and if those numbers are in any way reflective of the California electorate, this thing is going to sail through. It almost doesn't matter what category of voters you look at, they all support it overwhelmingly. What do you make of this initiative and do you think it's going to pass?

00:07:49
Speaker 4: There are some early polls and it shows it narrowly ahead. Because remember California is full of what I call Democratic drone voters. They will do it ever they're told. Just look at the redistricting initiative the Gaven News to put on the ballot got over sixty percent of the vote. The Trump arrangement syndrome is so virulent in California that the millions of people who are just going to follow whatever the party line or the union line is. Having said that, I think this idea is so powerful it can overcome the opposition. I believe it has a chance to win. I believe it likely will win. And you know, I'm old enough to remember when we had term limits on the ballot. Willie Brown threw everything at the term limits initiative back in the nineteen nineties. He had Angela Lansbury, he had James Garner doing ads for it, saying that it was going to lead to oil slicks off the California coast. Unbelievable stuff. But it's still long, and we still have a form of term limits today. I believe that photo ID is the only thing that can restore integrity to our elections in California, and if we don't, we're just going to see ballot harming and all of these these absentee bouts that come in at the last minute. There's a reason why California is the only state in the country where it takes a month to announce what the results are, because we have an election month, not an election day. Luckily, the Supreme Court held a case here or heard a case this week. I think by June the Supreme Court is finally going to rule that if an absentee ballot doesn't arrive by election day, it's not going to be counted. Right now, in California, you can wait seven days or more for the ballots to come in, and lord knows where they've been because the post Office doesn't put postmarks on a lot of bet mail these days. So I believe this is going to be the most important issue. Forget the governor's race. The governor's race, yes, besides who's going to run on the state for four years. The photo ID initiative is going to decide whether or not we're going to have elections anytime in the next few decades that really matter in the state.

00:09:53
Speaker 1: I'll tell you something else they should do. They should go back to the old days when you had to request and abs tea ballot each and every time you cast one. Because at my previous residence, I would receive a ballot for the guy that lived there before me the entire time I own that house. I assume that he moved to a different county and was casting a ballot somewhere else. I'm ethical, so I would take the ballot and throw it out. But if I was an unethical person, I could vote twice. When I lived in an apartment building in Los Angeles County, there was always a stack of ballots on the mailbox every single election cycle, and then at some point they would just disappear.

00:10:34
Speaker 3: I have no clue what happened to them.

00:10:37
Speaker 1: If you have to request one every election cycle, if you're dead, or if you moved, or if something happened where you're not going to be voting in that particular election at that address, they won't send you one. So you don't have a gazillion ballots floating around the ecosystem.

00:10:54
Speaker 4: I have seen apartment buildings where they have that table in the middle of the lobby and the ballots are piled up. It's sort of like what happens when somebody leaves a box of candy open on such a table. People are going to take it and they're going to make use of it, and people are tempted. Don't put temptation in front of people. That's how you have honest elections. At least have enough guardrails so that this doesn't happen. If you put temptation in front of people, you're going to end up with people taking advantage of the situation.

00:11:28
Speaker 1: I'll tell you something else we need to do here in California. We need to take the power away from the California Attorney General of why writing the title and summary for initiatives that we vote on, because they all do it, but rob Bonte has been one of the worst offenders where they put their finger on the scale and they try to manipulate voters into voting against their own best interests by purposely being deceitful and deceptive on that ballid title and summary.

00:12:01
Speaker 4: It's an outrage and of scandal. Let me tell you one other final outrage and scandal. Shirley Weber the Secretary of State in California. She's in charge of deciding who gets on the ballot. She's in charge of deciding whether or not you list your occupation properly, whether or not you can use a nickname on the ballot, or whatever. Well, the one thing that the California Democrats are worried about right now is what if, you know, Blanco and Steve Hilton become one and two on the ballot and they go on to the November election and the Democrats are frozen out. They'll do anything to stop that. The Green Party candidate and for governor of California has just been thrown off the ballot. You should have him on and interview him. And the reason is he filed a bunch of paperwork to have to get on the ballot, including a financial statement, and there was one address that he got wrong. It was an address that it was a little outdated and he hadn't used it for a month or two. She threw him off the ballot. It's going to have to go to court. He maybe kept off the ballot. He's currently polling at about two or three percent that could make a difference in whether or not a Democrat places one or two, or three or four in the final result in the primary in June. It is outrageous that they're playing ballot elimination in order to get one of their candidates into the November election.

00:13:22
Speaker 3: For sure, Shirley Weber is the absolute worst.

00:13:27
Speaker 1: She was the one that screwed everything up for Claudia Pascucci when she ran for the United States Senate a last time around. And then once she screwed up her occupation on the ballot, it was too late to change and she goes, oop, sorry, we'll update it on the website. Well, you can update it on the website, you're not going to update it on all the printed materials that went all over the place. So now you just screwed this woman over, and she just didn't seem to care at all. And I don't know if you saw this, but there was a CBS news report about fraud going on in the Fernando Valley with all of these fraudulent hospice care centers and they went to her office because she was the one that gave them all business licenses because her office does that too, and they said you're giving business licenses away to all of these fraudulent entities and they're scamming the tagpayers out of money. What do you have to say for yourself? And she goes, well, it's not my job to verify anything that they say to me. Go to ask someone else.

00:14:25
Speaker 4: Then why do we have licenses if it's not our job to verify them? Why not just pass them out like you would fly ers on a street corner.

00:14:35
Speaker 1: It makes no sense, But this is how they see their role in the world. This is how they see the duties of performing their job. They and in a one party state they get away.

00:14:46
Speaker 4: With they are fraud facilitators. Rather than protect the public, they're in charge of fleecing the public.

00:14:56
Speaker 2: Have you seen a secretary of state in this country that's worse than her?

00:15:02
Speaker 4: There have been some in the past. In fact, one of them was the secretary of state of Washington State, and he messed up the governor's race there twenty years ago so badly he finally had to leave. And you know what he ended up in Los Angeles. You know his name, Dean Logan, the registrar of voters of Los Angeles County, which has ten million people. Yes, he was the worst than Shirly Weber, but she is a strong number two, and she's the one currently in office who is the worst in the country. You're absolutely right.

00:15:33
Speaker 1: Can you explain to the people, because not everyone's familiar with what happened in Washington State, how did Dean Logan screw that up?

00:15:41
Speaker 4: Well, the Republican candidate was ahead when all the votes were counted, and then they had recount and he was still ahead. And so Dean Logan, who was a clearly partisan Democrat, decided he had two choices. He could either do the right thing and just let the process play out, or he could stupid and incompetent. So he played stupid and incompetent. He discovered new ballots, new fresh ballots, seventeen different times during the final recount, unbelievable. Every time they needed a few more votes, they found a few more votes in the back room, and it became almost a joke. They called the biggest Joe cappen in King County, which is Seattle. They ended up calling that Kiev County because it was such a Buzantine center of fraud and corruption. Anyway, you know, the Democrat won by one hundred and thirty nine votes. No Republican has ever won the governorship since, and Dean Logan was so humiliated that he's actually finally left. But in the Peter Principal tradition, he managed to get hired by Los Angeles County and he was the guy who was in charge of the recount for the twenty ten Attorney General's race that Kamala Harris just barely won over Steve Kinney. Remember that one. Oh yeah, ka, Pamala Harris's national political career. I don't believe she actually won that election. I went to the recount facility in La County where they were recounting the votes, and I saw a sea of tables where the county bureaucrats were counting the votes. It was a perverse joke. Every single table I looked at was manned by people who were wearing SCIU Union t shirts. They were sort of just giving us the finger, like we know what's going to happen and you can't stop us.

00:17:31
Speaker 1: Last question before you go, Let's go back for a moment to the picture id requirement to vote. Let's say that that passes here in California and that becomes the law of the Land. Do you think we're going to see a difference in election results because of that.

00:17:48
Speaker 4: Well, I think the key is this, if there's no risk and there's no guardrails, there's no barrier to illegal or fraudulent or they're voting, then you're going to have it because there are consequences if you cut off the worst hat practices. Make it harder to ballot harvest, make it harder to get an absentee ballot, make it harder to be a non citizen and vote, make it make it essential that people show photo government ID to for who they are, who they say they are, and they can't vote multiple times as easily. Then you actually have to work hard at it. It's much more difficult, and the elections are going to be much more full of integrity. And that's what we've seen in the thirty four state, other states in the country, and every other country in the world. By the way, it requires photo ID as the polls. We're the outlier in California and a few other Blue states. And I think it would make a dramatic difference because it would finally introduce risk, consequences and possible prosecution into the process. If you're fraudulent.

00:18:57
Speaker 1: John Fund, the National Affairs from order for National Review Online and senior editor at The American Spectator. You can follow him on x at John Fund, John Fun, thanks so much for stopping by.

00:19:10
Speaker 4: Always a pleasure, John.

00:19:11
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is the telephone number. What eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. And Randy, if you missed our interview with Antonio Viragosa last week and you want to find out what you missed out on, that's easy to do.

00:19:35
Speaker 2: Just search for the John Phillips Show wherever you get your podcast, whether it's the Apple podcast app, iHeart, Spotify, search for the John Phillips Show, hit subscribing to download all the episodes.

00:19:48
Speaker 1: All right, Coming up next, we'll tell you what happens if you have a reservation at a hotel and they say, who the hell are you? Eight hundred two two two five two two two is the telephone nuw umber one eight hundred two to two two five two two two. Well, Randy, you and I both do a lot of traveling around the globe. We both happen to be Hilton partisans. We've got to collect and spend those Hilton Honors points. And one of the reasons that we like to stick with the same company is because you move up in status and they treat you a little different. Because if you just show up on the street or off the street with a reservation, sometimes they won't let you check in early. Sometimes they won't give you the bottles of water. Sometimes you don't get the drink vouchers, and you're pretty much on your own. And sometimes it's even worse than that.

00:20:42
Speaker 2: Sometimes the hotel over books and then you don't have anywhere to stay even though you have a reservation. And that's what happened to one Bay Area couple on their trip to the Bahamas. They had a resort booked, but before they could get to the resort, they had one night booked and a Courtyard Marriott, and Courtyard Marriott says, screw your reservation.

00:21:08
Speaker 3: Were fall not a good look for Marriott.

00:21:14
Speaker 2: For more on this vacation nightmare, here's NBC in the Bay.

00:21:21
Speaker 5: We've got a travel warning for you. A South Bay family says a big brand name hotel chain turned them away because it overbooked, and that cost the family.

00:21:30
Speaker 3: I'm pretty penny.

00:21:31
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: They called consumer investigator Chris Kamura for help. Chris, this is the exact kind of story you call the local news for one hundred percent. Chris found a lesson for everyone, plus and experts advice about one type of hotel that's frequently overbooked.

00:21:49
Speaker 5: Sand Surf and Sun.

00:21:51
Speaker 2: The Dwarkin found there's some alliteration for you, not at the Mark Brown level.

00:21:57
Speaker 5: Sand Surf and Son. The Dwarf family's goal for a winter getaway.

00:22:02
Speaker 7: The plan was to spend eight delightful days in the Bahamas.

00:22:05
Speaker 5: Pretty simple arrangements, a one night's day at this Marriott courtyard, then seven nights at a resort. Christine's husband, Jimmy, confirmed and pre paid their one night's day at the Marriotte, so check in should have been easy. It was not.

00:22:18
Speaker 2: This lady.

00:22:20
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, the rooms are all sold out. We don't have any more rooms.

00:22:23
Speaker 2: But wait, they have a reservation. Yeah, they don't care. I've never had this happen to me, but on two occasions I've run into let's just say, similar issues. One time I was going to take a cruise out of Bay of New Jersey, and my flight was delayed and I didn't get to the hotel until after midnight, and the woman started letting me have it at check in, saying, you're lucky that five or six different people didn't come and check in, because we're overbooked and you wouldn't have had a room. I don't have to do anything for you. I would have just given you the eight hundred number and you'd have to work it out with them. And then on another occasion, I was going to Las Vegas and I was staying in an M Life property and it was the same sort of situation. There was a delay getting there, and I was waiting in this very long line to check in, and they go, oh, we're over sold. We don't have a room for you. And I go, well, you're going to have to put me up at another one of your properties. I know M Life has a ton of properties in Las Vegas. And they go, okay, yeah, we'll be happy to do that, and they put me in this motor motel behind Circus Circus. Oh no, yeah, imagine having a room at like the Bellagio or something, and they put you up in Circus Circus.

00:23:50
Speaker 3: But it wasn't even Circus Circus.

00:23:52
Speaker 1: No, it was a two story motel that apparently is some annex part of Circus Circus.

00:23:58
Speaker 3: Do they even have a casino floor?

00:24:01
Speaker 1: No, you had, you could park right in front of the door. But Circus Circus is like a FEMA camp.

00:24:10
Speaker 7: And we're like, this doesn't make any sense. We have a we have a reservation, right, And that's when Jimmy launched into the whole Seinfeld routine.

00:24:18
Speaker 5: Do you have my reservation?

00:24:19
Speaker 8: Oh?

00:24:20
Speaker 3: We all remember this, Oh yes, old car. It was so funny.

00:24:24
Speaker 2: When I was listening to this story, I started thinking about the Seinfeld bit and then immediately they go to the Seinfeld bit.

00:24:33
Speaker 5: Do you have my reservation? Yes we do. Unfortunately we ran out of cars. Christine's talking about this much quoted nineteen ninety one episode that unfolded out a rental car counter, but the reservation keeps the car hered percent.

00:24:45
Speaker 3: Larry David wrote this, Oh, yes.

00:24:48
Speaker 5: That's why you have the reservations. I know why we have reservations. I don't think you do.

00:24:56
Speaker 3: Still timeless.

00:24:59
Speaker 5: The Dwargan were living the hotel version of that joke, but they were not laughing after overbooking the hotel and giving away their prepaid room. Here's what the dwark in Saint Marriott did for them nothing.

00:25:10
Speaker 3: I'm nothing again.

00:25:14
Speaker 2: Not a good look for Marriott. You are now in a foreign country. You thought you at a hotel, room booked. You're sleeping on the street unless you can find some last minute lodgings.

00:25:25
Speaker 3: Well, thank god, the climate's good.

00:25:27
Speaker 8: I'm quite surprising.

00:25:30
Speaker 5: That's Professor Michael Terry, a hospitality industry veteran who teaches hotel managers at the University of Central Florida. Terry said hotels routinely have no shows guests who hold reservations but don't check in or cancel.

00:25:43
Speaker 8: Usually it's maybe two three percent something I got.

00:25:46
Speaker 5: But when everyone shows up and there are more guests than rooms, Terry said, what customarily happens next is the overbooked hotel finds you an alternative place to stay.

00:25:57
Speaker 2: Any reputable hotel in the world, Marriot's not reputable.

00:26:02
Speaker 1: Well, they don't like to do that because let's say you have a down market Marriott. You're at the courtyard and they don't have any rooms available. Whatever the high end version of the Marriott product is does have a suite available that could cost several thousand dollars a night in a location like the Bahamas.

00:26:21
Speaker 3: They're not going to want to pay for you to go to that suite.

00:26:24
Speaker 1: If you're only paying one hundred and seventy five dollars for your room at the Courtyard.

00:26:29
Speaker 8: Well, transport you to that hotel, pay for that hotel for the first night, transportation back the next morning, and of course not charge.

00:26:39
Speaker 3: You for that room.

00:26:41
Speaker 5: That was nothing.

00:26:41
Speaker 2: So I guess the lesson here is that when you book a reservation, even though it's months in advance, and it says, hey, this is your room, that's not true.

00:26:51
Speaker 1: Well, this is why you need status with a hotel. You need status with a cruise line, you need status with an airline. You need to have a to get back at them if they screw you over. I don't think they would do this to someone who had status with them. I think they'll do it to people who buy it off a hot wire or one of those online orbits, one of those websites. But if you're a regular customer with that particular company, usually they'll target someone else.

00:27:20
Speaker 2: Well, and it's pretty easy to get even the most basic levels of status with the hotel chains, because if you just check your travel cards, you probably already have it that.

00:27:31
Speaker 5: That was not the case for the Dwarkins. They say the Courtyard Marriott simply turned them away.

00:27:37
Speaker 7: They were pretty rude about it.

00:27:39
Speaker 5: So that night, at midnight they started walking the streets of Nasau.

00:27:43
Speaker 3: This is becoming the saddest vacation ever.

00:27:46
Speaker 1: And NASA is a pit by the way. Oh yeah, when the cruise ships go there, no one gets off. That's why the cruise ship companies are now buying their own beach clubs there because it's so undesirable.

00:28:03
Speaker 7: Now from the distance, we see Margaritaville and I'm like, oh, come on, Jimmy.

00:28:08
Speaker 2: Buffett, Well, I'm sorry to tell you he is no longer with us.

00:28:14
Speaker 4: Come on.

00:28:15
Speaker 5: They changed their latitude and found a change in attitude.

00:28:19
Speaker 3: Decent reference.

00:28:22
Speaker 5: The Margaritaville resort found the dwark and family a room, the hotel's last available room, a suite for fourteen hundred dollars.

00:28:31
Speaker 3: Holy cow.

00:28:32
Speaker 1: Okay, you see that is why the Marriott didn't want to make this good because they would be out of pocket for that amount of money. Now they're going to have to pay it because I'm sure they violated all kinds of rules, but that was the hesitation.

00:28:49
Speaker 2: What are the amenities at the Margaritaville suite and Nassau.

00:28:55
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I want it.

00:28:59
Speaker 5: For one night.

00:29:00
Speaker 7: That's a lot of money. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly not money we budgeted for this trip.

00:29:04
Speaker 5: The Dwarkins expected Marriott to pay them back. They started emailing with help from folks on social media. They also contacted us.

00:29:11
Speaker 3: That was the smartest thing to do, go straight to them.

00:29:15
Speaker 5: We reached out to Marriott headquart.

00:29:17
Speaker 2: The news is your place to snitch, and the local news does this better than anybody else, because the one thing Marriott doesn't want is a story that goes out on the entire airwaves to the Bay Area of how they didn't make this right.

00:29:33
Speaker 5: We reached out to Marriott headquarters as well as the London company that actually owned the NASA hotel. Neither replied to us, but Marriott did respond to the Dwarkin family and agreed to pay back the extra fourteen hundred bucks they spent, plus the original cost of their stay.

00:29:49
Speaker 3: I wonder if they rated the mini bar. I would hope so, wouldn't you? If you were to Margaretaville property.

00:29:56
Speaker 2: Well, and you assumed that, hey, Marriott screwed me over. At some point they got to pay for this. I am opening in that bottle.

00:30:04
Speaker 1: I can't imagine any room at a Margaritteville hotel where there's not a blender going off.

00:30:10
Speaker 3: They must have blenders in the rooms.

00:30:13
Speaker 5: Plus the original cost of their stay.

00:30:15
Speaker 7: We travel a lot, and we've been traveling for years, and this is the first time we've ever encountered this.

00:30:20
Speaker 5: We reviewed Marriott's website and found only one reference to overbooking, a commitment to reaccommodate overbooked Elite guests.

00:30:28
Speaker 3: There you go, Johnny, you gotta hell status.

00:30:31
Speaker 2: If you have status, they will treat you very differently. Quick tip for Marriott specifically, if you have an AMEX Platinum, it comes with automatic Elite Golden status with Marriott.

00:30:43
Speaker 5: Besides just becoming a hotel VIP, there are a couple ways you can try to avoid becoming a victim of an overbooked hotel. Grab your phone, try to check in online.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: Some hotels, you guys got to update your sound effects. That's from like a nineteen nineties mac tosh.

00:31:01
Speaker 5: Grab your phone, Try to check in online. Some hotels let you check in up to twenty four hours in advance on their app. You might get your room assignment and digital key early hopefully.

00:31:13
Speaker 3: If you check it online. They don't. They can't give you the free water bottles. Well, they also can't upgrade you. Oh I love the upgrade.

00:31:21
Speaker 5: You might get your room assignment and digital key early, hopefully guaranteeing your accommodation. When you're making plans, Professor Terry said, be careful booking business hotels. He explained that corporate travelers frequently no show, so business hotels frequently overbook.

00:31:36
Speaker 8: Now, if it's a business hotel, it's much more common then yeah.

00:31:40
Speaker 2: But the Courtyard Marriott in NASA is not a business hotel.

00:31:45
Speaker 3: No, what businessman is going down there?

00:31:49
Speaker 5: Then, if you're ever going to check into a hotel late at night, Professor Terry says, over communicate your arrival time, call him on the phone, direct message on social media, chat in the app up. That didn't work for the Dwarkins, but Professor Terry says, you gotta try anyway. If a hotel turns out.

00:32:06
Speaker 3: Well, can you do that?

00:32:07
Speaker 2: If you're on a delayed flight, you got to pay for the Wi Fi. Well, the Wi Fi.

00:32:13
Speaker 1: Has to be working, which is not always the case, especially if you're flying on a commuter jet to a place like Nassau.

00:32:20
Speaker 5: Anyway, if a hotel turns you away anyway, let us know, scan the QR code on screen right now to fill out our consumer complain for him online.

00:32:29
Speaker 2: The moral of the story is, if you get screwed over by a hotel on your vacation, call NBC in the Bay and they'll make sure that they shame them into making you haul. You know, I briefly thought about doing a travel podcast where I talk about all my little tricks on how to avoid problems like this, and then I realized there's no way I can do that because not all of them are legal. Eight hundred two two two five two two two. Who is telephone number?

00:33:01
Speaker 4: What?

00:33:02
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. And right now it's time to open up the California crime blodder.

00:33:18
Speaker 5: It's happened yet again.

00:33:19
Speaker 3: This wow, Wow, what's up you dun Dun Dun Dun, Dundun, Dun Dun.

00:33:24
Speaker 5: Dun Beach, the Califonia crime blodder.

00:33:28
Speaker 4: With John.

00:33:31
Speaker 2: And this time we're getting a city that doesn't normally make the blotterer. In Newport Beach, there was some road raging going on where some irate driver was trying to run down a couple of bicyclists that were in their bike lane.

00:33:50
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure that led to an awkward encounter outside of the crab Cooker.

00:33:55
Speaker 3: For more, here's Katla.

00:33:57
Speaker 6: A scary case of road rage along pc H and Orange County caught on camera. Two bicyclists nearly run off the road. The cyclists say two drivers were so aggressive they feared for their lives.

00:34:09
Speaker 1: Kjalvibes Carlos Ossetto is Live with more on what happened, Hi, Carlos.

00:34:16
Speaker 9: Hey michah Encort. This door ride quickly turns south for two cyclists out here in Orange County. Part of the road range incident was caught on camera, and tonight those two cyclists they're speaking out saying things could have ended so much worse. A Saturday bike ride turned dangerously ugly along PCH and BA Short Drive in Newport beach. Dramatic video shows two cyclists being run off the designated bike lane by the driver of a blue BMW. One of the cyclists, fearing for his life, buddy hops the curb onto the sidewalk to get out of the way.

00:34:50
Speaker 1: Just whoa, I bet you that's one cyclist who wishes that he was jewiced, like Lance Armstrong.

00:34:57
Speaker 10: Zooms by us, gets the red light and then as far as I know, like thirty seconds later, he's like inches away from my rear wheel.

00:35:06
Speaker 9: Ben Byra and Luke Fetzer are competitive riders and we're out training for a race happening the following day. They say the drivers in the BMW any black.

00:35:15
Speaker 3: Well, that's one way to make you pedal fast, you know.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: Randy, I always contend that when people say exercise never killed anyone, they're liars.

00:35:27
Speaker 9: They say the drivers in the BMW any black and red Corvette got aggressive with them, yelling homophobic slurs for no reason.

00:35:38
Speaker 1: Well, I think there was a reason they were pissed. They have awful impulse control.

00:35:44
Speaker 11: We're just riding single file. Ben is behind me, I'm in front of him, and.

00:35:49
Speaker 2: They're in a designated bike lane, So it's not like they're in front of the car and slowing them down.

00:35:56
Speaker 3: No, these just seem like people who are a holes.

00:35:58
Speaker 11: He comes up to us and starts laying on the horn. His buddy yells out the side window.

00:36:04
Speaker 9: To get the drivers to back off. Luke says he squirted some water from his bottle towards the cars and that's when things escalated.

00:36:11
Speaker 2: Uh oh, yeah, you probably shouldn't have done that. Don't pulk the bear.

00:36:17
Speaker 11: Call us slurs and me spraying some water on his car was in retaliation to that.

00:36:24
Speaker 9: In the video, which has more than eight million views on Instagram, we see items being thrown out.

00:36:28
Speaker 2: I don't care how offended you are. Don't escalate any situation that you do not have to. You never know if the person who's in the lane next to you has a screw loose or is packing heat.

00:36:46
Speaker 9: In the video, which has more than eight million views on Instagram, we see items being thrown out the window of the BMW towards the riders, including a plastic water bottle. As the car flies past them, things get even more sheated.

00:36:59
Speaker 10: Next a couple lights down, they've like all got out of their cars trying to like, I don't know, tackle us or hit us?

00:37:07
Speaker 3: On what point do you start going the other direction?

00:37:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'd pedal right to the police station.

00:37:13
Speaker 10: I don't know tackle us or hit us. I don't know what their plan was. We're going like thirty forty miles an hour downhill, so if they did touch us, it wouldn't have been good for anyone.

00:37:23
Speaker 9: An incident report was taken by Newport Beach Police, but so far no active investigation is underway. Luke's attorney, who is a cyclist himself, says this is one example of the dangerous roads for riders.

00:37:36
Speaker 12: What's scary to us is we've seen a real rise in intentional aggression towards cyclists. The unfortunate thing here is these cyclists were actually where they were supposed to be.

00:37:48
Speaker 10: We were in the bike lanes, so like, I really don't see what we were doing wrong.

00:37:53
Speaker 3: Sometimes drivers be angry.

00:37:57
Speaker 9: Thankfully nobody was injured in this road rage incident, but the riders want the drivers to be held accountable for their actions. We're putting live in when a park Carlos Elsevio kat Telly five years.

00:38:09
Speaker 3: So there you go. That's what happened in Newport Beach.

00:38:12
Speaker 2: A couple of bicyclists almost got run off the road in any situation where they probably not that they were the aggressors here to begin with, but when they got yelled at and they got honked at, not a great idea to start squirting your water bottle at them.

00:38:29
Speaker 1: No, imagine, wake it up on a Saturday, the weather is beautiful, You decide you're going to go out and get some exercise, ride your bike, and you almost get killed and people in a car shouting homophobic slurs at you. I'm sure that guy got home and said, if I'm going to wake up and go out in the sunshine and have a bunch of people scream homophobic slurs at me, I might as well well play left field for the opposing team in Finway Parky