From: johnl@iecc.com   
      
   >(1) they sent me to the "expedited" TSA line: no shoes off, no computer   
   >on, no jacket on the moving belt -- for no particular reason. It was   
   >like the olden days. Just take the keys & coins (& cell phone, if I   
   >had one) out of the pockets.   
      
   Yeah, TSA precheck is underused, so they've been sending ordinary mortals   
   there by some sort of pseudo-random selection process.  On the other hand, I   
   have a NEXUS card which is supposed to qualify me for precheck automatically,   
   and two out of the last three times I checked in, I didn't get it.   
      
   >(2) My flight was on Lufthansa "provided by" United, and it was United   
   >all the way. The web site wouldn't allow me to choose a seat, or even   
   >a type of seat (for the return flight, on Lufthansa proper, I can pay   
   >$35 for the privilege of choosing my seat). And when the machine printed   
   >out my boarding pass, for "seat" it said "see agent." And they handed   
   >me a new boarding pass with an aisle seat next to the front row of   
   >Economy, which supposedly was a $149 premium (I'd now hate to find   
   >out what an ordinary Economy seat is).   
      
   I can report from experience that if you'd wanted to, you could have   
   gone to united.com, looked up the flight by the Lufthansa locator   
   code, and they'd have been happy to sell you the economy plus seat you   
   got for free.  The ordinary seats are pretty grim, a knee crushing 31   
   inch seat pitch.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)