Still more insanity

Someone just pointed this out on a forum:

Check-in times to US may hit five hours

Making a vaguely-planned trip back to Virginia sooner rather than later looks like it might be a good idea. Another poster was considering flying into Mexico instead when she goes to visit family in June, reminding me of vatine's earlier Canada suggestion. :)

Particularly cute:
"Information being obtained includes details about which passengers have requested kosher or halal meals."

Erm, beyond the obvious absurdity factor, this would include a decent number of people hoping for vaguely edible airline food--rather old advice. I've gone for Kosher dairy, myself, though BA's Asian veggie option has been the best so far, enough so that several other passengers were hungrily eyeing my fruit.

(no subject)

Ah, more fun with credit card companies.

I tried to get cash out of a machine, and the card was declined. This is the same issuer that decided to put a stop on the card in August, after a couple of purchases in the U.K.; apparently they want customers to notify them before going anywhere to keep their cards from being tagged as possibly stolen. Deeply aggravating as that approach is, I figured they'd pulled the same thing again.

Before tracking down the strangely elusive non-800 number (horribly useful regular customer service number here) and raising hell about it, I decided to check my account online. There was a reasonable bit of available space on the card, and now it's showing approximately $80 in the hole. The only time I've used that card since I left was (carefully) for calling my mother from Gatwick, and that would have to be one expensive three-minute call. For extra fun, the billing period rolled over yesterday, and the idiots have temporarily made it impossible to look at previous statements online. Obviously, the paper statement has not arrived yet. Still better, that card is up for renewal next month, and being over the limit couldn't look good.

I am hoping this is merely a particularly inconvenient case of mysterious magazine subscriptions or the like showing up on the statement, so that the charges are easily reversed. If somebody somehow managed to fraudulently charge things, at least there is a stop on the card now. *sigh* Without going through the regular toll-free number, I didn't get the usual voicemail options before, including "Recent Purchases". I'm not sure I have the energy right now to go through five or six layers of obstructive dolts to find out what is going on.