Thursday Things: Not Yet Turkey Day
21 November 2019. Vol 1 No 15. By Dan McGirt. #15
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You can’t see me. Photo by Shoeib Abolhassani on Unsplash
It’s not yet Thanksgiving Day (for our Happy Subscribers here in the U.S.) but it’s close, so Thursday Things is going with a holiday travel theme this week. For many of us the holidays mean travel by plane, train, or automobile (and sometimes all of the above) to visit family. Holiday travel can be a hassle, but it is much less so if you’re one of the lucky few who has unlimited first class flights for life on American Airlines. Back in 1981, American, desperate for cash, offered exactly that. For $250,000 you could buy an AAPass that offered lifetime deluxe flights. Party in the sky!
In all, 28 passes were sold before American stopped offering the unlimited passes in 1994, having finally figured out what a revenue-losing idea this was:
The issue that American quickly found out was that although consumers may not abuse an “Unlimited” option in many other arenas—such as unlimited soda at a restaurant, or even an all-inclusive holiday, where the majority of people will still have physical (and dietary) limits of how much food and beverages they will consume—when it came to first-class tickets, the customers who bought the unlimited passes were more than willing to go the extra mile, literally and metaphorically.
I mean, why not fly to Paris for lunch? Well, personally, I prefer Italian, but you get the idea.
By the 2000s, American Airlines was in financial trouble again and sent its Orwellian “revenue integrity team” to stalk unlimited pass holders, looking for excuses to revoke their coveted and costly flying privileges. Most articles I’ve read about this topic include sympathetic profiles of unhappy former AAPass holders who feel they were cheated and treated poorly by American Airlines, which did not honor the (albeit poorly thought out) deal it made with them. At least one former frequent flyer wishes he had never bought the pass. However, another AAPass holder American is still happy with his purchase: billionaire Mark Cuban. (Yeah, I bet the “revenue integrity team” won’t be bothering Mark anytime soon. He can afford lots of lawyers. Or, for that matter, he could just buy American Airlines.)
The moral of this story: Be thankful when you get a great deal, and enjoy it while it lasts. Also, never trust a big corporation.
But you can totally trust a small- to medium-sized corporation like Stuckey’s.
Maybe you’re not flying. Maybe you’re taking a road trip instead. And when the gas gauge gets low, you might want to stop at Stuckey’s. In olden times, the roadside oasis with the famous blue roof was the go-to pit stop for gas, breakfast, souvenirs, and gooey-yet-delicious pecan log rolls:
If your family ever took one of those summer road-trip vacations, you likely encountered Stuckey’s somewhere along your route. An oasis for highway travelers of any sort, Stuckey’s offered a place to rest, gas up, or have a 99-cent breakfast. If you had a sweet tooth, they had plenty of their famous pecan rolls on hand. If you needed a quick souvenir, they offered a wall-to-wall assortment of trinkets, from rattlesnake earrings to coffee mugs, Mexican rugs to t-shirts. Stuckey’s was a welcome sight to many a weary family. (See Retroland for more)
At its peak in the early 1970s, there were more than 350 Stuckey’s locations across the country. Since those glory days, Stuckey’s has faded into a hazy nostalgic cloud of long ago mem—what? Really?
This just in! It seems Stuckey’s is still around and recently named a new CEO with plans to expand iconic roadside chain’s e-commerce and social-media presence and “win over millennials” (Good luck with that — millennials ruin everything. Or so I’m told.)
New CEO Stephanie Stuckey is the granddaughter of company founder W.S. Stuckey* and will be the third generation to lead the family business, which is pretty cool. So congratulations and good luck to her and to Stuckey’s!
(*Stephanie is also, by amazing coincidence, a friend and former classmate of your Thursday Things editor, who is by no means including this item in a bid for delicious, gooey Pecan Log Rolls because, sure, they have a fluffy nougat center with maraschino cherries dipped in caramel and hand rolled in pecans but they also have like a bazillion calories and I’m trying to stay in shape here so no thank you, really I can’t. )
(Well, maybe one...)
“Ole Engine 100” in Sylvester, GA
Yep, this item is about trains. I love trains! Always have. As a boy I spent hours playing with my electric train set. I briefly wanted to be a hobo and ride the rails, before deciding that was probably not the best career option. I loved the train rides at amusement parks, any scene in Westerns involving train robberies, or action movie scenes set on trains. I enjoy traveling by train. So when I read this blog post a few years ago - Across the USA by Train for Just $213 - it definitely caught my fancy. See America by train! Just like Cary Grant in North by Northwest. It is certainly an appealing idea and on my To Do list.
Although it turns out, according to another blogger, You CAN train across the USA for $213, but you’ll lose your mind. (She recommends paying up for the sleeper car. I have to agree. Crossing the country in coach would definitely be a nightmare.) I’ve collected a few other links on this topic, which I will share for the benefit of any Happy Subscriber who might also be drawn to the romance of cross-country rail travel:
(Of course, the ultimate train trip would be to take the Orient Express, Paris to Istanbul. That service no longer exists, unfortunately. But there are some reasonable facsimiles. Also on my To Do list, though I might need to save up for that one.)
Do you enjoy train travel? What’s the longest train trip you’ve taken? Where would you go with unlimited first class airline passes? What’s your favorite road trip? Let us know at ThursdayThings@substack.com.
Thanks for reading! See you next Thursday for our special Thanksgiving edition!
