6 ms·
American Airlines: one day of lounge access to anyone with Klout score over 55
- kintamanimatt 13y agoThis might be the first time internet points actually count for something in the real world.
- CaveTech 13y agoFar from the truth. Internet "celebrities" have received free goods and perks for quite some time.
- electic 13y agoWho cares. American Airlines lounges are not that great.
- seanmccann 13y agoFree beer at LAX and most airports. It's better than nothing.
- akcreek 13y agoI thought the lounge in Tokyo was outstanding. All the drinks, food, shower, internet, etc... you want included in the admission fee. The lounge at DFW is a joke compared. They had apples and packaged cookies + water. Everything else had to be purchased separately.
- nikunjk 13y agoSite is down. 404 error
- jaxomlotus 13y agoadd a www in front of it
- eksith 13y agoI'm always suspicious of sites that break without 'www'. Either the DNS was setup by a novice and/or someone with little knowledge, the platform that runs it is a convoluted mess or something else is horribly broken. I know that's not really a fair indicator, but "what else is wrong" and "how badly is the rest of it is cobbled together" are the first 2 question that pop into my head.
- cbhl 13y agoIt has been argued that putting a web server on a bare domain (without the www) is broken, since you aren't supposed to e.g. use a CNAME on the bare domain (and many hosting providers use CNAMEs to give them the ability to change the IP address hosting a site if something goes wrong in one datacenter).
- eksith 13y agoArgued by whom? That seems like an archaic holdover from the early days of the web with no bearing on what's possible today. We aren't supposed to link to resources that don't exist either and (while it's not specifically about DNS) that's exactly what URL rewriting is used for today.
- cbhl 13y agoFor example: > Using URLs of the form http://example.com/ http://example.com/ creates a number of problems, and we strongly recommend that you avoid it. http://faq.nearlyfreespeech.net/q/baredomain http://faq.nearlyfreespeech.net/q/baredomain > zone apex domains (also called bare, naked, or root domains) ... have serious availability implications https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/apex-domains https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/apex-domains Granted, you don't always have to follow the RFCs... > the DNS RFC (RFC1033) requires the "zone apex" (sometimes called the "root domain" or "naked domain") to be an "A Record," not a CNAME ... Never one to let a RFC stand in the way of a solution to a real problem, we're happy to announce that CloudFlare allows you to set your zone apex to a CNAME http://blog.cloudflare.com/zone-apex-naked-domain-root-domain-cname-supp http://blog.cloudflare.com/zone-apex-naked-domain-root-domai...
- kintamanimatt 13y agoAmerican Airlines’ Admirals Club Welcomes Klout Users in Nearly 40 Locations At Klout, we know that understanding your influence through the Klout Score, Moments and analysis is just one step toward being recognized for your influence. We launched our Klout Perks program to recognize influencers with amazing products and experiences, and have partnered with major brands like Sony, Nike, Microsoft, Disney, Audi, Gilt and many others in an attempt to keep upping ourselves. Influencers clearly like this recognition – we delivered our one millionth Perk last week! We think we’ve found another way to top ourselves… Today we’re announcing a partnership with American Airlines that gives Klout users access to nearly 40 worldwide lounge locations including San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, London and many more. Starting today, if you have a Klout Score of 55 or higher, you can gain access to the Admirals Club by going to aa.com/klout. You do not have to be an American Airlines passenger to be eligible for this Perk. [Picture of an airport lounge with upholstery from the 70s] This is only the beginning of the momentum we’re seeing with businesses and brands who recognize the power of Klout to further reward their best customers, and introduce themselves to a great breed of new customers. Go to aa.com/klout to get your Klout treatment!
- quomopete 13y agoI just threw up a little in my mouth.
- kintamanimatt 13y agoWhy?
- sergiotapia 13y agoI just created my Klout account and it seems to meassure your popularity in various social networks. Seems like a win-win for the site and the proverbial -famous person- if they can get free perks. How is this sustainable though? Are they selling their data?
- zeckalpha 13y agoIt looks like the business model is taking money to provide perks to people with a high score who in turn do free social advertising. Sounds more sustainable than Facebook or Twitter's model.
- muratmutlu 13y agoThis caused me to check my Klout score, haven't done that for a very long time. Looks like they may be onto something...
- untog 13y agoI removed myself from Klout over a year ago. This is the first time I've come close to regretting that choice- but then I remembered that I never fly with American Airlines. But I can see how this could be an interesting win-win for both companies- you care about your Klout score more, and you're more inclined to fly with American Airlines. That said, most people I know that are on Klout joke about how they've been identified as experts in topics they know nothing about. Klout is either genius, or it's waiting for someone to reveal how inaccurate their entire model is. I removed myself after I realised I would never get past x points until I linked my Facebook account. It is a personal account that has no bearing on my professional life- why would I do that?
- mef 13y agoEven if you're not flying AA, you can still use this pass to gain entry to the lounge. From the post: "You do not have to be an American Airlines passenger to be eligible for this Perk."
- untog 13y agoEven still, I fly out of JFK most of the time, and the sheer number of terminals means their lounge is unlikely to be in the same place as my departure gate.
- rhizome 13y agoKlout scores between 45 and 55 get lounge access to United Airlines.
- fixxer 13y agoLet me know when Emirates offers the same.
- auctiontheory 13y agoIn order to connect to this company that lives by social media, I have to give them permission "to access [my] public profile, friend list, email address and News Feed." What could possibly go wrong?
- rhizome 13y agoWhy hasn't anybody whistleblown the value of that kind of information? I'm sure it has a monthly or annual price and it may even be written down somewhere.
- nwh 13y agoStartup idea! Allow us access to your Facebook and Twitter, we'll pay you $2 a month for the privilege.
- neilk 13y agoRapleaf charges pennies for it, in bulk. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/14/personal-data-advertisers_n_861829.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/14/personal-data-adver... I don't know what it would be worth it if you were targeting a specific person.
- rhizome 13y agoI think you misunderstand their pricing structure (as portrayed in the story). It's a penny or more per attribute, per person. How many items would the abovementioned FB profile access garner per Rapleaf? From my experience in market research and by looking at the linked price sheet, it doesn't appear that Rapleaf supplies PII.
- beedogs 13y agoWhat a truly horrifying partnership. Let's fill up our departure lounge with a bunch of big-headed bloggers. Brilliant!
- dsl 13y ago...or people who can set a breakpoint in Burp Suite. t.reward = "http://fly.aa.com/klout/api/reward/ + t.id; var n = t.score >= 55 ? c("free-pass") : c("50-off"); store.set("StoredUser", { id: t.id, score: t.score, nick: t.nick, reward: t.reward })
- narsil 13y agoNice. I'm happy this loophole exists, if only for the chance to be surrounded by the latter group.
- drstewart 13y agoEven better: http://fly.aa.com/klout/api/reward/ http://fly.aa.com/klout/api/reward/ A JSON dump of all the rewards codes.
- Vivtek 13y agoThat's the kind of thing that'll get the US Attorneys on you these days.
- beedogs 13y agoexcellent. This should be worth more than a Klout score, anyway.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- vidarh 13y agoWhile that looks bad, it's only really bad if they don't validate it against Klout in some way afterwards. Or if they actually care. After all the point of this "reward" is to advertise AA and their lounges. As long as the abuse isn't massive, it shouldn't matter much to them. I deal with quite a few voucher programs at work, and a lot of the time validating that the requirements are met is not ever on the agenda, as people who "beat" the system also bring in more potential customers
- ngoel36 13y agoMy Klout score is a literally a 53.95. And I fly from SFO > Istanbul > Bangkok in two days. On American. This is the first and only time in my life I'll ever be pissed that my Klout score's not high enough... Edit: In all seriousness though, does anybody know how I can raise it just one point?
- daeken 13y agoI was at 61, now 53. Flying in 10 hours; could've used this on my layover. Wonder why it dropped... Edit: As an aside, if anyone wants to get coffee in the Seattle area sometime in the next couple weeks, shoot me an email (it's in my profile).
- ngoel36 13y agoSomething tells me there might be a magical barrier at 55 now...I was at 57 last week...
- waterlesscloud 13y agoIt seems to me the decay rate over 51 or 52 is pretty high. I can hang on to 50 forever, but over that and I slip back down fast. Getting a couple tweets widely re-tweeted seems to have the biggest impact for me. Now, if only we could use HN karma for something useful...
- sliverstorm 13y agoHah, agreed, if only karma was useful! We can dream, I suppose.
- caseysoftware 13y agoYou can tweak the validation logic to give you the perk. Detailed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5693147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5693147
- hallman76 13y ago
- tnuc 13y agoHow long until people game the system? How many dollars does it cost to get a bunch of twitter followers? facebook, linked in? It would probably cost the same as paying to use AA lounges for a yer.
- MartinCron 13y agoWhat does it even mean to "game the system"? The whole Klout nonsense is a game.
- paulgb 13y agoPeople already game the system for twitter followers, search for "follow back" to see a ton of examples https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=follow%20back&s=typd https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=follow%20back&s=typd
- md224 13y agoI'm ambivalent at best. Is creating a new class of privileged "influential" people a good idea? I'm not sure, but I think people should be rewarded based on the quality of their influence, not on the strength of it alone. At least, that seems like a more "free market" approach.
- aaron695 13y agoCould someone tell me what a person with a Klout score over 55 would be like please? Just how influential is that -ish?
- ngoel36 13y agoYou can log on to your Klout account and see the scores of all your FB/Twitter friends. That would probably give you the best idea.
- frasierman 13y agoI'm 55 exactly. (@ws on Twitter). I don't consider myself influential to alot of people, but there are a few.
- arn 13y agoFor those who are jealous... it looks like this just gives you a one day Admiral Pass that you must use before July 31st. It's not like you get continued access to their lounges. screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/4iflZt0.jpg http://i.imgur.com/4iflZt0.jpg And it enters you into a contest to win a one year pass. So this is a one time freebie + contest promo, not an ongoing perk.
- hkmurakami 13y agoThanks, this gives me peace of mind in having killed my klout account a few years ago.
- rsingel 13y agoSo high Klout users get one one-day pass and you hand over your e-mail address to AA. The promotion makes sense - AA.com gets publicity and likely some tweets from popular Tweeters, etc. And they get a chance to upsell people to a club membership.
- knowtheory 13y agoEmbarrassingly i'll admit to having a klout >55. Having just logged into the AA/Klout thing, you'll note that they're actually just giving away a 1 day pass with a chance to win a free year in their Admirals Club check it: http://cl.ly/image/3g1f2h04002J http://cl.ly/image/3g1f2h04002J
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoWow, that's very unimpressive after reading the title. If you use that yearly pass too much during that year, watch out: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-golden-ticket-20120506 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-... /s
- jrockway 13y agoThe article you link to has nothing to do with one-year Admiral's Club memberships. It's about unlimited AAirpasses, something AA stopped selling decades ago. (With the Admiral's Club membership, you have to assign a name to the membership, and you can only show up there if you look like the person on a photo id with that name. So there is very little abuse and you can go as much as you want.)
- yaok 13y agoThe parent's point was that AA has a bad track record for honoring their deals. The linked article was fascinating and shows how, if the contract/promotion/product they owe you is used too much despite not violating any of the terms, they will still go after you. AA advertised a lifetime of free flight. They made people pay a lot of money for it. The users weren't abusing it. They were operating according to the terms they signed up for and indeed paid top dollar for. Despite not breaking any rules, AA still revoked their access to the service the customers paid for. The parent's comment totally applies. The subjects in the article were not abusing the system. AA was abusing the system.
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoNotice the /s at the end of my second statement.
- sneak 13y agoWho is savvy enough to have a 55+ klout score who doesn't already have lounge access via any of a bunch of different avenues (AmEx, PriorityPass, FF program, etc) already?!
- plorkyeran 13y agoPeople who don't fly enough to bother going out of their way to get lounge access?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- senthilnayagam 13y agoseems they have hit their limits and entries are closed
- unclegene 13y agohttp://aa.com/klout http://aa.com/klout HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
- daurnimator 13y agoAdd `www` and it works
- Uchikoma 13y agoKlout tells me I'm inside the top 1% and I have a score of 52 - so not a lot of people get this.
- steve19 13y agoI know just about nothing about klout. How "high" is 55? I just signed up hoping I has >55, but I am only 54, maybe adding some other random accounts social media accounts will nudge my score higher.
- OGinparadise 13y agoAmerican Airlines: one day of lounge access to anyone with Klout score over 55 I tried American Airlines lounge access with Google Glass on and I'm never letting my Klout score go under 55! Never. scoble. ;)
- philip1209 13y agoDid the AA site crash under load? I'm getting a 404 on the promotion page. http://aa.com/klout http://aa.com/klout
- dsl 13y agoyou need the www
- michaelochurch 13y agoThe real story here is that all of the U.S. airlines are in an embarrassing state, not only financially, but in terms of cultural standing and morale. Flying used to be glamorous-- 50, even 30, years ago. Now it's just as expensive (except on three or four high-traffic routes over which deregulation actually worked) but it's such a negative experience that no one looks forward to a flight. First class and lounge access are supposed to bring that back, but those fail as well. The appeal of flying in the old days was that you were guaranteed to be seated next to an interesting person doing something that either was exciting, or seemed it at the time ("international business"). Also, there was serious investment by the airlines into the quality of the experience: pilots actually told you when you flew over the Grand Canyon. That all got cheapened along the way. Also, attempting to create an "interesting people club" out of transportation is doomed to failure. Uninteresting people have money, too, and there's literally no way of keeping MWOCs (Money WithOut Culture) out. Plus, the airlines are constantly going bankrupt and have proletarianized the experience (baggage fees, uncomfortable chairs) to the point where it doesn't feel like a premium product, but they've also had to sell off the premium parts (first-class upgrades) for whatever coin-shavings they can get, to the point that they no longer feel special. Airlines are desperately trying to revive that brand and allure, but it's gone forever. It's old technology put to a mostly uninspiring use. The flight is something that you learn how to sleep through, not part of the experience. Before, frequent flyer programs were their attempts to find the interesting people and create something compelling. That might have worked in 1997; but in 2013, this generation's interesting people are in about 15-20 city centers (New York and San Francisco come to mind, but also places like Austin, Seattle, and Chicago) and generally do what they can to be locally self-sufficient (i.e. they don't fly more than a few times per year). This Klout partnership is the newest attempt to create an "interesting people club" out of the flying experience and, like all others, it will fail.
- drill_sarge 13y ago>interesting people club wtf am I reading?
- michaelochurch 13y agoI'm not saying that I like or even support this. Obviously, the idea that any commercial purchase would take someone into an "interesting people club" is the height of douchery. But appeals to douchery can make highly effective marketing. I am saying that there was a time when air travel (yes, commercial flight, even coach) had an allure. Airlines are desperately trying to revive that experience-- that's what those "exclusive" airport lounges are about-- but they're not able to do it and it's probably not possible at this point.
- bborud 13y agoDoes anyone still use Klout? I had to admit that out of curiosity I tried to use it, but the site just never worked when I tried it. It was either slow or non-functional. I thought it had died and slipped into obsolescence.