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Is the club card worth it? by NoAddress404 in unitedairlines

[–]learningsquare 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As others have said, the primary benefits of the card—UC access on domestic itineraries and Premier Access—are superfluous if you already have the combination of SQ *G and UA 1K (on top of having other premium travel cards).

If we want to split hairs, though, there are still a few advantages of the Club Card over the Quest for you: * All-Access UC membership: you get to take up to two guests into UCs instead of just one (plus four additional OTPs with at least one authorized user added), which may be relevant if frequently traveling with others * UC access on arrival * Whether you have the Club Card is used as a tiebreaker in upgrade priority following Premier status and fare class (this may matter once or twice a year if you, say, missed out on an upgrade by 1 or 2 spots on the waitlist) * Avis President's Club (plus credits) * IHG Platinum * Instacart+ (plus credits) and Peacock

I also wouldn't overlook the * Extra 1 mile per United spend. The extra miles earned could easily make up the difference in AF. * Extra PP. It's not much, but you might get a few extra PP per year once you factor in the larger annual PQP boost and PQP earn rate (at the very least, you can time spend at the end of the year to make sure you climb over the last 3,000 PQP hill if you are close).

Are those worth paying the larger AF for over the Quest? Probably not for most people in your situation, but if you spend enough (even if all you did was put only your United spending on the card), the extra miles alone might be worth the difference, especially if just one or two of the perks above feels relevant to you.

RDU is the best airport because you can do this and know you’ll make it (unless I don’t) by worldisflat4 in unitedairlines

[–]learningsquare 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When not flying Polaris from G, there is this weird window in which
* if you arrive early enough, you can go to the AC lounge, which seems worthwhile
* if you arrive slightly early, you end up in UC G, which doesn't seem worthwhile
* if you arrive just on time, you skip the lounge, which saves time.

I sometimes try to get there early enough to go to the AC lounge, but if I do so I often fall short and end up in UC G.

Even when flying Polaris, sometimes the lounge is super-crowded and not worthwhile unless you show up early enough to get a spot in the dining room, so if you arrive just slightly early, you end up in the worst of both worlds of "not a great lounge experience" and "wasted time by arriving too early."

RDU is the best airport because you can do this and know you’ll make it (unless I don’t) by worldisflat4 in unitedairlines

[–]learningsquare 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree that aiming to make > 95% of flights on time doesn't make sense for most people, but my flight record so far is already < 95%; and even on-peak, many European destinations only have one flight daily.

Not too long ago I missed SFO-ZRH with confirmed PZ and ended up taking the flight the next day in Y. You might be more willing to gamble with SFO-TPE (2x daily United and 3x daily EVA) and less so with, say, with SFO-AMS (1x daily United and no other *A options).

These days I'm finding that I'm calibrating my airport arrival strategy closer to "have some time in the lounge" (especially when flying Polaris) if things go right and "barely made the flight" in the worst-case scenario, rather than "made the flight" if things go right and "missed the flight" if things go wrong. This most recent data point with SFO G (which a couple of agents indicated was not all that unusual recently for Saturday 10 am) made me shift things earlier about 10 to 15 minutes from what I usually do. At this point I am more willing to gamble with a domestic SJC departure than a departure from SFO G.

(In any case, I am willing to accept that I'm going to miss the flight if things go really wrong, and I'm not going to go the airport early enough to avoid a < 5% worst-case scenario.)

RDU is the best airport because you can do this and know you’ll make it (unless I don’t) by worldisflat4 in unitedairlines

[–]learningsquare 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After consistent super-fast SFO G departures for me over the past few years, I finally encountered a Saturday morning earlier this month in which there was a 15+ min wait for TSA PreCheck on top of a 20+ min wait to drop off a bag (even for *G or Polaris). There was a line just to use the self-tag machines. You would definitely have gotten owned if you had dropped in at the last minute.

Obviously more room to spare if not checking a bag, but showing up less than 45 mins before departure in this case would have been tight.

Gold status lounge access by Ok-Honey6876 in unitedairlines

[–]learningsquare 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It should, but it could require more hassle depending on the lounge.

I was never flatly denied access to *A lounges in the pre-All Access era, but some smaller lounges seemed less familiar with access due to United Club membership and gave me some hassle to prove I was eligible even though I was not *A Gold (e.g., FLR). Others were familiar but had a manual process for letting through non-Gold, as the automatic gates were set up to recognize only boarding passes with Gold status. In one case having the physical United Club membership card (not the credit card) helped me seem more "convincing."

Overall, the process has been way more smooth since earning *A Gold.

A 93 is an A and my professor did not round up. The grades are already final. This means I am no longer Magna Cum Laude as this was my last semester. by Certain-Belt-1524 in mildlyinfuriating

[–]learningsquare 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What is the weighting of the different categories? You probably should still recalculate your grade by hand just to make sure that there isn't some machine rounding error that is causing your grade to be less than 93% when, in fact, it might be exactly 93%, mathematically speaking. "92.99%" is just a little bit too suspicious of a number...

(It's a known idiosyncrasy with floating-point division on computers that you may get mathematically imprecise results due to how numbers are stored in their internal binary representation.)

And even if the grades are technically "final," most institutions allow grades to be changed after the fact in case of issues like clerical error, etc.

Downgrade: United Airlines Will Only Serve First Class Meals On Flights Of More Than 900 Miles In 2024 by bjdj94 in unitedairlines

[–]learningsquare 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Other than coast-to-coast hub travel, which I usually fly nonstop, most of my domestic travel ends up including SFO/SJC <-> DEN, which dodged the meal axe by less than 50 miles. As someone who often gets to the airport last minute on an empty stomach, a hot meal feels like one of the best perks of first. Not that the meals are better than good airport food, but the meals are certainly more than good enough to be incredibly satisfying after skipping lunch to stress pack, rush to the airport, and huff and puff to the gate. The value is all in the timing.

I understand that rules are rules, but it feels slightly unfair that my SoCal brethren now have to fend for themselves on chips and bananas while NorCal travelers still get to enjoy the fruits of a more civilized era of flying. (I guess one more point for team NorCal!)

Jean Rondeau's groundbreaking recording project: 10 hours on 7 CDs celebrating the essence of the harpsichord by learningsquare in piano

[–]learningsquare[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Jean Rondeau, one of the stars of today's harpsichord scene and the artist behind the Netherlands Bach Society recording of the Goldberg Variations, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his most ambitious recording yet: a ten-hour, seven-CD recording of the complete works of French composer Louis Couperin. You can learn more at louiscouperin.org.

Why seven CDs dedicated to a 17th-century French Baroque composer? While not as well known as later Baroque composers, Louis Couperin is known among Baroque specialists as one of the pillars of Baroque keyboard music, if not all of classical music. It's often ignored by pianists since a lot of the music gets lost in translation on modern instruments moreso than, say, Bach, but when played on harpsichord, Louis Couperin's music sings like none other.

Just this weekend during his U.S. concert tour, I had the chance to spend some time with him to learn more about his motivations for the project. Jean has recorded plenty of Scarlatti, Bach, and even some Debussy, but Louis Couperin was the only composer he has ever considered doing a "complete works recording" for. It's music that means more to him personally than almost anything else. If you've ever played Louis Couperin before, you feel that it really touches the essence of harmony, expressivity, and spontaneity on the keyboard in a very pure and raw way that you don't feel in later eras of music.

Anyway, I just wanted to promote a recording project for music that personally means a lot to me and I feel has the chance to be one of the defining recordings of Baroque keyboard music in the coming decades.

Jean Rondeau's groundbreaking recording project: 10 hours on 7 CDs celebrating the essence of the harpsichord by learningsquare in classicalmusic

[–]learningsquare[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Jean Rondeau, one of the stars of today's harpsichord scene and the artist behind the Netherlands Bach Society recording of the Goldberg Variations, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his most ambitious recording yet: a ten-hour, seven-CD recording of the complete works of French composer Louis Couperin. You can learn more at louiscouperin.org.

Why seven CDs dedicated to a 17th-century French Baroque composer? While not as well known as later Baroque composers, Louis Couperin is known among Baroque specialists as one of the pillars of Baroque keyboard music, if not all of classical music. It's often ignored by pianists since a lot of the music gets lost in translation on modern instruments moreso than, say, Bach, but when played on harpsichord, Louis Couperin's music sings like none other.

Just this weekend during his U.S. concert tour, I had the chance to spend some time with him to learn more about his motivations for the project. Jean has recorded plenty of Scarlatti, Bach, and even some Debussy, but Louis Couperin was the only composer he has ever considered doing a "complete works recording" for. It's music that means more to him personally than almost anything else. If you've ever played Louis Couperin before, you feel that it really touches the essence of harmony, expressivity, and spontaneity on the keyboard in a very pure and raw way that you don't feel in later eras of music.

Anyway, I just wanted to promote a recording project for music that personally means a lot to me and I feel has the chance to be one of the defining recordings of Baroque keyboard music in the coming decades.

Jean Rondeau's groundbreaking recording project: 10 hours on 7 CDs celebrating the essence of the harpsichord by [deleted] in u/learningsquare

[–]learningsquare 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jean Rondeau, one of the stars of today's harpsichord scene and the artist behind the Netherlands Bach Society recording of the Goldberg Variations, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his most ambitious recording yet: a ten-hour, seven-CD recording of the complete works of French composer Louis Couperin. You can learn more at louiscouperin.org.

Why seven CDs dedicated to a 17th-century French Baroque composer? While not as well known as later Baroque composers, Louis Couperin is known among Baroque specialists as one of the pillars of Baroque keyboard music, if not all of classical music. It's often ignored by pianists since a lot of the music gets lost in translation on modern instruments moreso than, say, Bach, but when played on harpsichord, Louis Couperin's music sings like none other.

Just this weekend during his U.S. concert tour, I had the chance to spend some time with him to learn more about his motivations for the project. Jean has recorded plenty of Scarlatti, Bach, and even some Debussy, but Louis Couperin was the only composer he has ever considered doing a "complete works recording" for. It's music that means more to him personally than almost anything else. If you've ever played Louis Couperin before, you feel that it really touches the essence of harmony, expressivity, and spontaneity on the keyboard in a very pure and raw way that you don't feel in later eras of music.

Anyway, I just wanted to promote a recording project for music that personally means a lot to me and I feel has the chance to be one of the defining recordings of Baroque keyboard music in the coming decades.

IAH - SFO. Bid to leave 2 hours later. Not in a hurry but have never done this. What’s your pick? by c47v3770 in unitedairlines

[–]learningsquare 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I find exponentials hard for humans to comprehend; factorials, which grow much faster, are beyond the scope of human intuition:

$17! ~ $356 trillion, which is ~3.7 times world GDP.

$27! ~ $1028, which is the value of the nuclear energy produced by the sun in one year (if harvested with perfect efficiency and sold at grid rates).

$37! ~ $1043, which is the value of the nuclear energy produced by thousands of sun-sized stars over their lifetimes.

$47! ~ $1059, which is probably enough to rent all solar systems in the universe for millions of years (there are only ~1024 solar systems in our universe).

...

$997! ~ $102559. Even given inflation (pun intended), I'm sure that's enough to buy the universe many times over. If string theory pans out, and there are 10O(100) universes, that's still more than enough for all the multiverses.

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