Wait – you wanted more details than that?  I’m happy to:  the passenger found that he had sudden (and unexpected, obviously) bleeding coming from his scrotum area during the flight (I really hope you’re not eating right now).  He called over a flight attendant, and a female one arrived.  He brushed her away and requested a male flight attendant.  Upon his arrival, the passenger asked that the flight attendant examine his scrotum.  He refused and instead handed him some paper towels then told him that if the bleeding was bad enough, they would call a doctor.

Upon arrival in Mexico the passenger went to a doctor, who told him that he had a ruptured vein near his scrotum.

The passenger then sued the airline for not providing appropriate medical care (ie, looking at his genitals).  The case was dismissed this week.

The end.

Iraqi Airways’ website offers some helpful exercises you can do so ensure that you remain healthy on board.  They provide no tips on how to not be blown up upon arrival.  Keep doing those foot pumps!

It’s worth checking out their website – there is absolutely no suggestion that, perhaps, there may be special precautions you may want to take upon arrival in Baghdad.  Well, they do say “Make sure to take a registered taxi on arrival – these taxi’s are available at Baghdad International Airport.”  Really?  That’s it?  Your biggest fear is taking an unlicensed taxi?  Who knew?

Oh, and along those lines, some dude was caught masturbating on a Southwest Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Denver on Monday.  He was apparently on his way to Denver for a conference.  A masturbating conference.

A Ryanair passenger flying from Krakow to East Midlands (in the UK) received a scratchcard for a contest that Ryanair was holding.  Like an instant win lottery ticket, the winner would receive 10,000 Euro.  This passenger got on board the flight, scratched off his card, and learned that he won the prize.  He called over flight attendants to alert them to his victory and, for who knows what reason, demanded that they pay him right there.  The staff explained that, of course, they do not carry 10,000 Euro with them on flights, and that he will be paid in due course.  That was not what he wanted to hear.

So, in some sort of protest, the passenger ate the winning ticket.  The ticket is now not valid, and the passenger will never get his money.  Explained a Ryanair spokesperson, “The crew tried to stop the air Gourmet Scratch Card eater by offering him one of our great tasting sandwiches, pizzas or snacks instead, but clearly he had much more expensive tastes!” Well done.

And because Ryanair does a fantastic job of generating publicity, they have announced they will donate the prize money to charity and have asked passengers to vote on which charity should be chosen.

(Thanks to reader D-Lux, who would’ve eaten the ticket only if it was cooked very, very well done)

And now  – finally – Amtrak enters the 21st century and will offer free (yes, free!) Wi-Fi on all Acela trains, and in stations along the way.  This made my day.  You can have your first class suites on Singapore.  I’ll take the Acela, thanks.

No word on what set off the flight attendants.  They have been suspended pending an investigation.

No word on whether the passenger was drunk or just stupid.

1) You will probably not get the flights you want the first time you look…but DO NOT give up.  I have never not gotten an award ticket that I’ve wanted.  Never.  Business class seats to Sri Lanka with a stopover in Europe?  No problem.  Business class seats to Easter Island?  No problem.  Vietnam?  No sweat.  The key?  Check again. A 4-leg journey from New York to Colombo has many moving parts.  The odds on all of that being available the first time you search are slim.  But if you look every day (and what’s a few minutes a day for $10,000 worth of tickets?), I guarantee you will not fail.  Probably.

2) While you should look every day, I’ve found that 45 days out is a sweet spot.  This is not to say that you won’t find tickets further out than that (especially in markets – such as first class seats to Sydney on Qantas – where there are incredibly few seats available and you need to look 330 days ahead).  But at 45 days seats seem to open up.  In short – don’t give up because your trip is in 6 weeks.

3) Frequent flyer tickets are not free tickets…at least not anymore.  You need to get over this:  frequent flyer tickets will have fees associated with them.  Deal with it.  Complex itineraries on partner airlines will require phone calls, and those calls will likely cost you a few dollars in telephone booking fees.  Or maybe you’ll need to change the ticket.  It’s going to cost you.  But in the overall scheme of things, it won’t cost you much.  Just accept it.

4) In terms of award availability, Star Alliance and Oneworld are light years ahead of SkyTeam.  Usually.  In the US, if you are stuck with Delta miles you are probably very unhappy when you go to check for available flights.  Why?  Because not only is Delta’s award availability horrible, there is no good way to check partner airlines.  When searching for a Star Alliance flight, use ANA’s booking tool, which shows most Star carriers (though remember that United will often block award seats that would otherwise be available for other Star Alliance members).  For Oneworld, sign up for Qantas’ frequent flyer program and you’ll see most options there.  For Skyteam?  Good luck.

5) You will need to follow this stuff basically full time to understand the minutia around who is adding exorbitant surcharges onto tickets.  But there are a couple of quick rules:  Delta adds a ridiculous fee if you are booking intra-Europe Skyteam tickets with Skymiles; British Airways adds a ludicrous fuel surcharge (unless you use BA miles on American or LAN); and Air Canada has fuel surcharges that can be hundreds of dollars.  There is an enormous amount of detail around this point, and the blogs I’ve mentioned above have gotten into the details in great, uh, detail.  This is not the place for that, but just remember — not every airline charges ridiculous fuel surcharges for international award tickets.

6) Air Canada gives you Star Alliance Gold Status after only 35,000 flown miles.  Not only is that the lowest threshold out there, you get Lounge access for that.  Nice.

7) Everyone has a different opinion about the best way to use up your miles.  Some folks save up for first class tickets to Asia.  Those of us with kids may not feel like spending 480,000 miles to go to Tokyo and will use those miles to go to Puerto Rico.  None of those is wrong.  Don’t let anyone let you think you’re wasting miles by using them.  Using miles is good (yes, there are great ways to use them and bad ways to use them…but anything is better than paying).

8) One-way award tickets offered by American and United offer enormous flexibility on routes where they compete.  No longer do you have to hope that American has roundtrip seats available if you’re looking for a JFK-LAX award ticket in business class.  Fly one way on AA, back on United.  Or vice versa.  You get my point.

9) If booking an international award ticket, do NOT forget the more obscure partners.  There are lots of ways, for example, to fly on Star Alliance from New York to Moscow.  Don’t forget that LOT, for example, is an option (albeit not a particularly glamorous one).  Before starting the booking process, look on the alliances’ websites to remind yourself of all of your airline options.

10) One of the most valuable features of most international award tickets is the ability to stopover in a city.  American has limited this somewhat (by restricting stopovers to gateway cities), but on other tickets you can basically double the value of the award by booking a stopover.  A stopover would often add a significant amount to a paid fare, but it’s free with most international tickets.  I almost always try to add in a stopover — why not?

I’d love to hear reader tips on this…

More annoyingly, after the passengers were sent on their way to make their own arrangements, the plane flew empty from Fuerteventura to Lanzarote before picking up passengers to return to the UK.

Passengers complained that when they disembarked in the first island that there were no Ryanair representatives available to tell them what to do.  Left to fend for themselves, passengers arranged their own hotels or continuing transport.  Ryanair says that while they do not owe passengers any financial compensation (because the flight was diverted due to weather), they will reimburse families for the cost of a hotel on the island.  Good luck getting that refund.