I gave an Ignite talk in OSCON 2010. It wasn’t recorded, but Brady had us record them the next day. I just discovered that the video was produced and posted to youtube. Ignite talks are very difficult, you don’t control the timing of the slides and you’ve got 5 minutes to get across enough of a complicated topic to be interesting. Take a look, tell me what you think?
The airlines, fares, and frequent flyer programs a complicated semi-opaque rules based system. Systems are hackable. This talk will show examples of how to hack and manipulate. It’ll include how to fly around the world, in first class, for free. How to get free upgrades, and why somebody would do a mile run.
12 Comments, Comment or Ping
Hi there – I run MileageBrain.com. Would you mind if I posted this on our blog? I’ll link back here of course.
March 24th, 2011
NIce, I know what im going to be doing for the next couple of weeks
March 24th, 2011
Very informative. I appreciate the brevity.
March 29th, 2011
thanks, now I’ll feel obliged to do a talk on social engineering in hitch hiking just to offset your carbon footprint….
March 30th, 2011
I want to contest your claim that you were bumped 5 times in one day. As far as I know, you are limited to one bump per 24 hour period.
What airline did you do this with?
August 8th, 2011
Hey Rupen,
It was on American flying from SFO to Chicago. They rebooked me in to an assigned seat each time, instead of stand by. So each time i accepted they gave me a seat. It was 5 times over the weekend, 3 times flying out, and 2 times flying back.
August 11th, 2011
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