Christopher Elliott: Credible?

[Jim Phillips]

"I made the mistake once, and it isn't one I'm likely to ever repeat."

Quoted from http://www.bcentral.com/articles/ell....asp?LID=34660 from

I've seen Mr. Elliott do this more than a couple of times: One bad experience generalized to all of humanity, forever indelibly carved into stone.

I am not quite sure if he's trying to offer sound practical advice, or if he's offering Dave Barry-esque musings on observations of life on the road?

[BearX220]

I don't think Elliott is at all authoritative. His stuff would be fine if it were just anecdotal observations, but as you say he takes a few slim data points and tries to make them into ironclad rules. See the other thread on here about Chris' "five worst international airports," which turn out to be culled from the very short list of international airports Chris has actually been to.

OTOH his column in USA TODAY last week about how airlines would do better to augment, not dilute, loyalty programs was quite good IMHO. But he was retailing pure opinion, not bits of data disguised as immutable facts.

[xyzzy]

This loser is NOT credible. He's the same guy who railed against FF plans (see also 7 reasons to toss your frequent flier card) in general at the same time as he noted that perks were going up and suggested people sign up for FF plans!

[JS]

Let's put it this way:

Christopher Elliott is to air travel as Chicken Little is to astronomy.

------------------
"Yippie-kay-yay, Mr. Falcon!" -- John McClane, Die Hard II As Seen on TV

[landspeed]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
Let's put it this way:

Christopher Elliott is to air travel as Chicken Little is to astronomy.

</font>

Or as Joe B. is to FF programs

"he called mr. hand a fuzzy nerd"
- network version of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"

[danang]

From the article linked above: "Washington, D.C. (Dulles) to Newark, N.J.: ... And that's not all. I've personally experienced some of worst [sic] air turbulence between these two destinations."

Sound advice... I'll be sure to restrict my flying to DCA-LGA so as to avoid some of worst air turbulence on East Coast.

[Arcolaio99]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by xyzzy:
This loser is NOT credible. He's the same guy who railed against FF plans (see also 7 reasons to toss your frequent flier card) in general at the same time as he noted that perks were going up and suggested people sign up for FF plans!</font>

That lame article is how I stumbled upon FT. As lame as it was it got me here.

[gleff]

FWIW, I did a pretty detailed dissection of an Elliott column. Chris Elliott replied. He said I made a typo.

[mtm767]

I've often thought he probably drinks too much coffee. &lt;g&gt;