There are frequent flyer programs, and there are frequent flyer programs…

As anyone who knew my husband for more than, oh, 30 seconds, can attest, Jim was a frequent flyer savant. Or obsessive. Or junky. All would apply. And he stuck with it to the end. At one point, when we were meeting with his surgeon maybe 6 months before Jim’s death, Jim went on a major rattle  about how to acquire lots of frequent flyer miles without actually having to fly anywhere. (The magic is all in the credit cards.) He stopped for a breath and I – sitting there with my list of questions – stepped in and said (pleasantly and with humorous tone, even though I was thinking stick a sock in it), “Oh, Chris has better things to do with his time than hear about frequent flyer miles.” Of course, what I was really saying was I have better things to do with my time. Anyway, Chris waved me off and said, “No. This is really interesting.”

When I’m waiting for a doctor and they’re running late, I always remind myself that, if I were the patient, I would want my doctor to spend the extra time with me. Now that I know that the doctor may, in fact, be listening to a patient blab on about frequent flyer miles, I’m not quite as understanding.

Nonetheless, having been (and continue to be) the beneficiary of Jim’s magnificent obsession, I’m grateful for his diligence, which is, among other things, flying me and my sister Trish to Tucson in January, where my sister Kath and her husband will be renting a place in the sun.

Jim accrued miles through a number of programs, but Aeroflot wasn’t one of them.
We never flew Aeroflot.

We would see their planes on the tarmac at Shannon, which was a refueling stop for them. And at 6 a.m. in the Budapest Airport, we sat next to a group of Russian men who downed a liter of vodka while they waited for their Aeroflot flight. We agreed that, if we were flying back to Russia, we would be downing a liter of vodka, too. Instead, we were on Lufthansa heading to Frankfurt.

But if you are an Aeroflot regular, you’d better watch out.

Seems that they recently instituted a new regulation. If you trash talk them on social media, they can take back your frequent flyer miles and cancel your airline-related credit card
Aeroflot’s chief executive, Vitaly Savelev, responded to criticism with these words:

“People who are insulting on social media should understand they have to be held accountable.” (Source: thebell.io via a retweet of Francis Fukuyama by – I think – Michael McFaul. Got that?)

Held accountable? Huh? Something must be lost in translation…
I don’t think that running Aeroflot puts you in quite the same league as the petrogarch/oligarchs. But it’s a pretty big deal.

Historically, the airline was not just the bridge connecting Russia with the West, but also a cover for Russian intelligence — and former employees of the company have told The Bell that the company is still closely tied to the security services. Until 2009, the company was led by the son-in-law of Russia’s former president, Boris Yeltsin and his successor, Savelyev, has known Putin since the mid 1990s. Private airlines have a hard time in Russia and after each bankruptcy Aeroflot picks up the best routes. Since 2014, its market share has grown from 37% to 47%.

Friend of Putin. Well, say no more! What a swell airline Aeroflot is! The fellow who runs it must be a genius!

But I guess having your card canceled and rewards miles revoked is better than getting Skripaled with a nerve agent, or stabbed with a plutonium tipped umbrella. Still, it does seem unduly harsh.

If I do ever fly on Aeroflot, remind me not to blog about it.