uNorwegian Air CEO Wants To Offer $69 Tickets To Europe By Flying Out Of Cheaper Airportsr

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  Though it sounds so easy, hopping over the pond can be quite an expensive jump for many travelers. Norwegian Air Shuttle’s CEO thinks he can make it a lot cheaper to fly between the U.S. and Europe — as low as $69 per one-way ticket — by flying out of regional airports that charge lower fees than busier, bigger airports.

  Norwegian is the third-largest budget airline in Europe, and wants to further spread its wings in the U.S. by offering cheap fares to Edinburgh and Bergen, Norway by 2017, CEO Bjørn Kjos told NBC News. To accomplish this, the airline would use airports that have little to no international service at the moment, like New York’s Westchester County Airport and Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport, just north of Hartford.

  Round-trip prices would likely run closer to $300 on average, Kjos said, but that’s still a lot less than current fares from Norwegian that run more than $500, due to the higher fees at bigger airports. The airline is trying to cut prices and get a piece of the pie currently enjoyed by traditional carriers that rule the skies above the Atlantic, like Lufthansa.

  “I think you will see a lot to that effect within five years’ time,” Kjos said. “What will happen to (Lufthansa) when everyone starts to fly direct?”

  Before his plan can happen, regulators would have to set up customs stations at U.S. regional airports to handle international traffic, something Kjos says he’s confident can be arranged.

  Norwegian will have competition from other budget carriers, however: Iceland’s Wow Air has offered trans-Atlantic flights for as low as $99 one way between Boston and Paris, and Lufthansa’s low-cost offshoot Eurowings is also starting cheap long-haul flights.

  Then there was the report in March that said European budget airline Ryanair was planning to offer $20 flights between the U.S., an idea that the airline later denied.

  Norwegian Air CEO Says $69 Flights From U.S. to Europe Coming Soon [NBC News]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uCalifornia Realizes Maybe It’s Not Such A Good Idea To Print Full Social Security Numbers On Mailed Documentsr

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• Earlier this year, a California state agency was heavily criticized for tempting identity thieves by printing full Social Security numbers on millions of documents it mailed out to state residents. Making matters worse, the agency didn’t really seem to understand why this might be a problem. After a few months to think about it, the bureaucrats appear to have finally come around.

  With a full SSN, name, and mailing address, a clever ID thief could do a lot of damage. But when CBS San Francisco asked the California Employment Development Department in July why it was printing all this information on every document it mailed out to residents, the agency’s response was to shrug.

  The EDD, which handles California’s unemployment benefits, said it is required to track documentation using residents’ SSNs but failed to explain why it couldn’t — like countless other federal and state offices — obscure some of this information when it came time to send things through the mail.

  In fact, the federal Social Security Administration has stated that there is no requirement to print these numbers on mailed documents.

  In response to demands from consumer advocates and lawmakers, the EDD has realized that it is indeed possible for the agency to only print the last four digits of a resident’s SSN on a document and that, starting this month it will be making that change on the forms mailed most frequently by the EDD.

  The agency tells CBS San Francisco that it hopes to have made that update to 75% of its mailed documents by the end of the year and that it ultimately intends to replace the use of SSNs with unique identifiers that can’t be easily exploited by ID thieves.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uNike Exec Sees A Future Where Shoppers Could 3D Print Their Own Sneakers At Homer

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  Making your own footwear at home won’t have to include cardboard, duct tape and those slippers you refused to throw out soon enough: A top executive at Nike says he thinks customers will soon be able to 3D print their own customized sneakers at home (or in Nike stores, for those without 3D printers at home).

  Nike’s Chief Operating Officer Nick Sprunk talked about the future of DIY shoes at a summit held by GeekWire recently.

  “Yes, there could be a day where that happens,” he said after being asked the question 3D printable sneakers by GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop.

  Theoretically, customers could customize a sneaker on Nike’s site, then purchase a file with instructions for the 3D printer. From there, you’d either print the shoes yourself or head to the Nike store with the file and have the staff their print them out. But just buying the file doesn’t mean you could then repeat the process forever and ever, and enjoy free shoes for eternity.

  “Do I envision a future where [Nike] might still own the file, from an IP perspective — because it’s a Nike product; you can’t have just anybody make a Nike product — and you can manufacture that either in your home or we will do it for you at our store?” Sprunk added. “Oh yeah, that’s not that far away.”

  The company has already turned to technology to change how it makes shoes, most notably with its Flyknit shoes: Flyknit allows shoemakers to feed a single file into a machine that then knits a shoe’s upper material, instead of multiple workers assembling a shoe based on a pack of technical specifications, color swatches and other materials.

  Nike COO: You’ll soon be able to make shoes at your home with a 3D printer [GeekWire]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uWalgreens Shoplifter Walks Out Of Store With $100K In Prescription Drugsr

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  In the past, Walgreens has been a target for ne’er-do-wells: there were the three people caught with more than 125 stolen credit cards, and before that, the shoplifting ring accused of stealing more than $15,000 in merchandise. But those cases pale in comparison to a brazen robbery in Florida this week in which a man forced open the pharmacy department door and made off with $100,000 in prescription drugs. 

  St. Petersburg police say they are investigating a robbery that occurred around 11 p.m. Monday evening while the Walgreens store was open, but the pharmacy was closed.

  Surveillance video posted by the police department on YouTube, shows a man, thought to be in his 20s and wearing an Iowa State University sweatshirt, forcing open the locked metal window shutter at the pharmacy counter.

  He then crawls through the opening, walks up and down the pharmacy aisles and spends nearly 20 minutes searching for bottles and filling two garbage bags with medication.

  After leaving the pharmacy, the man casually walks out of the store carrying two shopping baskets. He then left the scene in a black Chevy with Michigan plates.

  Police say that store workers were suspicious of the man’s behavior, but thought he had stolen candy. The man did not stop when an employee addressed him.

  [via WTSP 10 News]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uBest Buy Testing Robot Customer Service Employeesr

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• In an era where retail is increasingly moving online, some shoppers still prefer to deal with actual human beings when they go to the store. But the folks at Best Buy believe that some in-store customer service tasks may be best done by automatons.

  At one Best Buy in Manhattan, the retail has a robot employee named “Chloe” who handles requests for DVDs and CDs for those still living in 2004.

  A reporter for NYC’s Fox 5 got a firsthand experience with Chloe during a Best Buy shopping trip to purchase a CD. It appears to just be a massive jukebox sort of operation, where you punch in your request on a screen and Chloe’s robotic arm fetches it from its glassed-off shelves.

  In addition to disc-based media, Chloe can fetch other items that you might need — headphones, cellphone chargers — and two of the in-store robots at the Manhattan location is situated in the store’s vestibule so it can be accessed 24 hours a day.

  This is Best Buy’s first attempt at automated in-store service. The idea is to give shoppers the immediacy of going to a bricks-and-mortar store and the joy of not having to deal with another human being.

  “We’re looking to see how customers like it and how they use it before we make any decisions,” a Best Buy rep tells Fox.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uOf Course There’s A Company That Will Ship You Fall Leaves From New Englandr

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• Sure, you can wear tank tops and shorts in Los Angeles in the fall, but perhaps you’re missing the sight of the leaves on trees changing from green to orange, gold, red and even purple. To bridge the distance for people who can’t make a trip to see the bright autumnal hues of New England in person, there’s a company that offers to ship the fall foliage anywhere in the country.

  Those piles of leaves you have to rake every day might start to resemble dollar signs, as apparently people are willing to pay $19.99 for a company called ShipFoliage.com to send three leaves collected from the forests of Vermont and Hampshire.

  “Each leaf is carefully picked and color balanced in a bundle of three,” the website reads.

  So what makes this different from anyone else who might want to shove a handful of leaves in an envelope and make a tidy profit? The company says its leaves are specially treated, undergoing “a unique preservation process” that ensures “your leaves will last for years to come.”

  The guy behind the company says that foliage just seemed like an untapped market. And the bundles are worth the price, Kyle Waring told the Boston Globe, because he “filters through tons … to find Grade A leaves,” cleans them, and preservers them using ammonia and glycerin.

  “That way the leaves won’t just crumble. It gives them this glossy texture,” he said.

  This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of folks packing up Mother Nature’s bounty for a profit — Waring also made headlines last year for selling Massachusetts snow from his front yard to those in warmer climes during last year’s wintry blast. He eventually started a business called Ship Snow, Yo, but wouldn’t tell the Globe how much money he made with that venture.

  Leave New England? Company sends foliage to you [Boston Globe]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uVW Offering Owners $2,000 “Loyalty Bonus” For Buying A New Car, Sticking With The Companyr

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• The hundreds of thousands of consumers still waiting to hear just how Volkswagen plans to fix their “clean diesel” vehicles rigged to cheat emissions tests could simply go buy a new automobile from the carmaker — you know, one that isn’t affected by the scandal. Or at least that’s what it appears VW is saying with the launch of an “Owner Loyalty Bonus” program.

  The embattled automaker quietly launched the program this week with the aim of persuading vehicle owners to stay with the company by offering them what everyone presumably wants: money.

  The Owner Loyalty Bonus campaign, which expires Nov. 2, offers a $2,000 incentive on the purchase or lease of new model year 2015 and 2016 vehicles.

  The deal extends to any individual who currently owns a VW, or anyone in that person’s family as long as they live at the same address.

  Of course, the company understands consumers probably don’t want one of vehicles with “defeat device” software.

  In fact, it continues to abide by a stop-sale of new and pre-owned diesel vehicles put in place shortly after the EPA announced on Sept. 18 that the vehicles spewed harmful pollutants at 40 times the allowable standards during normal driving conditions.

  And so, according to the company’s website, the incentive can only be used on gas-powered or hybrid Jetta, Passat, CC, Beetle, Beetle Convertible, Eos, Golf, Golf GTI, Golf R, e-Golf, Golf SportWagen, Tiguan, and Touareg models. Although, it remains to be seen whether or not VW’s gas vehicles could be touched by the emissions scandal.

  The Los Angeles Times points out that the campaign hasn’t exactly been sitting well with owners of vehicles that contain the defeat devices.

  One California resident says she has no plans to take VW up on its offer – or stick with the company in the future.

  “They could give me a VW for free and I wouldn’t take it,” she tells the L.A. Times, noting that she’s already embarrassed to be seen in her current Sportwagen TDI.

  “Everyone knows you’re driving this horrible machine,” she said. “I’m not partaking of any of it. I feel like I was betrayed by the brand, and I’m not doing any more business with them.”

  [via The Los Angeles Times]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist