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August 31, 2005
Am I the last to learn truly disturbing news?
Sony Pictures is apparently going forward with Road House 2... without Patrick Swayze. Christina Applegate's husband may star instead.
This just seems very, very wrong.
Up next... Point Break 2 without Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, or Gary Busey?
Posted by gleff at 7:36 PM | Comments (0)
Double Miles for Northwest Flights
Northwest is offering double miles (which also count towards status) on Northwest and KLM through October 9th. Registration is required.They say the offer is intended to match a similar one from United, which leads me to ask what double miles offer from United?
I haven't seen one. I can't find one on the United website. And as far as I can tell it hasn't been mentioned on Flyertalk.com, which is as close as one can come to saying it doesn't exist.
Maybe their corporate espionage folks knew about one coming down the pike? Here's hoping...
Posted by gleff at 1:18 PM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2005
Going Airside When Not Traveling
If you need to accompany a passenger to their gate but aren't traveling that day, airlines have differing rules in place for issuing passes to get past security checkpoints.If you run into trouble, though, just buy a fully refundable ticket then check in and go through security... and refund the ticket. You can do this to go airside any time you want.
It's never been clear to me how prohiting non-traveling passengers airside helps with security, terrorists can certainly buy tickets. I've always assumed it was to reduce TSA workload by reducing the number of people going through checkpoints. It's an instance where customers are inconvenienced rather than addressing poor TSA procedures and staffing issues.
Posted by gleff at 7:42 AM | Comments (0)
Best United Visa offer yet?
I've seen 15,000 bonus miles with first purchase and annual fee waived for the first year. And I've seen 20,000 miles with first purchase but there's an annual fee right away.This is the first time I've seen 20,000 bonus miles with first purchase and fee waived the first year.
In general I haven't seen too many problems getting the signup bonus credited or having the fee waived -- but it's still a good idea to print the offer page (which mentions the bonus miles) and print the terms and conditions page (which mentions no fee the first year) just in case there's any confusion later.
Posted by gleff at 5:56 AM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
Free Annual Credit Report live for the East Coast
Each of the three major credit reporting agencies are obligated to provide you with a free copy of your credit report once a year. This has been phased in, with the East Coast not scheduled to go live at annualcreditreport.com until September 1. It's live a few days early.Unless you're buying a house or doing major credit repair work -- in other words, if you're just monitoring -- the best strategy is to request one report each every 4 months rather than requesting all 3 at once.
Details are available from the Federal Trade Commission.
Posted by gleff at 4:16 PM | Comments (0)
Free Leather Notepad
Receive a free leather notepad for signing up with the JCPenney Insider newsletter.Posted by gleff at 4:04 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2005
Diners Club.. the choice for CIA covert ops
The nineteen alleged CIA offers with arrest warrants in Italy apparently prefer Diners Club for charging up the high life.- Still, what seemed most striking about the group was not their names but their credit cards, on which they charged over $150,000 for fancy meals and rooms at some of Milan's finest ristoranti and hotels. Among them, the U.S. spies held a total of 10 Visa cards (no surprise there) but no MasterCards and, strangely, six Diners Club cards. Although Diners Club boasts of being the original charge card (its debut, with much fanfare, was way back in 1950), the ailing brand now claims less than 1 percent of the U.S. market.
So why do the CIA' s spooks prefer Diners Club? Do they get bonus points? Free eavesdropping gear? The CIA and Diners Club aren't commenting, but CIA veterans, past and present, say it's just a coincidence. "No one pushes Diners Club for official cover," discloses one former top spy. Maybe it's the company's motto: "Do you have the key that opens doors around the world?"
Posted by gleff at 6:21 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2005
Why not hire two caterers?
One area of aviation that I'm not too familiar with is the process of airline catering. In light of the catering strike at Heathrow that crippled British Airways, Lynne Kiesling asks why airlines don't hire multiple caterers.- If the pricing/reliability benefits outweigh the economies of scale, they should be willing to hire different caterers. They can have them specialize in different terminals, or hire one caterer to do meals for flights to Asia, one for Middle East, one for Europe and US, etc.
Then, even if you are still facing a duopoly, at least you contract with both of them and you increase your probability of getting a Bertrand outcome.
Either I'm missing something, or they're not thinking very strategically. Which is it?
Posted by gleff at 5:30 AM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2005
Go Guard!
The Army National Guard is giving away iTunes downloads. But if you give them a real phone number they might call you.Posted by gleff at 5:20 PM | Comments (0)
Can e-mail help a city retain air service?
Will Hickory, North Carolina's airport go the way of MidAmerica Airport, St. Louis' supposed second airport?Not if the Hickory City Council has their way, they're starting up an email campaign and visiting businesses trying to get them to use their local airport. Delta's regional partner Atlantic Southeast services Hickory and load factors have hovered around just 40%. Delta is considering pulling service.
The City Council thinks people just need to realize how great the airport is -- free parking, short checkin lines, and close to home for Hickory residents. Sure it's a little more expensive, but generally not more than $100 than flying out of Charlotte. Residents just need to understand the benefits of their home airport, of course, so the city is going to try a metaphorical "grand re-opening."
[Sarcasm]Naturally, it's the consumers who must be wrong here.[/Sarcasm]
Could the problem be, perhaps that Charlotte is worth driving to not just for lower fares but also for non-stop flights, given the substantial nationwide service that USAirways offers there? Could a secondary problem be that Atlantic Southeast Airlines is the worst domestic U.S. regional carrier, at least in my own limited experience (also born out by the experiences of other frequent flyers)?
A more expensive, inferior service that requires connections doesn't generate as much traffic as hoped. And the City Council thinks email is going to solve their problems?
Posted by gleff at 3:44 PM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2005
$9/night hotel outside Washington, DC
Ripped from Flyertalk, not yet on FareAlert:- Several nights can be booked at $9/night (double occupancy) at www.ramada.com at the following hotel:
Ramada Inn New Carrollton/DC Area
8500 Annapolis Road
New Carrollton, Maryland 20784
Not valid for all dates, but you will find the $9 rate mostly for weekdays. Seems to be valid from now until August 2006.
Posted by gleff at 8:30 AM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2005
Poste at the Hotel Monaco: Zen and the Art of Bad Service
Great service is anticipatory, your needs are met before you realize you have them so that a dining experience seems effortless with staff unobtrusive.
Furthermore, good service means accomodating guests' preferences and requests rather than sticking to and enforcing the restaurant's routines on patrons.
The best example I can think of for this is the Inn at Little Washington. Customers often report not even having to identify themselves by name upon entering, somehow the restaurant knows who you are (easy to do if expecting a few guests at a particular time, and you know that there are several 50 year anniversaries, you deduce the names of the 30-year old couple from among those not celebrating an anniversary). But once you identify yourselves there, everyone in the restaurant knows who you are.
The Inn provides all guests with personalized menus. After ordering, the menus are taken away. On my way out the door in December I was asked if I wanted my menu back. I did, and they gave it to me. I didn't even realize until the next day that I wasn't asked my name. The woman handing me my menu just knew -- though I hadn't met her earlier in the evening.
Now, not every restaurant is the Inn at Little Washington, and I don't expect that kind of service all the time. But if you're managing the front of the house at a 'nice' restaurant you should visit such places often and seek to emulate as much as possible.
This morning I went to Poste for brunch. It's the restaurant at the Hotel Monaco in DC. I hadn't been there before, and they begin brunch service early -- I didn't feel like waiting until 11am for most other options to open.
The food was good, the service was not. Nobody was roof or aloof, everyone was just consistently clueless.
- A bread basket and butter was presented to the table, but no butter knife or bread plates were provided. I asked for bread plates. Using a steak knife on butter is a small sacrifice, but actually pretty difficult if you're trying to spread something evenly.
- It's good that I asked for the bread plates, because I was sharing an appetizer and no separate plates were brought to the table to facilitate the sharing.
- After the first course, my waitress helpfully removed my silverware. Unfortunately she didn't bring replacements.
- I also had to ask her to remove the dirty juice glasses that were set on the table when I arrived. (One of the three jams on the table was open and partially used, but I didn't mention this or the scratched coffee mugs.)
- My water was never refilled, towards the very end of the meal I finally asked for more.
- On and off during the meal the bartender could be seen climbing on the bar to reach bottles in order to clean and polish them. Couldn't that be done before or after service?
- Once we had finished our entrees, the waitress brought our check. We asked whether they offered dessert? And she took away our check and brought new menus. No, she wasn't trying to get rid of us. I wasn't commenting on all of these deficiencies during our meal, we were more than pleasant! It just never occurred to her that at 11:45 am we might want dessert after brunch. Bad for the restaurant (it reduces average bill amounts) and bad for patrons (it's hardly anticipatory service, and if she's unsure if we'll want something she might do better to ask).
- For a 'nice' restaurant, it was a little odd to have the dessert dishes stamped "Crate and Barrel" ...
Posted by gleff at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2005
Rewards for Writing Reviews
JudysBook.com is a site with reviews of restaurants and hotels, but also local auto mechanics and real estate agents. It's new and they're offering $5 Starbucks cards for every 5 reviews you write by September 30 (up to $50 total).It's a little late to take advantage of this, but they're also offering a free iPod Shuffle for writing 50 reviews and referring 10 friends, and up to 50 iTunes if the friends you refer write reviews themselves. Problem is that this needs to be completed by Sunday. I just got around to checking out the site today, already posted 10 reviews, and may just go for the iPod -- but there are lots of terms and conditions to iPod offer (which don't apply to the Starbucks offer), such as
- No more than 10 of your reviews can be for restaurants, coffee shops, bars or clubs
Posted by gleff at 6:14 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2005
Yours is a very bad hotel
Four years ago bad hotel stays got spread via email (such as this famous complaint).Now they're posted at TripAdvisor and on Flyertalk for millions to read. And people post them on their blogs, which are nicely indexed by Google, so that a search for the airport Holiday Inn in Buffalo would likely yield this entry. A power outage, bad beds, rude staff, and a failure of the pillow man to deliver pillows is just the start.
Jeneane Sessum should really just say
- Yours is a very bad hotel.
By way of contrast, while I sympathize with this review of the Crowne Plaza Rochester (and wouldn't want to stay there!), the Buffalo review puts the lie to author Rachel's claim that the Crowne Plaza is "a Holiday Inn with interior corridors."
Alas, not every hotel can be the Ritz-Carlton Central Park South (or the Pen in New York or Hong Kong, for that matter).
Posted by gleff at 4:59 PM | Comments (1)
More signs of the apocalypse
When all the Hampton Inns in Manhattan price over $300, the end times are near.Posted by gleff at 8:12 AM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2005
Bonus miles for referring new cardmembers to the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature
If you have an Alaska Airlines Visa Signature, you can refer friends to the card and earn 1000 Alaska miles when they're approved for it.The Alaska Airlines Visa Signature is one of the cards that I recommend as one of the Best Mileage Earning Credit Cards (in limited circumstances, primarily if you can make use of the companion travel certificate that comes with the card). So if you're going to get the card, consider letting someone who already has it refer you so they can get a free 1000 miles.
(Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)
Posted by gleff at 6:17 AM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
Using State Power for Personal Gain... and Miles
As posted on Flyertalk, Thailand's Members of Parliament fly free domestically and earn miles for doing so. Thai Airways tried to stop awarding miles on these free tickets, and got called to the carpet. Furthermore,- He said the House committee also asked THAI to allow MPs to fly business class instead of economy class. Phaichit said the House panel would also ask the Finance Ministry to consider allowing MPs to fly international flights for free on both THAI and other airlines.
Posted by gleff at 8:17 PM | Comments (0)
How to earn a rebate on Priceline now that eBay Anything Points is ending?
With the demise of the eBay Anything Points program, it looks like the best kickback deal on Priceline purchases is now Ebates which offers a 3% cash rebate.They'll give you $5 for signing up, too, though they won't cash out the $5 until you've earned an additional $5.01 through purchases.
They also give $5 to you for each person you refer (so if you use my link above, we each get $5) but again you can't cash this out until you've earned $5.01 in shopping rebates. Not hard at all, a single Priceline purchase of $167 gets you there for instance.
Ebates is not the only way to earn something for Priceline purchases, to be sure, it just looks to me to be the best remaining deal.
- AirMilesMart gives 1 point for every 2 dollars spent, equivalent in my mind to a 0.75% rebate.
- MyPoints gives 2 points per dollar spent, which can then be redeemed 2:1 into United miles -- so you're earning 1 United mile per dollar, but you can't convert until you've earned 5000 MyPoints.
Upromise offers a 2% rebate.
If you have thoughts on a return better than EBates 3%, please let me know and I'll post about it here. But I've looked around and haven't found anything better yet... Thanks!
Posted by gleff at 8:37 AM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2005
Double Miles Flying Delta in September and October
In September and October 2005 Delta is offering double miles on flights booked at Delta.com and paid for with an American Express. Registration required.Posted by gleff at 6:06 PM | Comments (0)
So I didn't actually get any travel tips, but...
Via HotelChatter, Tara Reid really digs the Hotel Grande Bretagne.- Tara's description of the property?
Absolutely incredible.
Posted by gleff at 9:48 AM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2005
Southwest Guts the Rapid Rewards Program
As reported by NotiFlyer, Southwest is imposing capacity controls on its awards.Currently an award ticket is good on any seat. There are a few blackout dates, but otherwise award tickets aren't restricted.
As a bone to members, Rapid Rewards credits will expire after 24 months instead of 12. They're also removing blackout dates, but blackout dates are meaningless once you introduce capacity controls. Now they'll be able to allocate as many as zero or one seat on a flight. Who needs blackout dates?
Southwest is headlining the change to 24 month expiration of credits, and buries the news in the middle paragraphs. Clearly an attempt to divert attention from the real bad news and soften the blow.
Rapid Rewards members, you have my sympathy.
Posted by gleff at 5:12 PM | Comments (0)
August 9, 2005
Black Card Bling
Book an escort with your American Express Centurion card and get an extra day free.Posted by gleff at 5:42 PM | Comments (0)
The problem with generic luxury
Jet Set Lara, the blog of an international escort, offers some observations on the generic sameness of many Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons hotels.- I have a recurring nightmare. In it, I wake up in a hotel room. The bed is perfect with four down pillows, 400 thread count linens, and a 2000 coil pillow top mattress. The clock radio is blaring classical music having been left on as some sort of primitive turf marking by the housekeeping staff. Oh – there is the green/gold bedspread rolled up behind the pale yellow armchair, along with the two overstuffed decorative pillows that will be placed back on the bed when it is made up. Ah yes, there are the faux-tique writing desk and armoire. Rubbing my eyes, I trudge to the bathroom – as I thought – green/brown marble with gold colored fixtures with Federalist era flourishes, a toilet stuffed in its own separate closet, and a glass shower stall with 2 ½ walls of the same marble and lemon verbena amenities by L’Occitane. At this point, I scream “Where am I?”
The answer is both obvious and illusive. Clearly this is a Four Seasons, but which one? In their zeal to determine what Thomas Jefferson’s bedroom might have looked like if he had had electricity and modern plumbing, Four Seasons has stumbled into the sort of routinized design philosophy embraced by mid-market chains with out the wherewithal to spend tens of millions building a hotel. I can only assume that the Four Seasons interior design team was let go in a corporate downsizing and their last cruel act was to commit the company to a 20 year supply of fake chesterfield TV cabinets fitted with mini-bars.
And while the Park Hyatt in Chicago is excellent, it isn't the best property there.. by a long shot. The Peninsula has the Park Hyatt beat, and the Chicago Pen is probably the worst of the chain.
Still, the author's taste in Hyatt notwithstanding, luxury does not begin and end with Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton. (On average, I'd say that Four Seasons is superior to the Ritz, but that's only an average. The Georgetown Ritz is certainly better than the Four Seasons nearby.)
There ARE some wonderful Four Seasons properties. The Four Seasons in Jimbaran Bay and Chiang Mai are amazing. And probably the best City hotel in the world is the Four Seasons George V in Paris.
But it's true that you have to get beyond these brands if you want real luxury.
For city hotels, check out the Peninsula Bangkok, the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, Grande Bretagne in Athens... in its pre-St. Regis days, the Lanesborough in London.
And for resorts, Aman probably operates the best chain. One and Only has some nice properties. So does Banyan Tree.
Still, there's a place for the Ritz. They have the best LAX airport hotel, after all ;) (Marina del Rey.. but only if you have a suite).
Posted by gleff at 5:19 PM | Comments (0)
Juniper Bank to issue Visa for Merged USAirways-America West
When the USAirways-America West merger was first announced in May I noted that a key detail was a planned cash infusion from a credit card partner in the neighborhood of $300 million.
It was curious that the partner wasn't named, while Bank of America was already partner to both airlines.
So, despite the Charlotte Observer calling the news "somewhat unexpected", it shouldn't be all that surprising that Juniper Bank (which issues Frontier and Airtran cards) will become the issuer of the USAirways card.
- Taking the place of Charlotte-based Bank of America will be Juniper Bank, a subsidiary of British-based Barclays PLC, which agreed Monday to pour $455 million into the merger between US Airways and America West Airlines. In exchange, Juniper will have the exclusive right to market the US Airways credit card beginning in 2008, after a two-year transition period in which both banks can offer US Airways cards, according to regulatory documents filed Monday.
Posted by gleff at 8:44 AM | Comments (0)
August 8, 2005
Undersea Accomodations
The Vancouver Sun runs a story on the emergence of underwater hotels.The Maldives Hilton already has an underwater restaurant. This property has been on my list of places to check out, but has been bumped down a notch since I've recently been to Bora Bora Nui. How many overwater bungalows do I need to stay in in a year?
When the fully underwater properties are completed, perhaps even by the end of next year, they'll no doubt make the list at UnusualHotelsoftheWorld.com.
(Hat tip for the news article to Tripso.com and for the Unusual Hotels directory to Marginal Revolution.)
Posted by gleff at 5:06 AM | Comments (0)
Free iTunes Download
Sign up to receive information about a checking account with Wells Fargo Bank and you'll be sent a code for a free iTunes download.You can get one download per email address you use to sign up.
(Hat tip to the Flyertalk S.P.A.M. forum.)
Posted by gleff at 4:55 AM | Comments (0)
August 7, 2005
Google SMS
Google SMS is pretty amazing. I saw it recently and made a note to myself that I had to check it out, finally had a chance this afternoon.You can send a text message to GOOGL (46645) with a request for information, and you'll get a text back in a matter of moments.
My first test was for driving directions from Reagan National airport to my home. I entered "From DCA to [Street Address City State]" and I had turn by turn directions in seconds.
Then I asked it for a definition, sending "define blog"
Final test, how what is the population of Virginia? "virginia population"
Verdict: very cool.
Posted by gleff at 6:31 PM | Comments (0)
I'm hungry
Time for dinner, and this looks absolutely delicious.Posted by gleff at 3:21 PM | Comments (0)
August 6, 2005
A variety of free samples
- Bombay Sapphire cocktail book
- Your choice of Kraft ingredients
- Maxim subscription
- Head & Shoulders shampoo sample
- Durex lubricant sample here and here
Posted by gleff at 7:38 AM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2005
Where do I even start?
Boston's Logan Airport offers wireless internet for $7.95. Continental offers wireless internet free in its Presidents Club.The airport is trying to force Continental to stop competing with its pay service, claiming offering internet for free to club members is "an unacceptable potential risk" to airport security. (Somehow when passenger pay $7.95 it's no longer a risk.)
Security as a catch-all for prohibiting behavior is a clear risk to liberty. Fortuntaely Continental is fighting it.
(Hat tip to David Rowell.)
Posted by gleff at 6:10 AM | Comments (0)
Problems with France
Via David Rowell, it turns out the the French realize that they are pathetic losers.-
Maurice Lévy, the head of the media giant Publicis, whose company owns Saatchi and Saatchi and has offices in 100 countries across six continents, said France had failed to get the 2012 Olympics because the world now saw it as a nation of perdants - "losers".
For good measure, he described the 35-hour week as "absurd" and the wails of complaint that followed Paris's loss of the Games to London as "pathetic".
-
"What I wrote was hard, but true. France is not in a crisis, it's worse than that. A crisis is usually sudden and short, while we are in an endemic situation," he said. "I've just had enough and wanted to say what I felt."
In the article, Mr Lévy said the French had only themselves to blame for losing the Olympics, and that the country needed a wake-up call. "We have narrowed and stunted ourselves and we paint ourselves as losers, and no one wants to be among the losers. It's time we opened our eyes wide, took an icy shower and looked reality in the face: we are in decline, going down a slippery slope.
"The Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry has reminded us of our [public] debt and the fact that we are living beyond our means. We knew the figures, yet no government for the last 20 years has wanted to draw a conclusion from them. The figures that attest to our decline are known to all."
- What they’re doing is turning the whole country into a big theme park. You go to Franceland. You have the cheese, you have the wine, you look at some castles, it’s a lovely place to visit. But does much new come out of France anymore, is it dynamic? No.
Posted by gleff at 5:37 AM | Comments (0)
August 4, 2005
Hotel or Orange Cardboard Box?
First there was European no-frill discount airline easyJet. Now there's easyHotel.- In keeping with the "easy" philosophy, frills are again being ditched in favor of value for money. EasyHotel is charging $35 (£20) a night for double rooms at its first hotel in central London.
Following in the footsteps of Japan's capsule hotel concept, these rooms are being heralded as Europe's smallest.
Rooms come in three sizes -- small, really small and tiny. At 80, 70 and 60 square feet (7.2, 6.3 or 5.4 square meters), there is little room to swing anything more than a carry-on bag.
Posted by gleff at 5:53 PM | Comments (0)
Traveling with a lover -- because it's more economically efficient
Jacqueline Passey is looking for a lover to travel with, apparently because she didn't get a job in my office.So send gifts, miles, and upgrade certificates my way gentlemen. You're welcome.
Posted by gleff at 6:16 AM | Comments (1)
August 3, 2005
35% Bonus on Transfers from Membership Rewards to Delta
Through September 15th Delta is offering a 35% bonus on transfers from American Express Membership Rewards. Registration is required.Bonus points likely won't show up until mid-November.
Posted by gleff at 5:48 PM | Comments (0)
August 2, 2005
500 Free Delta Miles
Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, you can get 500 free Delta miles for requesting an auto insurance quote.Posted by gleff at 7:43 PM | Comments (0)
Air France Accident
An Air France plane skidded off the runway after landing in Toronto and caught fire around 4pm Eastern. Early reports are that most passengers are safe, but this is not yet certain. Thoughts and hopes are with the passengers and crew.
Update: Everyone made it out alive, with just a few injuries.
Posted by gleff at 4:24 PM | Comments (0)
August 1, 2005
Lost Luggage as a Constitutional Question
Eugene Volokh gets a lost luggage call meant for Alaska Airlines.- Sometimes a looming constitutional question is really just a wrong number.
Posted by gleff at 1:34 PM | Comments (0)
Duty Free at Baghdad International Airport
Via Brad DeLong, Iraq's transportation minister has ordered a ban on alcohol sales at Baghdad International Airport.The airport's duty-free shop is not complying, in spite of threats to have their $800,000 inventory destroyed. Alcohol makes up 85% of duty free sales at the airport.
Oddly enough, the decision to ban alcohol is influenced by how it would look to the outside world.
- Jabiri expressed concern about Iraq's image if alcohol continues to be sold. "And this could corrupt the employees also," he said. "Foreign travelers might not even realize this is an Islamic country when they see alcohol in the airport."
Posted by gleff at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)