Only buy insurance for expensive items you couldn’t afford to replace. Most people shouldn’t buy extended warranties and shouldn’t buy travel insurance. If you can afford to replace the item, save the money from the insurance and self-insure. Insurance for inexpensive items is generally a bad buy, that’s why it’s profitable for companies to offer, on the whole the premiums will be greater than the payouts. That’s true even after adjusting for adverse selection, a recognition that many buyers will be precisely the people who believe they’ll wind up with a valid claim. You’re still betting that the company standing behind the warranty or insurance will be around to pay out. And you’re betting that you can make them pay out, without the effort in doing so being more costly than the value of the…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for December 2007.
Is that a spare battery in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
The TSA’s new rules on batteries are going to get plenty of press, and my thoughts will be hardly original. Suffice to say that it took me awhile to figure them out, I can’t imagine how this will translate to the median traveler … and to TSA screeners who will be forced to understand the difference between lithium metal, lithium ion, and NiMH batteries and calculate watt hours of unlabeled batteries. Short version, you can no longer pack spare batteries in your checked bags. And you can only carry on two spare batteries (how will screeners know if you limit any single item going through an x-ray machine to two batteries?). And those spare batteries are limited by a formula that requires more chemistry than I remember from college, but the TSA assures that cell…
The Joys of Domestic Holiday Travel
I’m sitting in the American Airlines Aadmiral’s Club, flight delayed, waiting on inbound aircraft.This lounge doesn’t even sell food, which I’m lamenting at the moment (normally I abhor the practice). The only available snacks are three leftover donuts from breakfast (it’s 11:30am). There’s coffee and water. I’ve been sitting here for about 90 minutes and there hasn’t been a bartender yet (it’s 5 o’clock somewhere…besides, even a sods or virgin bloody mary would be nice). No newspapers on the rack, either. I can access the lounge through either my American Express Platinum card or my British Airways status. But free wireless – a new introduction for American lounges – is only available to club members and those entering on day passes. One-time passholders get free internet, I do not. Thus I’m posting through my laptop…
Tumi Winter Sale!
Naturally after Christmas means after Christmas sales. So the twice-yearly Tumi sale is back. Tumi is, on the whole, my favorite luggage but the standard pricing is rather prohibitive. Some report success trolling overstock types of stores like TJ Maxx, but I tend to just wait around for the Summer and Winter sales. This go-round, though, the sale items seem a bit limited… especially for rolling luggage. EVReward shows the best referral offers for Tumi purchases, personally I’ll take 5 American Airlines miles per dollar spent as a nice way to cap off the deals Tumi is offering on dscontinued styles and colors. (Definitely start any of your purchases with that American link.)
20% Off and Free Shipping at W Hotel Store
Through December 31, promo code G2X8P is valid for 20% off and free shipping at the W Hotel Store. Now, that’s not the time to buy W Hotel Beds. I bought mine under a 40% off deal, and I believe beds come with free delivery to begin with. But it’s perfect for purchasing Bliss products. The W/Bliss partnership served its purpose with me, they’ve hooked me on their soaps, shampoos, etc. And it turns out that the W Hotel Store offers quite reasonable prices on them. Shipping can be a killer, though. But 20% off and no shipping cost makes this the go-to place for Bliss products.
Luggage Deals
Luggage Factory has some pretty good deals on TravelPro bags, like the 22″ carryon for $49.90 and the 28″ rolling bag for $69.90. As far as I can tell there are no additional rewards for shopping with them, check out their coupon page and other free offer banners (there’s a free toiletery kit for spending $150 or more, but it’s not worth hitting the spend threshold just for the bonus). TravelPro isn’t Tumi, but assuming the items are genuine ithey’re unheard of prices for good bags.
How to Request United to Manual Sell an Award Seat
Further to my recent posts about United’s filtering of award seats (here and here), a reader asks: I have a DEN-IAD-AMS in C on the 27th, but I’d rather go LH DEN-FRA-AMS. It SHOWS Availability on ANA, but I cannot get UA to pull up a seat. Any ideas? There’s no foolproof way to circumvent StarNet but what you want is for the agent to do a manual sell of the segment you’re looking for, essentially sending a message to the other airline asking if there’s availability, and if there is then it should come back as confirmed. But agents aren’t supposed to do this, really. I suggest asking something along the lines of, I talked to another agent today about a different itinerary, and she said there were some problems with the award booking…
Looking on the Bright Side
Online Travel Review has a Christmas message for travelers: complaints aside, the world looks pretty good. We can travel basically anywhere in the world on a whim. Average roundtrip airfares between New York and London were about $6500 (in today’s dollars) back in the 1950s. I could fly there for $500 in 2 weeks. Despite rising fixed costs, airfares continue (for the most part) to be incredibly affordable in ways that most other countries can only dream about. It’s changed the way we keep in touch with friends, go on vacation, and do business. We’re all better off because we can fly off to Michigan to visit friends for $150, when driving the same route would cost about $180 in gas. Frequent flyer programs and the growing airline alliances have allowed us to visit roughly…
Who to fly, which program to earn with?
For top-tier elites, those that fly 100,000 miles a year or more, the best benefits are with United and American. United’s 100,000 mile flyers get (6) international upgrades a year valid on most fares and confirmable at booking (subject to award space availability). In addition there are up to (8) confirmed domestic upgrades a year, and that’s on top of the upgrades earned by lower level elites (4 500-mile upgrades per 10,000 miles flown on United or United Express). American’s 100,000 mile flyers get (8) international upgrades a year valid on most fares and confirmable at booking (subject to award space availability, but most importantly these are exempt from American’s required ‘buy up’ requirement to pay cash in addition to miles for international upgrades). Unlike at United, domestic upgrades are ‘unlimited’ with no upgrade coupons…
Dinner at The Source
Last night I had dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s new restaurant in DC, The Source. It’s attached to the Newseum in Penn Quarter, which hasn’t opened yet, and it’s across the street from Capital Grill. Brand new place, I don’t think it’s even been reviewed in the Washington Post yet. Verdict: outstanding. Not quite in the league of CityZen, either in terms of service or quite the same heights of cuisine. But really excellent nonetheless, especially with so many good trendy places having fallen recently (IndeBleu and Zengo are classic examples of the phenomenon).There really is something to the idea that the best places seem to burn out quickly, perhaps after six months or a year, so it’s best to go to good new places early. Don’t know whether the excellence here will last, but the…
