Garry Shandling died suddenly today at aged 66.
I was fond of him because growing up I didn’t know too many people named Gary (really, anyone) and even though he had an extra ‘r’ that was close enough. Plus he was pathbreaking in many ways. His The Larry Sanders Show spoofed a behind the scenes look at talk shows, and was an early adopted of using guest stars who play themselves.
Shandling of course was the lead passenger on Saturday Night Live‘s Redneck Airlines.
Having wrapped up the British Airways first and business class trip report from my long weekend at Paris staying at the Park Hyatt Vendome, I’m about to commence on my next report: flying all 3 of the major Gulf carriers in first class on their Airbus A380s.
The funny thing is I didn’t even set out to do that, but wound up in Airbus A380 First Class on Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad using miles. But it would be the Emirates onboard shower spa and all-around bling, Qatar — an airline I hadn’t yet flown, and a visit to their brand new first class lounge in Doha, and the single best first class product in the sky the Etihad First Apartment.
I wanted to visit Bangkok for a few days largely for the street food and also to have some new suits made. And I’ve had visiting the Museum of Islamic Art on my mental list of things I’d really like to do for quite some time. I had a week where it was convenient to travel.
A United Airlines pilot, 51 year old Bruce Wayne Wallis, was arrested for running “a string of brothels in apartment complexes throughout Houston.”
Apparently he had “a half-dozen brothel apartments with six to 10 women in each one.” The women paid him “$400 a week to ply their trade.”
Let’s assume 48 prostitutes at $400 a week, he was taking in about a million dollars a year less expenses. That’s twice what what the flight attendant for a Gulf carrier made actually sleeping with passengers inflight.
News broke yesterday that Virgin America had received a takeover offer and was shopping itself to potential buyers.
We can eliminate United as the acquirer — the Justice Department would pretty quickly shut down such a degree of consolidation in San Francisco where United has a hub and Virgin America is based.
I suggested it was conceivable that JetBlue, a more boutique-style carrier focused on New York, could bulk up on the West Coast by aligning itself with Virgin America. I’m not predicting it but it would increase competition overall rather than reducing it. And it would presumably pass muster with anti-trust review.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
After Hilton’s dramatic award chart gutting of nearly three years ago, there weren’t huge changes again this year.
Hilton decided to change the way they made changes to how they re-assign hotels to award categories. Instead of an annual change to tons of hotels (a schedule they really weren’t wedded to in the past anyway) they decided they would make rolling changes throughout the year. And instead of informing all members proactively of these changes, they would just post them on a web page in the name of ‘transparency’.
Plastiq, the service that lets you pay bills online and charge them to a credit card, has a new referral program.
For each person you refer that makes a payment of $20 or more, you earn $400 worth of fee-free credit card payments to use yourself.
The person you refer will earn $200 in fee-free payments as well. So they’re better off signing up through a referral link than signing up without one.
Virgin America is reportedly considering a sale. As of this writing Virgin America shares are up sharply on the news.
There’s not a lot of room for consolidation left in the US airline industry, and there’s only a limited appetite for it among federal regulators. What sort of buyer might get approval?
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
On Friday Starwood’s customers and shareholders were excited by a Chinese group led by insurer Anbang making a substantially higher offer for the hotel chain than the pending Marriott Marriott acquisition deal.
On Monday Marriott increased their offer substantially to take the lead in the acquisition of Starwood.
This is far from a done deal however. Here’s why.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
