Must-read Earlier Installments: Singapore, Cathay, and Qantas First Class.. Some of the Best Meals of My Life, and a Tour of Hyatts in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sydney Inside the New Oneworld Lounge at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal Cathay Pacific First Class, Los Angeles – Hong Kong Cathay Pacific “The Wing” First Class Lounge, Hong Kong Cathay Pacific Business Class, Hong Kong – Bangkok Grand Hyatt Bangkok: Suite, Club Lounge, and Facilities Thai Molecular Gastronomy at Sra Bua in Bangkok I love getting custom-made suits done in Southeast Asia. I’ve done it multiple times in Thailand. Labor is cheap, skill level is high, and competition is intense. That translates into a great opportunity for consumers. But it isn’t as good an opportunity that many think it is. Tailor shops will make clothes for you in…
About Gary Leff
Uber’s Surge Pricing is Great Here’s Why You Should Love It
Story after story comes out critical of Uber. Reid sent me an article, that I saw mentioned on a blog about Uber’s CEO being indicted in South Korea because their UberX service is illegal. But an indictment, as in South Korea, where Travis Kalanick faces up to $18,000 in fines is more or less meaningless. It’s posturing — such weak sauce that it amounts to implicit permission to continue operating. The move shows responsiveness to entrenched interests (taxis), that politicians are doing something, but that something is so light that the message to Uber is that there’s a near-zero cost to continuing to do business, travel on! Peter Thiel called Uber “the most ethically challenged company in Silicon Valley.” When Uber’s surge pricing kicked in in Sydney earlier this month as a drama unfolded with…
What’s Worse Than Expiring Miles? You’ll Lose All Your Miles When This Frequent Flyer PROGRAM Expires!
LarryInNYC asks about the Alitalia porgram as an option for crediting the dirt cheap Etihad fare. Etihad, after all, took a big stake in the airline .. because it’s apparently more important to funnel traffic through Abu Dhabi than to actually make money. I fly to Italy at least once a year, so Al Italia might be interesting, but do I remember correctly that they reboot the whole program every few years with loss of accrued miles? Larry has it right — the current program expires December 31, 2015! According to the program rules, Alitalia is currently offering their ‘2013-2015 program’. “MilleMiglia Program” or “Program” means this rewards program whose purpose is to promote loyalty among Promoters’ customers, and which is effective from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2015, unless extended. …5.19 This rewards…
How to Ensure You’re On the Inside to Learn About the Next Mistake Fare
Did you book a $178 roundtrip ticket to Abu Dhabi, or a bit more expensive ticket to Africa, India, or Southeast Asia? Many readers wanted to know, but how do you find these? and how to stay in the loop for other fares like this? Two things to understand in your quest for fat finger discounts (leaving out digits on a fare or rate), currency conversion errors, and other special opportunities. There aren’t as many airline airfare mistakes as there used to be. Airlines have better tools, especially for international fares, to catch mistakes before they’re actually published. Those tools began rolling out in 2009, and now it’s mostly international airlines that haven’t really learned to use them that wind up publishing international mistakes. (This refers to price mistakes, but other kinds of mistakes like…
Review: Thai Molecular Gastronomy at Sra Bua in Bangkok
Must-read Earlier Installments: Singapore, Cathay, and Qantas First Class.. Some of the Best Meals of My Life, and a Tour of Hyatts in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sydney Inside the New Oneworld Lounge at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal Cathay Pacific First Class, Los Angeles – Hong Kong Cathay Pacific “The Wing” First Class Lounge, Hong Kong Cathay Pacific Business Class, Hong Kong – Bangkok Grand Hyatt Bangkok: Suite, Club Lounge, and Facilities Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin at the Siam Kempinski hotel is quite well-regarded. It’s Copenhagen sister is the second restaurant in the world to earn a Michelin star cooking Thai food. (The first was London’s Nahm, and I ate at Nahn in Bangkok on this trip as well.) I’ve done plenty of the world’s best molecular gastronomy. The since-closed El Bulli, arguably then…
British Airways Re-committing to First Class, Converting Remaining 747s to New First!
Conventional wisdom is that international first class is a thing of the past. A dinosaur. The better business classes today are better than what first used to be. Here are the world’s best business class products. There’s a very narrow market that will pay for greater privacy and service, that isn’t paying to fly private. Back in October I explained the reasons that international first class is disappearing. And yet the data actually suggests there’s more first class than ever before, naturally led by he Middle Eastern mega-carriers. One of the big data points used to suggest that first class isn’t a broadly sustainable product is the way that British Airways has de-emphasized it. BA is one of the world carrier’s most dependent on premium cabin travel, and when they’re eliminating first class from a…
An Entire Country Will Have Free Wifi By April. You’ll Never Believe Which One.
Thailand’s military government is pushing forward with a plan to offer free wifi throughout the country by April. The free Wi-Fi service will see more than 130,000 Wi-Fi hotspots installed throughout the country and is part of the government’s pledge to return happiness to the Thai people. Maj-Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd, deputy spokesman for the Information and Communication Technology Ministry said he expected the installation of the Wi-Fi hotspots would be completed by the official launch of the scheme which is in April. The timetable is… aggressive. But the government does want to move quickly. And in reality its an expansion and acceleration of a project that’s been underway for years. The acceleraton comes in the context of a military government that has put off elections until early 2016. Some observers expect further delays, and the…
Bad Airline Seats and Service Are Your Fault. What Kimpton Members Think of the IHG Merger, And That Woman Imprisoned For Changing Seats on United…
News and notes from around the interweb: We get uncomfortable airline seats and bad service because it’s what we actually want. Or rather, it’s what we’re actually willing to pay for — the simple idea of ‘notional demand’ (what we say we want) versus ‘effective demand’ (what we demonstrate we actually want). Matthew Klint has more details on the woman that was arrested for changing seats on United and is now suing the airline. Henry Harteveldt on what Kimpton members think of the boutique hotel chain’s acquisition by IHG: “This is like if you found out your favorite burger joint is being taken over by McDonald’s” (HT: Alan H.) Passenger barks at crew who wished him Merry Christmas, gets black coal kicked off flight. Other nearby passengers applaud. Icelandair Apologized for Serving a Vodka and…
Review: Grand Hyatt Bangkok
Must-read Earlier Installments: Singapore, Cathay, and Qantas First Class.. Some of the Best Meals of My Life, and a Tour of Hyatts in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sydney Inside the New Oneworld Lounge at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal Cathay Pacific First Class, Los Angeles – Hong Kong Cathay Pacific “The Wing” First Class Lounge, Hong Kong Cathay Pacific Business Class, Hong Kong – Bangkok I had arranged meet-and-greet and golf cart pickup at the gate for my arriving flight from Hong Kong with the hotel. No one was there. Once I cleared immigration and passport control I found the hotel representative in the arrivals hall, let him know what happened, and he promised to call ahead to the hotel so that they could be prepared to address it on my arrival. Then it was out…
For Those Of You Who Are Booking The Etihad $178 Fares…
If you’re going to travel on this amazing fare to Abu Dhabi, India, Africa or Asia you may wonder whom to credit the flight miles to? The key thing to know is that this deal has been booking into E class. Knowing the fare basis of your ticket will tell you what kind of miles you’ll earn with each of the possible programs you’d credit miles to.
