Tyler Cowen wonders whether the Shake Shack IPO means it is time to stop eat there? After an IPO, the equity share of the original creators — in this case Danny Meyer — is diluted. Meyer’s incentive to maintain quality standards and his personal brand name is weakened. The subsequent public shareholders are more likely to insist on a less risky and more mass market approach…In other words, both the signaling and the moral hazard arguments suggest that soon you should stop eating at Shake Shack. I actually think Tyler is late to the party on this: the IPO signals we already should have stopped going. When Shake Shack opened at New York’s JFK airport in 2013 (and then opened a second JFK location, 14 gates down from the original), and when Delta started serving…
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A New Way to Earn Miles When Paying Your Rent
Via the Forward Cabin, Radpad, a service that offers both credit card and debit card payments for rent, offers a monthly check-cutting service to landlord that only charges a $4.95 fee when using a debit card. Your first month’s rent payment is free with a debit card. Then it’s $4.95 for up to a $5000 payment. Credit card payments cost 2.99% so aren’t worth doing. But if you have a rewards debit card this can be a great way to earn miles for your rent. This is possible, because the cost to process debit transactions is really low (because of the Durban amendment) But for the same reason, banks usually do not incentivize debit transactions any longer. Here’s what does still exist: I use the Suntrust Delta debit card, which earns 1 mile per dollar…
Ruh-Roh: Are American’s Business Awards Offline, Just As Points Are About to Expire?
Business ExtrAA is the American Airlines small business program, where points are earned in parallel to AAdvantage miles. It’s an opportunity to double dip — you add your Business ExtrAA number to reservations and earn business points, while the traveler earns frequent flyer miles as usual. And then you redeem the points for travel, or Gold elite status or lounge access. Points expire in the program. Points earned during a year expire December 31 two years following. All points in the Business ExtrAA program earned in 2012 and not yet redeemed expire today. So today is a pretty important day for the program. And all award redemption options have disappeared off of the Business ExtrAA website. If you have Business ExtrAA points expiring, I would call customer service to redeem today rather than waiting for…
American Express Campus Edition Eliminates Load Options
American Express Campus Edition – the prepaid product marketed to college students in conjunction with Barnes & Noble campus bookstores — allowed you to load at the bookstore cash register with a credit card or gift card. The card allowed a maximum balance of $1000, and charged $3.95 to reload at register. You could then take the money off the card at an ATM machine (first withdrawal free each month, $2 thereafter, plus fees charged by the ATM owner). The fees and need to be near a campus bookstore probably made it not useful for most people. But I long had a campus bookstore in the lobby of my office. (So a ‘weedkday’ errand, not a weekend mileage errand.) Sadly the options for loading these cards are being limited soon. So now more register loads…
IHG Rewards Club Sneaks a Big Change Into Their Terms and Conditions
IHG Rewards Club has made a big change in their terms and conditions with no advance notice, or even any notice, to members: they will no longer award points even for incidentals on stays booked through third party website. Hotel loyalty programs have spent years trying to gain control over the distribution of rooms. Years ago Priceline nights counted towards Hyatt elite status and even towards promotion earning (such as ‘Faster Free Nights’). In some cases such generosity was because of systems limitations. Bookings through third party websites like Expedia, Orbitz, or Booking.com are costly to hotel chains. On the whole they’ve driven down those costs over the past few years as hotel occupancy has gone up, but it’s still a huge expense that can run 15% – 25% of a room night. So hotels…
Hilton HHonors Announces Hotel Award Category Changes — Find Out Which Hotels Will Cost You More (or Fewer) Points to Redeem
After Hilton’s dramatic award chart gutting of nearly two years ago, there weren’t huge changes again this year. And 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’. At least they are announcing the changes. And savvy members could create a change detection for the page. Towards that end, Hilton is making category adjustments to several hotels effective January 14.
David vs. Goliath, United and Orbitz Try Cracking Down on Cheap Airfare Practices
Regular readers may be familiar with the indispensable guide to saving money on airfare using hidden city and throwaway tickets. In the guide I explain how to find extra flights for your ticket that allow you to save money, I outline the risks and how to make best use of the techniques. A year ago a new website called Skiplagged launched to help find those extra flights that save you money. Last month Orbitz and United sued to shut down the site. Hidden city ticketing is not illegal (and the New York Times “Ethicist” endorses it), but it’s generally against airline rules, and there are some basic practices you need to follow to make sure you or your bags don’t wind up in the wrong city!
Hyatt Diamond Status Challenge Returns Thursday!
Be sure to see the update to this post about eligibility for this offer. Hyatt has been exceptionally generous in being willing to give elite members of other hotel chains temporary top tier status in the Gold Passport program, while offering an expedited way to keep that status. And they even gave these temporary Diamond full confirmed suite upgrades as though they had earned the status for a year. This was exceptionally game-able. Plenty of folks signed up for a credit card that gave them Hilton Gold status and leveraged that into Hyatt Diamond — maybe transferred some points into Hyatt from Chase Ultimate Rewards, booked cash and points award stays, upgraded them to suites at booking and enjoyed free breakfasts during their stays.
Thailand’s Iron Chef Cooks Ancient Recipes in a Deserted Top Notch Restaurant
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 Getting Custom Tailored Suits Made in Bangkok at Empire Tailors Nahm at the Metropolitan: the Best Thai Food in Thailand? Siam Wisdom opened this past April. It’s the restaurant of Thai Iron Chef Chumphol Jaengprai. It was recommended to me by the owner of Elephant Jumps in Northern Virginia, not as a place he’s been…
Earn Miles for Doctor Visits, Don’t Trust United With Your Pet, and Where to Find Very Important $500 Gift Cards…
News and notes from around the interweb: Earn miles for doctor visits. This could either tax the health care system, or really incentivize cost-saving preventive care.. Grocery stores that sell $500 gift cards Skift takes an interesting approach to valuing miles: averaging the values assigned by me, Lucky, and The Points Guy. I think that’s wrong-headed of course, as I believe my valuations to be correct (or else they wouldn’t be my valuations). Nonetheless, interesting.. United wasn’t very nice to this dog and their social media team passed the buck to a third party. I can’t imagine turning my little guy over to an airline, having to trust them… Democrat Senators focusing on Uber and Lyft privacy policies and technologies US airlines don’t compete in the same markets with Gulf carriers. Thus, arguably, there’s fertile…
