Eat the roll with your fingers. Turn the sushi pieces on their side with your chopsticks before dipping fish into soy sauce. Definitely don’t eat the ginger slices together with the roll or fish! And don’t shake soy sauce off the sushi. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
About Gary Leff
3000 Mile First-Time Hotel Booking Bonus Extended Through October 10
Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site with a limited number of hotels and in a limited – but growing – number of cities. It rebates you a potentially large number of miles for your reservations. (You generally won’t earn hotel points for your stays booked through the site.) You get to choose whose miles you want to earn for your stays. In addition to the standard bonus they are now offering a 3000 mile bonus in your choice of mileage program for completing your first booking by October 10.
Delta Against Its Customers: No Longer Permits Expertflyer Access to Inventory, Seat Maps, Fares, or Even Flight Status
Delta has forced Expertflyer to remove access to all of its data from the website.
This Amazing Viral Landing Video Didn’t Really Happen. Here’s How We Know!
This video of a Delta jet making a rather amazing landing has been making the rounds. I’ve seen it on Facebook, and three readers sent it to me. The strength of the nose gear on the Boeing 787 is very impressive! But… this didn’t really happen. Delta has ordered 18 Boeing 787’s. None have yet been delivered. This sure looks like a computer-generated background. Microsoft Flight Simulator? A training simulator? Definitely not a video of an actual landing. Don’t try this one for real, pilots! You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
It’s Too Dang Early for This!
The meal service standards that US Airways went to in the spring — and American adopts tomorrow — call for an ‘enhanced snack basket’ in first class on all flights from 700 to 999 miles. Fort Lauderdale – Washington National is 899 miles. So it gets an enhanced snack basket. It’s not an ‘exception market’ for a meal like the shorter Chicago O’Hare – New York LaGuardia. Here’s the thing. There actually is some variation in the snack basket. Sometimes it has fruit. Sometimes there are shrink wrapped breakfast cakes. And sometimes there’s not. Like on a 6:55 a.m. departure. I appreciate catering, especially departing from a terminal where the only ‘restaurant’ offering hot food didn’t get the hot food ready for opening and where only one place offers something they even call a cappuccino…
Two Rolex Watches Were Stolen From This Hotel Guest. You’ll Never Guess Where They Were Found!
News and notes from around the interweb: Simon Mall gift cards – that come with PINs and can be used to buy money orders – can now be purchased online for ~ $5 per $500 all-in. An important reminder for avoiding tourist scams: you’re not that good looking and irresistible (and expensive watches just make you a target, not an amazing wooer of women). That rolex will just get stolen. (HT: Alan H.) Pretty cool new DC public transit app Thai Airways is getting a bailout. What the front desk is saying when they talk about you. Hint: It’s all quite necessary and business-appropriate. (HT: Alan H.) 500 Virgin America Elevate points for 99 cents You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts…
Always Enter Your Car Rental Confirmation Numbers into Autoslash for Savings – It’s Free!
Reader Brian B. offers a good reminder: Needed minivan + different city return… ended up with Budget @ [$600+] + $350 one-way fee! …I fill out Autoslash’s form. I forget about it. 10 days later (4 days before my trip) i get a response. Mid-size SUV @ $450 (instead of $950 for a minivan). Wow! Book immediately. Two more emails and the price is $410. I would not have re-checked Avis four days before the trip. This saved me $600! But yet service remains shady looking. But I now love those guys more than usual. I first covered Autoslash.com in June of 2010. Back then there were two things this free website would do for you: They would automatically test and apply coupons and discount codes to get you the lowest rate on your vehicle…
A Sneaky Test to Determine if a Hotel’s Improvements Are Real or Just for Show
Back in April I reviewed the W Austin. I led with it being a good hotel, but I had a few beefs. I’ve reviewed several hotels in the Austin area: the Hyatt Place Downtown, Westin Austin at the Domain, and Hyatt Regency (also here and here). The W is my favorite of those by far — right smack downtown, but not by all the 6th street bars (so quieter) and with a view of the river. What I didn’t like was mostly housekeeping-related. There were usually room service trays sitting in the hallway outside of doors for most of the day, and room servicing was a bit less than thorough. At the end of May I wrote about a much, much better experience there where they had seemingly fixed their issues. But they had also…
The Westin Diplomat – and its Limitless Ocean View Suites – Becoming a Hilton
The Westin Diplomat outside of Fort Lauderdale has been sold and it is leaving Starwood and will apparently become a Hilton. SPECIAL CONDITIONS Leaving Starwood At 11:59 PM On October 29, 2014 The Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa, Hollywood, FL will be leaving the Starwood system at 11:59pm on October 29, 2014. Reservations for dates on or after October 29, 2014 will not be eligible for Starwood Preferred Guest membership benefits, award redemption or accrual. Starwood may have to re-accommodate guests that have booked award stays past October 30 elsewhere,
Mystery Solved: What’s That You’re Eating, and What’s That Plane Doing There?!
To complement Ben’s Chili Bowl at National airport we have Five Guys re-opened on the fa US Airways upper gates pier. I genuinely don’t understand the closure for the better part of the last year, the re-model looks… just like it did before. The real mystery, though, that took me several minutes to figure out was why I was seeing this American plane on the far US Airways pier. There are American regional jet flights now leaving from the far pier, utilizing US Airways bus gates. But I hadn’t seen any American mainline aircraft re-positioned. When I got to the gate, I saw it wasn’t an American flight after all! It was a US Airways aircraft that had been repainted in American’s livery. Well that’s confusing! Change is coming to National airport in many forms!…
