Sunday night I went to dinner at Grace in Los Angeles, which was recommended by several Flyertalk.com members. I liked the decor and atmosphere. It felt a bit like walking out of one W (in Westwood where I was staying) and into another (the restaurant) with the color scheme — especially in the back dining room — and music. The food was generally good, though whatever seasoning they coated my foie gras with was burnt slightly. It took almost half an hour for my entree to come out after my appetizer was cleared. And one of the stranger things I’ve seen lately, they came around to brush crumbs off the table a couple of times during the night… and brushed them right onto the floor. That’s a first for me at an upscale U.S. restaurant.…
About Gary Leff
USAirways Offers Status Matches
Airlines are generally anxious to poach the business of competing carriers’ elite members. As a result, many are willing to match the status that one has in a program with like status in their own loyalty scheme. Usually this is an unpublished, unmentioned benefit. However, USAirways has the process on its website. We will be glad to review your Dividend Miles tier status in light of your tier level with another airline. Please fax a written Preferred Exception request, along with current tier documentation for the other airline, to 305-370-3513. It is important to include your Dividend Miles account number, your email address and a daytime telephone number so that we can contact you after your correspondence is reviewed. That USAirways is willing to do this comes as no surprise. It’s mentioned, along with several…
3% Priceline Rebate at Fatwallet
Looks like ebates dropped down to a 2% rebate on Priceline bids sometime over the past few days. But Fatwallet has bumped its rebate up to 3%, so for the moment that appears to be the preferred portal for Priceline bids.
I can’t believe…
Can’t believe that the penny rate is still available at the Holiday Inn Resort Phuket. But it does seem that it’s currently bookable, these things don’t usually last so long.
Free Hotel Nights at Holidy Inn Phuket
The Holiday Inn Resort Phuket has THB0.01 rates available for a standard room. That’s basically ‘free’. Rate appears to be available beginning May 1 through the end of October, 2006.Property seems very well regarded for a Holiday Inn. You can find the rate at the Holiday Inn website. As always, your mileage may vary on whether the hotel honors this. So don’t book any non-refundable airfare until we learn for sure. Related Flyertalk.com thread is here. Update 2:26pm Eastern: The rate is still available. It is also bookable at Travelocity. Some rates are prepaid, others are not, in either case there’s not a huge change of this being honored in my view but it might be. One approach would be to make prepaid reservations at both sites. Additionally, the online booking guarantee on the Holiday…
$29 at the Regent Kuala Lumpur
Courtesy of Free Traveling, the Regent Kuala Lumper — a very nice property — is available for $29 a night $29/night – The Regent Kuala Lumpur The Regent Kuala Lumpur, 160 Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. $29/night. Feb 13, 17, 20, 23, 25, 27, March 2, 7, 12, 15, 17, 22, Apr 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, May 1, 6, 11, and other dates. Book on travelocity.com. Now, the hotel is usually available for just under $100 usually, so this one isn’t worth making a special trip for. Still, a great value!
Do Air Marshalls Make Us More Secure, Episode 352
Air Marshalls as drug couriers. Now I feel even better about them bumping me out of my first class seat. Apparently all it took was a few thousand dollars to get the air marshalls involved to do this. As one commentator asked, “If a few grand gets one to smuggle some cocaine, I wonder how much it would cost to get someone to “forget” their firearm or an explosive device underneath a seat or in some other concealed place? After all, these guys bypass the checkpoints…”
Is this timeshare honest? As honest as the day is long!
Joe Turner attends a timeshare pitch with the promise of a free vacation, and walks away with a single gas coupon. I’m not a fan of timeshares because I get most of my vacationing free on points anyway, and can get deals that make the rest of my travels less expensive than a timeshare anyway. I can imagine scenarios where “vacation ownership” might make sense for some people, in part as a planning tool and in part to economize on the knowledge gathering necessary to do better than a timeshare offer. But the sales tactics of many operators suggest that the deals they’re offering may not be that compelling on their own, and at the very least it’s important to recognize that you need to get all the facts and dig through the fine print…
Rigging the Online Review Sites
Chris Elliott looked into hotel rating sites like TripAdvisor.com and found that hotels are sometimes cooking the books, posting fake reviews themselves or offering discounts to travelers in exchange for positive reviews posted online. This is in addition to all of the other problems with using broad-based experiences of travelers posted online, such as that only the best and worst experiences tend to get posted, that hotels do change and renovate over time (so recent stays are key), and that each guest has a somewhat different filter. Numerical rankings aren’t going to be consistent across individual travelers. All of this is true, but I’m not sure how much it really matters. It’s important obscure and lesser-traveled destinations, where hotels may have only a couple reviews at most. But it’s difficult to overwhelm the vast majority…
What Power Converters/Transformers/Adapters Do I Need?
InflightHQ points to a neat online offering from Magellans that helps you determine what you’ll need in order to use your electric and electronic appliances abroad. My super-duper all-purpose converter/adapter burned out a few months ago when my wife used it with her curling iron. After 6 years, may she rest in peace. The online guides I’ve looked at have been helpful, but this one is better because it’s both user friendly and comprehensive — I was looking for information on Rwanda yesterday but couldn’t find it. This one has it. (Note, ebates offers 7% cash back at Magellan’s, and you can also earn miles via the online malls of Alaska and Delta there.)
