Great service is anticipatory, your needs are met before you realize you have them so that a dining experience seems effortless with staff unobtrusive. Furthermore, good service means accomodating guests’ preferences and requests rather than sticking to and enforcing the restaurant’s routines on patrons. The best example I can think of for this is the Inn at Little Washington. Customers often report not even having to identify themselves by name upon entering, somehow the restaurant knows who you are (easy to do if expecting a few guests at a particular time, and you know that there are several 50 year anniversaries, you deduce the names of the 30-year old couple from among those not celebrating an anniversary). But once you identify yourselves there, everyone in the restaurant knows who you are. The Inn provides all…
About Gary Leff
Rewards for Writing Reviews
Aug
19
2005
JudysBook.com is a site with reviews of restaurants and hotels, but also local auto mechanics and real estate agents. It’s new and they’re offering $5 Starbucks cards for every 5 reviews you write by September 30 (up to $50 total). It’s a little late to take advantage of this, but they’re also offering a free iPod Shuffle for writing 50 reviews and referring 10 friends, and up to 50 iTunes if the friends you refer write reviews themselves. Problem is that this needs to be completed by Sunday. I just got around to checking out the site today, already posted 10 reviews, and may just go for the iPod — but there are lots of terms and conditions to iPod offer (which don’t apply to the Starbucks offer), such as No more than 10 of…
Yours is a very bad hotel
Four years ago bad hotel stays got spread via email (such as this famous complaint). Now they’re posted at TripAdvisor and on Flyertalk for millions to read. And people post them on their blogs, which are nicely indexed by Google, so that a search for the airport Holiday Inn in Buffalo would likely yield this entry. A power outage, bad beds, rude staff, and a failure of the pillow man to deliver pillows is just the start. Jeneane Sessum should really just say Yours is a very bad hotel. I have a feeling that anyone doing due diligence online before booking the airport Holiday Inn in Buffalo will have second thoughts. By way of contrast, while I sympathize with this review of the Crowne Plaza Rochester (and wouldn’t want to stay there!), the Buffalo review…
More signs of the apocalypse
When all the Hampton Inns in Manhattan price over $300, the end times are near.
Bonus miles for referring new cardmembers to the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature
Aug
14
2005
If you have an Alaska Airlines Visa Signature, you can refer friends to the card and earn 1000 Alaska miles when they’re approved for it. The Alaska Airlines Visa Signature is one of the cards that I recommend as one of the Best Mileage Earning Credit Cards (in limited circumstances, primarily if you can make use of the companion travel certificate that comes with the card). So if you’re going to get the card, consider letting someone who already has it refer you so they can get a free 1000 miles. (Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)
Using State Power for Personal Gain… and Miles
As posted on Flyertalk, Thailand’s Members of Parliament fly free domestically and earn miles for doing so. Thai Airways tried to stop awarding miles on these free tickets, and got called to the carpet. Furthermore, He said the House committee also asked THAI to allow MPs to fly business class instead of economy class. Phaichit said the House panel would also ask the Finance Ministry to consider allowing MPs to fly international flights for free on both THAI and other airlines. As Mel Brooks would say, “It’s good to be the king.”
How to earn a rebate on Priceline now that eBay Anything Points is ending?
With the demise of the eBay Anything Points program, it looks like the best kickback deal on Priceline purchases is now Ebates which offers a 3% cash rebate. They’ll give you $5 for signing up, too, though they won’t cash out the $5 until you’ve earned an additional $5.01 through purchases. They also give $5 to you for each person you refer (so if you use my link above, we each get $5) but again you can’t cash this out until you’ve earned $5.01 in shopping rebates. Not hard at all, a single Priceline purchase of $167 gets you there for instance. Ebates is not the only way to earn something for Priceline purchases, to be sure, it just looks to me to be the best remaining deal. AirMilesMart gives 1 point for every 2…
Double Miles Flying Delta in September and October
Aug
11
2005
In September and October 2005 Delta is offering double miles on flights booked at Delta.com and paid for with an American Express. Registration required.
So I didn’t actually get any travel tips, but…
Via HotelChatter, Tara Reid really digs the Hotel Grande Bretagne. Tara’s description of the property? Absolutely incredible. This hotel’s on my list, probably for summer 2006 on the way to Crete or Sardinia.
Southwest Guts the Rapid Rewards Program
Aug
10
2005
As reported by NotiFlyer, Southwest is imposing capacity controls on its awards. Currently an award ticket is good on any seat. There are a few blackout dates, but otherwise award tickets aren’t restricted. As a bone to members, Rapid Rewards credits will expire after 24 months instead of 12. They’re also removing blackout dates, but blackout dates are meaningless once you introduce capacity controls. Now they’ll be able to allocate as many as zero or one seat on a flight. Who needs blackout dates? Southwest is headlining the change to 24 month expiration of credits, and buries the news in the middle paragraphs. Clearly an attempt to divert attention from the real bad news and soften the blow. Rapid Rewards members, you have my sympathy.
