The nineteen alleged CIA offers with arrest warrants in Italy apparently prefer Diners Club for charging up the high life. Still, what seemed most striking about the group was not their names but their credit cards, on which they charged over $150,000 for fancy meals and rooms at some of Milan’s finest ristoranti and hotels. Among them, the U.S. spies held a total of 10 Visa cards (no surprise there) but no MasterCards and, strangely, six Diners Club cards. Although Diners Club boasts of being the original charge card (its debut, with much fanfare, was way back in 1950), the ailing brand now claims less than 1 percent of the U.S. market. So why do the CIA’ s spooks prefer Diners Club? Do they get bonus points? Free eavesdropping gear? The CIA and Diners Club…
About Gary Leff
Why not hire two caterers?
One area of aviation that I’m not too familiar with is the process of airline catering. In light of the catering strike at Heathrow that crippled British Airways, Lynne Kiesling asks why airlines don’t hire multiple caterers. If the pricing/reliability benefits outweigh the economies of scale, they should be willing to hire different caterers. They can have them specialize in different terminals, or hire one caterer to do meals for flights to Asia, one for Middle East, one for Europe and US, etc. Then, even if you are still facing a duopoly, at least you contract with both of them and you increase your probability of getting a Bertrand outcome. Either I’m missing something, or they’re not thinking very strategically. Which is it? Maybe someone who knows more about airline catering than I do can…
Go Guard!
Aug
23
2005
The Army National Guard is giving away iTunes downloads. But if you give them a real phone number they might call you.
Can e-mail help a city retain air service?
Will Hickory, North Carolina’s airport go the way of MidAmerica Airport, St. Louis’ supposed second airport? Not if the Hickory City Council has their way, they’re starting up an email campaign and visiting businesses trying to get them to use their local airport. Delta’s regional partner Atlantic Southeast services Hickory and load factors have hovered around just 40%. Delta is considering pulling service. The City Council thinks people just need to realize how great the airport is — free parking, short checkin lines, and close to home for Hickory residents. Sure it’s a little more expensive, but generally not more than $100 than flying out of Charlotte. Residents just need to understand the benefits of their home airport, of course, so the city is going to try a metaphorical “grand re-opening.” [Sarcasm]Naturally, it’s the consumers…
$9/night hotel outside Washington, DC
Ripped from Flyertalk, not yet on FareAlert: Several nights can be booked at $9/night (double occupancy) at www.ramada.com at the following hotel: Ramada Inn New Carrollton/DC Area 8500 Annapolis Road New Carrollton, Maryland 20784 Not valid for all dates, but you will find the $9 rate mostly for weekdays. Seems to be valid from now until August 2006. This hotel is a decent distance outside of DC but appears to offer a shuttle to the metro. It’s a Ramada but looks quite decent as a basic hotel room.
Poste at the Hotel Monaco: Zen and the Art of Bad Service
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…
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.)
