Category Archives for General.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Bek Air flight Z9-2100 from Almaty to Astana, a domestic flight within Kazakhstan operated by a Fokker 100 with reports alternately of 93 and 95 passengers on board along with 5 crew, crashed shortly after takeoff. It was unable to climb, hit the ground, and broke through a concrete wall before hitting a building. The Fokker jet broke into multiple pieces.
Twelve people are reported to have perished including the captain of the flight. Sixty six people suffered critical injuries (22 of which are ‘extremely critical’). These numbers may worsen.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Two of the most innovative companies in the world are Google and Amazon. They’re impressive in similar ways. They’ve built capabilities, scaled them, and used their new internal capacity to compete aggressively in adjacent industries. No one can touch what Google has done in artificial intelligence at scale. They built and effectively managed large scale data storage, and branched out to manage web services for other companies (Google Cloud). They used the data storage and search capability to offer e-mail, which they scan to learn tremendous amounts about their customers. When I receive an email with travel plans, Google knows where I’m going. They know where I have dinner reservations, too, and tell me when I should to make it to a restaurant on time. They’re embedded in my phone through its operating system, and…
I used to get in taxis all the time in New York. But before the driver would let me in he’d (and it was always a he) roll down the window and ask where I was going. He didn’t want a ride in the opposite direction of where he wanted to go, and he certainly didn’t want to drive into an ‘undesirable’ (minority) neighborhood. That’s illegal, but the practice was commonplace.
Uber and other rideshare companies changed all that. You enter where you’re going in an app, the driver accepts the ride, but doesn’t learn the destination until you’re in the car and on the way – and they can be penalized for cancelling rides.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
The American Express Centurion Card (a.k.a. “Black Card”) has a $7500 ‘initiation fee’ and just raised its annual fee to $5000.
What if a card issuer, though, said “hold my beer – those fees are for pikers” and came out with a $10,000 fee card and an up front charge as high as $200,000?
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
