General

Category Archives for General.

What’s the Best Hotel Breakfast?

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2015

I’ll take a good quality restaurant breakfast (not the standard US airport hotel buffet) over a club lounge, foregoing evening options. But for a mediocre restaurant breakfast I’ll prefer the quick service of the lounge.

There are hotels that offer some amazing breakfast spreads, especially in Asia. If I had to pick one city with the highest average it’s Kuala Lumpur. The best single hotel breakfast I’ve had was probably the St. Regis Bali. And the chain with the best breakfast benefit for top elites is unquestionably Hyatt.

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What’s the Best First Class for West Coast – Asia?

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2015

The choice here is ultimately going to be driven by availability, although there are plenty of airlines worth checking given the miles that are available.

Consider that it’s entirely possible to use a different airline for the outbound as the return — not just to try different products, but because schedules and availability may differ, especially for an outbound to North Asia and a return from Southeast Asia.

I’d generally rank the first class products of airlines flying from the US West Coast across the Pacific as follows:

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How the Selfie May Limit Your Credit Card Rewards

by Gary Leff

Jul 04 2015

Some people sign up for credit cards in the name of family members (who are willing participants) — they want the bonus miles, but spouse or sibling doesn’t want to deal with meeting minimum spend and doesn’t themselves value the miles.

Things get tricky when it comes time to cancelling, a male voice may have a hard time calling to cancel a woman’s card (so cancel by mail or online). And meeting minimum spend either needs to be done with an authorized user card, or online.

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What If Retailers Had No Liability on Their Books for Redeeming Rewards?

by Gary Leff

Jul 03 2015

Frequent flyer miles are proprietary currency where the issuer offers the promise of redemptions (although airlines at least have no obligation to honor that promise).

What if a retailer created their own currency but didn’t promise to accept it for redemptions? That seems to me like a bad idea, but there’s a company promoting just such a thing. Somehow other businesses would still accept the currency as payments for their merchandise.

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How Hot is Too Hot? Should Airlines Refuse to Board Aircraft When Cabins Heat Up Over the Summer?

by Gary Leff

Jul 03 2015

Planes can get pretty hot on the ground during the summer, especially when they’re not running the air conditioning with auxiliary power.

Passengers are often asked to close the shades upon landing, keeping out the sun keeps the cabin from heating up as much. On boarding all the windows are closed and most passengers leave them that way. Once the engines start running, and the plane gets up in the air, things cool down quickly.

American Airlines will board a plane if the temperature is less than 90 degrees, though as always this is at the discretion of the pilot. US Airways’ policy has been an 85 degree maximum…

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When Airlines Talk About Restricting Capacity at Conferences, You Know They’re Probably Not Breaking the Law

by Gary Leff

Jul 02 2015

In the New York Times, James Stewart thinks that the airlines’ public statements demonstrate collusion to restrict capacity and thus raise prices as the Department of Justice is investigating.

Except that if there was actual collusion, the last way they’d be able to successfully pull it off would be for the CEOs of major airlines to signal their plans in a public forum. If all that existed were public statements, that would be highly suggestive there wasn’t any collusion.

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