Delta Free Drinks and The Terrible Economics of Qantas A380s

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About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. As a millennial renter who is priced out of buying homes due to ever rising home prices and stagnant wage growth and crippling student debt, boo freaking hoo. We treat home owners like they’re some kind of underprivileged class when they are the richest people in our society. I wouldn’t mind at all if Airbnb were shut down overnight. They’re not even cheaper than hotels anymore and they drive up housing prices like crazy. I hope that local and state governments really lay down the ban hammer on them.

  2. @Ray Neither shutting down airbnb nor imposing rent control will help you in your plight for affordable rental housing. What cities need is more residential construction. You should direct your anger at nimby policies such as height and density restrictions. In DC, 80 percent of residential buildings are single-family homes (DC Policy Center, 2018). You don’t need a degree in economics to understand why this results in very high prices.

    Not getting into the student loan thing except to say that as a millennial who went to a public university, I can’t empathize with those who have “crippling” debt.

  3. We formed the Pasadena HomeSharing Network (http://www.pasadenahomesharingnetwork.com) and spent 3 years negotiating with the City of Pasadena (CA) to get reasonable short-term rental regulations enacted.

    These prohibit “vacation rentals”, I.e. whole-house/apartment rentals by non-resident owners, and limit the time a resident owner rents her/his whole living space to a total of 90 days/year.

    The city collects the same transient occupancy tax from our guests as it does from hotel guests. All short-term hosts must be licensed.

    There was no opposition to these regulations from affordable housing groups — we do not take any potential long-term housing off the market. Hotels also did not oppose us, as there is a shortage of rental rooms in Pasadena.

    We do not know how many non-owner-occupied short-term rentals remain available illegally, because it is up to the city to police them.

  4. As someone looking to move into DC that is a professional still paying hefty student loans the cost to rent can be crippling. Some of these places are charging $2200+ for 550sqf and nice amenities but have w/d hookups in unit. Ultimately you are paying for location. These buildings have MANY units for rent some people can’t pay or justify paying that much for so little in return. Airbnb isn’t too blame imo some part of the supply and demand of housing is off in DC. The person renting out the home is probably doing it to just afford the home or make extra cash. The home is still owned and people live there so what difference does it make if tourist come in for a weekend. The Jersey shore has been doing it since forever and it works.

  5. “The Wilmington train station is named after Joe Biden.” And? Joe Biden hasn’t been in office for almost two years, including for the 2017 period cited in the article. And the train station isn’t even involved in the cited over-staffing, its two machinist shops located in the state. Per the article, Amtrak could save $3 million per year from its $219 million budget for machinist shops if it reduced staffing. How does a 1.3 proposed budget reduction equate to “massive” over-staffing?? The commentary to the linked article is disingenuous at best and outright wrong otherwise.

  6. Ray u are wrong Airbnb’s are sooooo much cheaper than hotel rooms!!!
    a joe biden train station???too funny and over staffed of course,,run by the over staffed government and unions!!

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