Hyatt Members Cry Foul: Thompson NYC’s One-Suite Trick to Limit Upgrades [Roundup]

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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. Hyatt is pretty good at weeding out bad actor hotels… except in NYC

    see also the horrendous shell of a hotel that is the Centric Wall St

  2. $2.73 for a 7 minute trip is $23.40 an hour, plus tips. It’s weird that unskilled labor thinks they deserve much more than minimum wage. If you want to make more then educate yourself, get some marketable skills, and get a job, or go into business for yourself. You’re not a victim.

  3. @ Gary — The Hyatt Reency at JFK is good if you are just using the airport or going to close-in Long Island. Otherwise, I don’t even check Hyatt when staying in NYC. The other options, like the ICs or the Hilton family of brands, are vastly superior.

  4. @Mantis

    There you go again, always demeaning the working class. You know what’s ‘unskilled’ —interest income. Yet a lot of wealthy people don’t ‘work’ at all; they just collect checks. Nothing wrong with that either. Let’s not shit on the people who are trying to get by. Feel free to attack me instead. I enjoy it.

  5. IRS mileage rate is $0.67 (a comprehensive cost for owning and operating a vehicle including maintenance, insurance, fuel, monthly payment, etc.). Once that is taken out, it would be much better to be a fast food worker in California.

  6. @ 1990 — Never look down on the working man. At least they aren’t sitting around doing nothing!

  7. “$2.73 for a 7 minute trip is $23.40 an hour, plus tips.” Ever run a business? My lawn guy charges $25 for the 10 minutes it takes to mow my lawn. That’s $150/hour in your inept analysis. It takes him time to unload and load his equipment. And, he has to drive between jobs. I would suggest he’s lucky to get 2-3 lawns mowed per hour.

  8. Well the sad sack leftists seem to be out of their post election therapy/cry sessions and back to pontificating their failed ideology.

    Nobody is forced to drive on Uber. They can leave anytime. Most of them are on Uber and Lyft simultaneously too. I know you pathetic socialists hate the idea of two parties freely agreeing to a transaction, but that’s all it is. Nevermind that they cherry picked the worst offered ride to push an agenda, probably because there were few rides requested and many drivers. Supply and demand, you economic illiterates.

    Find another victim. And no, they aren’t the working class. It’s not a job, it’s an app.

  9. @Mantis – nice job displaying a pretty startling lack of both empathy and economic common sense. Two weeks ago I “freely agreed” via my Uber app to a $29.94 trip that was 3 miles in length. From the time I agreed to the trip, it was 21 minutes until I reached my destination. As I was getting out I noticed on the driver’s Uber app that he actually earned $4.24 for that trip, with the rest going to the Uber overlords. He was a nice driver and we chatted about this for a few minutes. He told me that on a good busy day he can average about $12/hour in payout from Uber. From that he has to pay out of pocket for gas, maintenance, insurance, etc. Meanwhile Uber is skimming off 85% of my payment to line their own pockets.

    I’d always assumed that drivers earned about half of what Uber charges the customer. Being the socialistic snowflake libtard that I am, I ended up tipping him $10 to bring his earnings up to $14.24, which seemed reasonable for a 21 minute trip.

  10. @Gene

    If you’re upset with those who ‘look down on the working man,’ then you have issue with @Mantis, not me, or anyone else here, so far. I’ll assume that was your mistake and not an attempt to misdirect anyone.

  11. Hyatt already has too many hotels in NYC, including three different Thompsons. Sounds like it’s best to just cull Thompson Central Park from the herd since they don’t want to operate by Hyatt’s standards anyways.

  12. Just saying. It’s my favorite NYC hotel. Globalist always treated exceptionally, including free upgrades.

    Breakfast and perks are great!

  13. Postnoblis,

    Uber’s a public company- the financials are all disclosed, and the “Over Uberlords” aren’t getting rich, either. Revenue generated in the Uber mobility business (that’s the rideshare stuff) for the most recent quarter was $6.4B, on gross bookings of $21B. So that’s a take rate of about 30%, not the 85% in your example. Drivers also get bonuses on total rides done, number of days worked, and working during surge times. Tips do not count in gross bookings and go directly to the driver- kudos to your $10 tip, but excluding tips, drivers still get 70% of the fare on average.

    On a full-year basis last year, Uber made a profit of $1.1B, on $37B of revenues and $138B of gross bookings. A profit of less than 1% on gross bookings was a surprise, as it’s the first profit Uber has made in 4 years (and only the second profit in it’s history). Not exactly a cash generating machine.

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