It’s only been two years since I bought my last laptop. It’s a Lenovo T460s, and I hate it. It has an Intel i7-6600u processor and a 1 terrabyte hard drive. But battery life is awful.
Here’s my criteria in a new machine and I could really use suggestions about what will work best.
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.
I’m just back from Tokyo and Shanghai. My wife and I flew to Asia on a Virgin Atlantic 120,000 mile roundtrip ANA first class award. It’s one of the better value redemptions in all of travel — United would charge 220,000 miles roundtrip for the same thing, Aeroplan 210,000 miles, and Avianca LifeMiles 204,000. ANA itself charges 150,000 miles roundtrip.
And it turns out the deal is even better than that because most of the points for these two tickets came from American Express Membership Rewards transfers — when there was a transfer bonus. I called up Virgin Atlantic, put the award on a 24 hour hold, and then transferred the points. Not bad for a roundtrip ticket that was pricing at $22,907 apiece.
Ten engine parts fell out of a Japan Airlines Boeing 767 hitting a car and a medical clinic. The plane was headed from Kumamoto airport to Tokyo Haneda as flight JL632.
A left engine blade sustained significant damage. The parts falling from the sky “cracked a clinic window in Mashiki, Kumamoto Prefecture, and damaged a car on the premises.”
A yellow lab named Eleanor Rigby (like the Beatles song) gave birth at Tampa airport’s gate 80 just prior to boarding a flight to Philadelphia. She had eight puppies. The airport’s fire and rescue team was called to the scene to assist with the delivery.
This is absolutely adorable. But even people can expect to take some time off in the days leading up to giving birth, and certainly shouldn’t be flying. This dog almost gave birth on the plane. And why isn’t this service animal fixed..?
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.
I was in the Phiadelphia airport’s Centurion lounge this past week. I hadn’t been since the lounge’s pre-opening event in October. It was packed.
They’re popular with travelers because they’re better than the lounges that were already in the airport before American Express opened them. However with high demand comes real wear and tear on the spaces.
On Wednesday’s American Airlines flight AA1293 from St. Croix to Miami passenger Jason Felix was apparently drunk when he boarded.
Unsurprisingly the flight attendant wouldn’t serve the man another beer — and they wound up discussing whether the flight attendant was the man’s bartender.
When a loyalty program becomes less rewarding, it moves the needle with consumers less. That’s a fairly basic proposition.
It’s not any different than the idea that if you raise prices consumers buy less of your product. There are exceptions of course, where some goods become more desirable because they’re expensive, but those are real outliers. This works fairly consistently and reliably.
Delta saver business class awards between US and Europe are supposed to cost 70,000 miles each way unless you’re using SkyMiles to fly on a Delta airlines partner in which case they charge extra miles. At least that’s the theory.
Delta charges what Delta wants to charge sometimes. But you can do something about it when you book.
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 »
