New Etihad First Class Lounge Finally Open!

by Gary Leff

etihad-lounge
May 30 2016

Etihad has opened its new first class lounge at their Abu Dhabi airport home. First class passengers no longer need to use the ‘roped off section’ of the business class lounge, that’s no really different than the rest of the lounge except that a staff member will bring you drinks (and your spa treatment is free).

There’s there’s cooked to order food including a tasting menu. There’s a cigar lounge (unclear whether cigars are complimentary or paid) with recommendations on pairing each cigar with whiskey or cognac. There’s both a Six Senses Spa and Style & Shave as well as a fitness room.

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How to Get Real Innovation in Air Travel

by Gary Leff

May 29 2016

Frequent flyers complain about airlines and even occasionally call to re-regulate them. But those calls fail to recognize that airlines are in fact one of the most highly regulated industries as it is, and what the Airline Deregulation Act did was free up airlines to compete on schedule and price.

The government no longer had to approve new routes, and no longer set prices, with the closing of the Civil Aeronautics Board. The CAB used to protect the airlines, not consumers by limiting what was termed ‘ruinous competition’. They ensured prices were set high enough to earn profits.

Calls to re-regulate the airlines, then, are in some sense anti-consumer. They’re calls to ensure higher profits and less choice.

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What’s the Best Wallet for the Credit Card Obsessed?

by Gary Leff

May 29 2016

I’d love some reader advice on what wallet to carry for someone who has a lot of credit cards and doesn’t want to leave them all in a drawer… but without spending a ton of money and still getting something decent-looking that I can take out in a business environment to pay for a meal.

For a few years I had a great wallet. It wasn’t great because it was a $265 Ghurka wallet. In fact, I had never heard of Ghurka when I bought it, I got it for free by stacking multiple deals at Vente-Privee and I only wanted it because it had five credit card slots on each side. And, of course, I could stick more than one card in each slot.

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American’s Pilots Hate the Focus on “D0” Almost as Much as Passengers Do

by Gary Leff

May 29 2016

Many things go into whether or not a flight arrives on time. American’s management argues that what they can most control is whether the flight departs on time, and if it does, that’s going to be the single biggest driver of on time arrivals.

So American Airlines management is singularly focused on what they refer to as “D0” — departing exactly the minute that a flight is scheduled to depart (the government considers a flight to be ‘on time’ when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule).

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How Badly is Trump’s Presidential Campaign Killing Trump Hotels?

by Gary Leff

May 28 2016

Hipmunk’s overall hotel bookings are up year-over-year, while bookings at Trump hotel properties are down. In the first quarter of 2015, Trump Hotels represented 1.7% of bookings on Hipmunk, and that was down to 0.7% in the first quarter of 2016.

Here’s the change to several Trump Hotels’ share of bookings at Hipmunk from the first quarter 2015 to the first quarter 2016.

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Alaska Airlines Increases Credit Card Signup Bonus and Thinks It’s a Really Big Deal

by Gary Leff

May 28 2016

Bank of America has increased its public offer on the Alaska Airlines Visa to 30,000 miles after $1000 spend within 90 days.

This co-brand crédit card plays center stage in how Alaska plans to make their Virgin America acquisition work out. The ability to sell the card to Virgin America’s customers, gain signups in California and the Bay Area in particular, is one of the things they explained will turn the deal positive. And they highlighted the plan for a bigger signup bonus as part of that — Alaska leadership has portrayed the 5000 extra miles as a big deal, which struck me odd.

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This is Why Stores Crack Down on Credit Card Purchase of Gift Cards

by Gary Leff

May 28 2016

A Home Depot employee was arrested for selling more than $50,000 of gift cards to customers using stolen credit cards.

Over three days a man and a woman who remain unidentified bought $51,128 in gift cards and merchandise which the clerk allowed them to do entering card numbers, rather than swiping actual cards, above the store limit of $50 that a cashier would normally be able to process.

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