Mar 18 2016

The new British Airways lounge at Paris Orly is a tremendous improvement over using the Iberia Salon VIP lounge pre-security and on the other side of the terminal.

It’s a perfectly well-provisioned lounge, near the boarding gate. It’s downstairs so doesn’t afford great views, and while the desk is staffed there’s no service inside to speak of. Though BA had only a single flight at a time they didn’t announce boarding.

Nonetheless, there’s a flight monitor in the lounge and around scheduled boarding time I went back upstairs. British Airways had begun the boarding process when I arrived, and the airport wished me a fond farewell.

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Mar 18 2016

Starwood was being shopped aggressively for over 6 months, and Marriott wound up the high bidder in the eyes of the Starwood board. There was likely interest from foreign purchasers. Definite interest from Hyatt. Possible interest from IHG and Wyndham.

On the one hand, when the Marriott acquisition was announced, it seemed like they were buying Starwood on the cheap. Surely Anbang is overpaying. As a consumer I think that’s great. And it’s funny in a way, turning political narratives on their heads, for consumers to be excited by a large asset purchase by a Chinese company. They ride in as white knights.

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Mar 18 2016

Chinese insurer Anbang and its financing partners increased their offer from $76 to $78 a share in cash for Starwood hotels. And that’s on top of the cash Starwood shareholders will receive for the spinoff of Starwood’s vacation ownership business (that was estimated at $7 per share at the time of the Marriott acquisition announcement but is currently estimated at $5.67 per share).

Anbang was presumably one of the three Chinese firms were supposedly seeking government permission to make a bid to buy Starwood Hotels.

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Mar 18 2016

Did you know that if you check in using American’s mobile app, and wish to use a mobile boarding pass, you have to pull it up prior to the start of boarding? That’s apparently “The infuriating rule American Airlines won’t tell you about until it’s too late” according to a columnist for the Washington Post.

It’s likely no one is surprised that there’s a cutoff time for check-in. It’s a reasonable rule, in my opinion, so that seats assigned to people who aren’t going to show up for their flight may be given to others that are standing by and want to fly.

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Mar 17 2016

I first stayed at the Park Hyatt Vendome in December 2012 and then again in December 2014.

Since the hotel hasn’t changed much since my previous two stays, and I’ve reviewed it before, I won’t be as detailed this time around. Instead I will just hit the most relevant pieces of the stay.

In some ways the hotel may be overrated (I’ve seen some pretty amazing superlatives thrown at the property). But I choose to stay here because it’s about the (1) nicest hotel that is (2) also a reasonable value on points. And because it offers (3) an even better value for Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond members.

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Mar 17 2016

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.

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Mar 17 2016

Plastiq charges your credit card and then sends out payments on your behalf. They have a promotion at just 1.75% for tax payments made with a MasterCard. You can make money paying your taxes.

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Mar 17 2016

Like Zach Honig I flew gogo’s Boeing 737 test plane on Monday. I had flown the aircraft to test their new satellite internet speeds back in November, but since I was home in Austin and they were in town for Southby I made my way to the airport for a 90 minute flight with a few other bloggers and journalists.

We had 51 devices connected on our flight which is 3 times as many on a typical flight and which matches or exceeds the highest volume use flights like San Francisco – Boston. And there was really no latency to speak of, I was using the internet like I was on a typical wifi connection on the ground.

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Mar 17 2016

Donald Trump’s sine qua non is dealmaking. He declares he doesn’t just make deals, he’s the authority on making deals because he literally wrote “the Art of the Deal.”

Here’s a bit on the inartful deal making that went into Trump’s purchases of an airline and The Plaza — both of which came within 12 months of “literally writing The Art of the Deal.”

He paid more than anyone else ever had for a hotel, and too much cover his debts. Ultimately Trump lost much more than his original investment in the airline: he forfeited over $100 million he had personally guaranteed.

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Mar 17 2016

Even as US airline programs are devaluing their points and restructuring the (relatively small) portion of earning that derives from flights, loyalty programs are expanding.

Loyalty marketing is increasing in importance as companies are better able to: track consumer behavior through technology and communicate effectively with consumers electronically.

The crux of loyalty programs is that consumer behavior can be driven through recognition and reward.

Loyalty programs aren’t going anywhere.

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