$20 Free For Your Next Restaurant Meal

by Gary Leff

Mar 18 2016

LivingSocial and for that matter Groupon were once ‘next big things’. They raised a lot of money, burned a lot of cash, and built of mailing lists of people who don’t like to pay retail. This week Living Social laid off about half of its workforce. Over the paid 18 months they’ve shed better than three-fourths of their employees.

Now they have a new way to put money into your pocket rather than theirs: Living Social Restaurant Plus will give you up to a 30% rebate when you spend at specific restaurants at certain times.

And they’re still spending other peoples money to get a business going: They will give you a 100% rebate on your first qualifying meal up to $20 when you sign up. (You have 30 days from signup to take advantage of the offer.)

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Inside the Special Etihad Residence Lounge at New York JFK

by Gary Leff

Mar 18 2016

Back in December Etihad opened a new dedicated lounge at New York JFK. It’s much better than the old Oasis lounge which I used three years ago taking the New York JFK – Abu Dhabi flight. Chris Guillebeau had aptly described that lounge as “the Star Wars galaxy bar of middle-cabin travelers.”

I didn’t make it out to the lounge’s grand opening, but I was thrilled to be flying out of New York JFK with a chance to see it last month.

I reached out ahead of time to Etihad and asked if it would be possible to see the new lounge for Residence passengers as well. And if I was lucky — if no one had booked the Residence on one of my flights — whether it would be possible to see that, too.

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Review: British Airways 212 Orly West Lounge and Club Europe Paris-Orly – London Heathrow

by Gary Leff

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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Marriott Should Walk Away and Let the Chinese Buy Starwood

by Gary Leff

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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The Starwood-Marriott Deal is OFF!

by Gary Leff

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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Did You Know You Need to Print a Boarding Pass to Go Through Security and Get on a Plane?

by Gary Leff

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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Review: Park Hyatt Vendome Paris

by Gary Leff

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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