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.
Uber is ostensibly valued at over $60 billion. To really be ‘worth’ that they have to grow rapidly, and arguably beyond on demand ridership into a ‘transportation logistics company’ moving goods and not just people. And they have to actually make money.
While there are certainly network effects — the more consumers use Uber, and the more drivers offering rides on their platform, the more valuable they are. The first person with a fax machine had a useless piece of equipment. There was no one to send them anything, and they couldn’t send a document to anyone else. The fax machine became more valuable the more people that had them. But even there, when’s the last time you sent a fax? I believe I’ve sent two in the past year.
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.
Miles for real estate transactions used to be a pretty big thing. When I bought a condo in 2006 I earned six figures in United miles for being referred to a realtor. Basically they were rebating a bit more than half their commission in the form of United miles.
People usually think that meant I had to work with whatever real estate agent was assigned to me. That’s not the case at all. Instead, I simply needed to work with the brokerage firm I was referred to. I didn’t think much of the first agent I got, so I had the brokerage manager re-assign me to someone far sharper.
I hate paper, so don’t love paper boarding passes – whether printing them at home or queuing up at the airport. Since I mostly fly American Airlines domestically I use their mobile app. One catch though is that I always pull up my boarding passes when I check in for a flight, even my connecting pass, in case I don’t have great connectivity (or there’s some other glitch) when I go to board my flight. The app saves the boarding pass so I can use it even if I can’t update it.
I don’t usually download apps for carriers I fly less frequently though, so I’m stuck with paper since I don’t want to clutter my phone. It’s never occurred to me to inject an NFC chip into my hand…
Reader Susan contacted me about a problem with an award ticket she had booked. She had business class awards flying Denver – Los Angeles – Honolulu – Sydney with travel to Honolulu on American connecting to Qantas.
She tried to rebook onto Qantas San Francisco – Sydney which was showing available. The agent changed her reservation and queued the award tickets for re-issue. When the tickets didn’t get issued, she called and learned that her reservation was cancelled.
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.
United CEO Oscar Munoz has gone home from the hospital after a heart transplant.
United has said they expect Munoz to return to work by the beginning of the second quarter. Munoz says he “expects to participate in key meetings” now that he’s left the hospital.
Earlier in the week I wrote that the Department of Homeland Security wants hotel desk clerks to snitch on guests as possible sex traffickers based on a set of behavior that could match that of plenty of guests.
It turns out that they want flight attendants to do this also, and so a married couple was detained at New York JFK because the crew thought they fit the ‘profile’.
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.
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 »
