Back in April I wrote that Elephant Jumps Thai restaurant in Northern Virginia is cooking at a whole different level (and implored that you should go now). While I thought it was really good four years ago, it was more or less just at the top tier of Thai restaurants. But it started getting even better 18 months ago. And since then my meals there have helped me understand the difference between a good restaurant and a great one and what makes a restaurant really worth going back to. They don’t just reproduce the same thing, day in and day out. They strive to do better. They research. They experiment. They innovative. In other words, (1) they have a personality, and (2) they improve. When I go into Elephant Jumps, my strategy is – in…
Huge Win! New Speakers Added to Frequent Traveler University DC
Frequent Traveler University, December 3-5, Hyatt Regency Crystal City (near Washington’s National Airport) I wanted to share an update on the lineup for December’s Frequent Traveler University. Chris Guillebeau, host of the annual World Domination Summit who shared his story completing his question to visit every country in the world at Frequent Traveler University last April, had his book on quests debut at number 3 on the New York Times best seller list. He combined travel acumen with a passion for life and experiences. Nomadic Matt will help round out the presentations, Frequent Traveler University isn’t just about earning the most points so you can use them for luxury travel, Matt is one of the really knowledgeable people about how to stretch your dollars when you travel, getting the best deals on everything. And we’ll…
The Secret Sauce: How Your Airline/Hotel Credit Card Actually Works
A question I got yesterday in the comments prompted me to put together a post explaining how airline credit cards work — how co-brand credit card deals get put together by banks, airline or hotel company, and payment network like Visa or MasterCard. (With American Express, the card issuer and payment network is usually the same.) I thought some readers would find it interesting to discuss a bit about ‘how the sausage gets made’ and what that means for which banks will issue which cards for which airlines and hotels going forward. Reader Win asks, @Gary, how are co-branded card perks determined and paid for, and what do you think might happen in the American Airlines card space, considering the legacy vs. primary issuers, the merger, etc.? How Airline Credit Cards Work: it’s Big Business…
Boeing Sales to Iran, Life Advice, Jet Lag and Weight Gain, and the TWA Terminal at JFK
News and notes from around the interweb: Someone was foolish enough to ask me for life advice, and just crazy enough to publish it. Hopefully appropriate caveats are offered at the outset of the piece. Photos of the abandoned TWA terminal at JFK (With apologies, I can’t seem to track down which reader was kind enough to share this with me.) Boeing’s first sales to Iran since 1979. Alaska Airlines is now apparently willing to match status from other airlines up to their top tier MVP Gold 75K and no longer just to MVP Gold. Even bacteria gets jet lag. And that may explain some of your weight gain. (HT: Alan H.) You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just…
Cadillac Test Drive Miles Promotion Pulled Early: What Happened?
At the beginning of the month I spoke with American AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin and Cadillac’s Chief Marketing Officer Uwe Ellinghaus about the new marketing tie up between the two companies. American launched Cadillac tarmac transfers for their top ‘Concierge Key’ customers making tight connections at certain airports. And they shared that a promotion was coming, offering 7500 American miles for test driving a Cadillac. I noted at the time that, Suzanne said that the offer would last about two months, but both she and Ellinghaus said they were going to evaluate how the promotion worked in deciding when it might end and whether to continue it. The promotion first went live on October 15. As of yesterday, the promotion has closed. Thanks for your interest. The Cadillac test drive program is now closed. The…
A True Thank You for Sharing Your Comments, Here’s What It’s Meant
You’ve been sharing your feedback (good and bad!) with me — as well as your questions, insights, and wisdom — for a very long time. Nearly 150,000 times. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. You’ve posted many more times to this blog than I have, and I appreciate the chance I have to interact with you… here in the comments, in person at events or when we run into each other during our travels, and by email. I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know. You’ve helped keep me going for the past twelve and a half years. And for any of you that are interested, I’ll guess that I will write my 10,000th post sometime in late January or early February. You can join the 40,000+ people who…
Air Canada Thinks Their Elites Are Over-entitled. And They’ve Actually Done Something About It..
Air Canada announced changes to elite benefits for 2015. Put another way, Air Canada has shown us what you do when you think that your customers are the problem. I’m not an Air Canada elite member. Air Canada, the airline, runs their elite program while Aeroplan — a separate public company — is the mileage program. I have more than my share of Aeroplan points, and I figure those have already been devalued enough with award chart changes and the imposition of fuel surcharges that those are hopefully safe. But I’m glad today that I’m not an elite member with the airline. Here’s what they’ve done: Half of miles or segments for qualification will have to actually be on Air Canada. So much for partners and alliances. It’s become more common to require some flight…
Stolen Frequent Flyer Miles for Sale on the DarkNet
S. passes along an article about CipherCracks, an individual online selling stolen miles dirt cheap. Dark net marketplaces like Agora and Evolution (where CipherCracks plies his trade) are known mostly for selling drugs, guns and counterfeit money. You can also find bomb materials, porn and hacked credit cards. But CipherCracks is proof that there are also more mundane things for sale on these illicit sites, which attract sellers who want to remain anonymous. The piece says he deals in “SouthWest, Delta, American, and United” although here’s his ad on reddit for Hilton HHonors points where he notes that American miles are ‘temporarily unavailable’ (perhaps their fraud detection got too good). Apparently this guy sells points from hacked Gamestop accounts, too. And porn. Here’s How it Works What’s being sold are airline accounts that have been…
Charging Different Prices to Different People: Why It’s Good for You
The Wall Street Journal ran a piece suggesting you can’t trust online shopping for airfare and for other goods, because sites may charge you more or less based on who you are. A new study of top e-commerce websites found these practices—called discriminatory pricing or price steering—are much more widespread than was previously understood. Here’s what the Journal reports regarding hotel price discrimination at some of the big online travel booking sites: Among the study’s findings: Travel-booking sites Cheaptickets and Orbitz charged some users searching hotel rates an average $12 more per night if they weren’t logged into the sites, and Travelocity charged users of Apple Inc. ’s iOS mobile operating system $15 less for hotels than other users. …And Expedia and Hotels.com steer users at random to pricier products, the study said. These sites…
Why Not Combine Easy Lufthansa First Class Awards With First Class Awards on Asiana and Thai?
Last night I shared a rare find, that Lufthansa first class award space for 2 passengers at a time is available far in advance even when booking using miles from one of their partner airline programs like United, Singapore, Aeroplan, or ANA. Between mid-January and the end of March more flights between Denver and Frankfurt have this space than do not. That’s a great opportunity, but maybe you like I don’t have a need to book a Europe trip presently. Consider extending this trip and just routing to Asia via the Atlantic. That means you can combine Lufthansa first class award space with first class on Asian airlines, try out first class on some combination of Thai Airways, Asiana, and Air China — not just Lufthansa.
