Finally purchased a small wireless router for travel. It wasn’t expensive, less than $50 and there was a rebate to boot. I can’t explain why I didn’t have one before now. I’m sick and tired of wired high-speed internet in hotel rooms. I understand that it was expensive to install, but adding wireless shouldn’t be a particularly large capital investment. Inexplicably, some brand new construction even goes wired, which I have a hard time understasnding. This may sound like the smallest of concerns, and I can hear all of the worlds smallest violins playing “My Heart Bleeds for You” amongst my readers when I say this, but I can’t even express the frustration of finding myself in a corner suite at the Westin Diplomat, looking out of the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway, and…
Tyler Cowen Does Paris
Tyler Cowen offers some good advice about Paris. He says that Pierre Gagnaire is better than Taillevent, which I have a hard time accepting for purely emotional and irrational historical reasons (the same logic by which I retain an attachment to the Fairmont in San Francisco when there are several objectively better properties in the city). I keep a Taillevant vintage chart pinned to the cork board on my office wall. I find the best of Paris to be extremely overpriced yet strangely an outstanding value. It’s home to the best city hotel in the world. (I can’t afford it, but it’s worth every penny. Alas, for such luxury I must confine myself to the better properties in Hong Kong or ever Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.) Perhaps the best advice: 7. Watch The Triplets of…
Improved Marriott Visa
Feb
25
2006
There’s a new co-branded Marriott Visa with some pretty good benefits for folks who regularly stay at Marriott Properties. The 15,000 bonus points with first purchase is pretty standard. So is a free night certificate that comes with the card — though in the past I believe the certificate was good on properties up through category 4 and this says good through category 5. This card comes with the free night certificate once a year rather than just when first getting the card. The biggest changes with this card are in the points-earning structure and the way that elite status comes with the card. Earn 5 points for every $1 spent at over 2,600 Marriott locations. Earn 2 points for every $1 spent on airline, dining and rental car purchases as well as 1 point…
Alaska to Pull Out of Dulles
Feb
25
2006
Alaska Airlines is pulling out of the Seattle-Washington Dulles market on June 4. This is a bummer because the Dulles outbound was the only way to connect in Seattle to the last Juneau non-stop of the day. DC-Juneau will now require a double-connection. I know this probably doesn’t affect more than a handful of people in the world, but it’s still disappointing. I am confused though about Alaska’s rationale, which includes both longer ground times to pad their schedules and improve reliability systemwide (which would imply lower aircraft utilizastion) and redeploying this aircraft on more profitable routes. It’s not clear to me that they can reasonably accomplish both. I do suspect, though, that there are real cost savings to be had by shuttering a marginal station. They have only one Dulles flight now but have…
Bad PR for American, but Shouldn’t Capital One Get Some Blame Too?
The Chicago Tribune‘s “What’s Your Problem” column comes up empty trying to help some Haitian aid workers who were forced to overnight in Miami and pick up hotel costs because of an American Airlines schedule change. [T]he rooms are expected to cost about $450, money the volunteers had hoped to spend to help sick Haitian children. “It’s hard, because all of us keep putting our money in, and we’re like, man, this could go to a much better purpose,” Walsh said. “That would be a lot of X-rays and a lot of lab work.” Wow, sick kids. And how do American’s PR geniuses respond to the newspaper?An airline spokeswoman told the Problem Solver that the company’s policy is to refuse to distribute hotel vouchers in case of canceled or rescheduled flights. “That’s just the way…
Miles, Points, and Celebrity Honeymoons
Via Hotel Chatter, the London Telegraph carries a piece on where celebrities honeymoon.Chains like One & Only Resorts and famous resorts like Sandy Lane are common. The point of the article, it seems, is how superstars and the super rich live beyond the rest of us. But comparable properties are available… for free… with enough miles and points. One & Only may not have a points program, but Marriott points can be used for Ritz-Carlton stays (and for that matter, so can Amtrak points). And Starwood certainly has some high-end properties. While La Taha’a Private Island makes the list of resorts in the article, I’d actually argue that Bora Bora Nui, where I stayed on points in June, is superior. And the new St. Regis — opening this June — should blow it out of…
Site59 Coupon Code
Site59, the last minute travel package discounter, is offering $59 off on packages of $700 or more through April 30 with discount code SITE59GETAWAY.
Delta Amex Retention Bonus
Feb
23
2006
Delta American Express card holders should try this link. There’s a targeted ‘renewal bonus’ of 7500 miles. It’s not clear who or how many personal cards are eligible. I would have expected folks who are coming up on their renewal date to be the ones targeted — get 7500 miles a couple months after your card renews — but according to Flyertalk even someone with a brand new card was eligible. It’s a free 7500 miles if you’re able to successfully register your card.
W Los Angeles (Westwood)
I spent Sunday night at the W Los Angeles in Westwood. It’s a nice hotel and I had no problem getting an upgrade. All rooms are supposedly suites, but the standard room is a 350 square foot offering that they call a one room suite. To my mind that doesn’t qualify, so fortunately they offered me something that does. It’s a W so the lobby is a hip lounge, though not too active on a Sunday night. The pool area must be a scene most of the time, but the was unseasonably cold even for February so it was more or less deserted with only one person on a lounge chair and only one cabana occupied. The W was guilty of one of my major hotel pet peeves. They didn’t do a turn down service.…
Rating the domestic premium cabins
Domestic first class is just about a (somewhat marginally) bigger seat. Once upon a time there was a nice meal, probably a steak option and maybe a shrimp appetizer, and a made-to-order ice cream sundae to look forward to. Now you’re lucky if the food resembles the worst of what used to be served in coach. But not all domestic premium products are equal. I’d give Continental the nod for domestic food service, with United still occasionally doing a decent job under admittedly difficult financial circumstances (and additional kudos for their transcon p.s. service between JFK and both San Francisco and Los Angeles). United gets my overall nod for domestic premium offerings simply because of the amount of widebodies flying within the United States. And with the exception of the domestic configured 767-300s and a…
