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.
There was briefly a ground stop at the Atlanta airport as a loud bang caused mass chaos and mistaken reports of an active shooter on Saturday afternoon. The sound was an accidental discharge from a gun, but it appears no one was harmed.
Reportedly the gun discharged near a security checkpoint around 1:30 p.m. Eastern time and TSA screnners yelled “he’s got a gun” sending passengers into a panic.
The Bilt Mastercard has no annual fee, lets you earn points paying rent on your card, and has bonus categories similar to a Sapphire Preferred Card as well (2x travel, 3x dining). If you rent an apartment or house you can be 50,000 points richer each year with this card, and points transfer to great airline and hotel partners.
There’s a waiting list to get the card, but they gave me a code to skip the waitlist to share on this site. I do not receive referral credit of any kind if you do.
A currency serves two purposes – a medium of exchange and a store of value. So far crypto isn’t good for either, it’s tough to use (you first have to convert it to another currency and that’s costly) and good stores of value don’t fluctuate wildly in price.
However crypto is no longer a flash in the pan either, many very smart people are working developing businesses, tools, and use cases, and prices have dropped – and recovered – for the most popular currencies. The price of crypto doesn’t seem to behave like a classic bubble.
Make the currency worth less, consumers chase it less at some margin. Reduced consumer interest is bad for the long run proposition of the currency, which is bad for the price of financial instruments derived from that currency. Now that airlines have issued upwards of $30 billion in debt backed by their loyalty programs, this is a new issue for them to manage.
This G.M. simply has the wrong mental model, it’s the customer’s fault and the customer needs to adjust their expectations – pay more, get less – and customers shouldn’t go along with that.
The Art Hotel Denver was a fantastic use of my American Express Platinum credit. Here’s how I ‘made money’ on the stay, and why I wasn’t going to be like most consumers and let credit card benefits and credits go to waste.
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.
The transportation mask mandate runs through January 18, 2022. The timing of the Delta wave hitting the Northeast and elsewhere suggests we could see one more extension of the mandate – simply because it would be awkward to end it as reported cases are at a high level, not because doing so alters the course of the pandemic in any meaningful way – but if it gets extended one more time that one will be the last. Because the pandemic is – for all intents and purposes – already over.
Marriott wants you to think that they’re in the homesharing business, and that Homes & Villas By Marriott is an Airbnb competitor. Despite the tag line, “Private Homes With The Assurances Of Marriott,” that’s not at all what it is.
Did you know that Wyndham points can be redeemed for many properties listed on the Marriott site, and this offers a better deal than Bonvoy much of the time?
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 »
