For the second half of September the Shanghai Radisson is pricing at $17 instead of $117 at GTAHotels.com. It’s an ‘on request’ booking, so far from guaranteed that it will be honored.
Uncategorized
Category Archives for Uncategorized.
Lufthansa Suspends Accra Operations
Ghana withdrew Lufthansa’s right to offer daily service from Accra to Frankfurt (via Lagos) because Lufthansa refused to pay royalties to the Ghana state airline. That meant that, by treaty, they retained the right to twice weekly service, which they have chosen not to offer — viewing it as a money loser (most of the fixed costs without many seats to amortize them over). And then Ghana goes ballistic over Lufthansa’s “bad faith” decision to pull out of Accra! Ultimately the government was unsuccessful at blackmailing Lufthansa for US$4 million, refused to back down from its threats, and now has lost Lufthansa’s international service. Clearly the people of Ghana are not better off for the actions of its government. Sad, really.
A Variation on the Usual Myth: Buy Your Airline Tickets on Saturdays?
Consumerist says you should shop for airfare on Saturdays. Like the traditional story about Wednesday at midnight, the idea of a specific day of the week that you’ll get the lowest price is a myth.They do, at least, helpfully point readers to ITA Software, a powerful search tool — but only marginally useful for novices. The real usefulness of ITA Software comes into play when narrowing searching with their advanced route language. Folks who don’t want to go crazy learning it might be best advised to start their airfare searches with Kayak.
Le Meridien Khao Lak’s Presidential Oceanfront Villa
I’m recently back from Khao Lak, Thailand among other destinations in Asia. The trip was prompted by the Ugandan Schillings rate at the Le Meridien. My wife had three nights booked in the Presidential Oceanfront Villa and I had three nights booked in the Royal Suite. That satisfied the requirement that they’d only honor one reservation per person, and together we had six consecutive nights at the resort. The Presidential Villa wasn’t showing up for all six nights when we booked, so we had to settle for the smaller Royal Suite for half the stay when making our booking. As I saw pictures from others who had stayed in both rooms, I was actually getting disappointed. While the Royal Suite looked fabulous, the Presidential Oceanfront Villa was just breathtaking — how I’d hate to move!…
Senator Chuck Schumer Resigns…
… from the Senate and applies for a job in revenue management and route planning for Delta. (Okay, not really.) Online Travel Review notes, though, the business advice that he’s been dispensing to Delta in response to their pulling out of the Binghamton-New York and Binghamton-Atlanta markets.“Delta’s move is premature and poorly thought out. The New York City service had a solid start, and Delta needs to give it time to take root and let it prosper, while the Atlanta route has consistently carried a high volume of passengers.” And since Chuck Schumer has extensive experience running profitable businesses in general, and airlines in particular, Delta should of course heed his advice and seek to lure him away from the Senate with a lucrative offer. Or not.
Amtrak Trying to Build Credit Card Momentum
In April Amtrak announced that a new Guest Rewards Mastercard would be introduced in the fall, and that the card would come with a standard 2500 bonus points at signup — but that folks who registered using promo code 42507 would get 5000 points instead.According to a new piece of email marketing from Amtrak Guest Rewards, they’ve upped the ante to 8000 points. registration for the promo (using promo code 42507, you’ll be required to log into your account first) still appears to work.The Amtrak Guest Rewards card is a good no fee card, earning free train trips and points are transferrable to Continental (at 1:1, so in some cases a better option than the costlier Chase Mastercard), Midwest Airlines, and Hilton.
A Little Thai Cooking
A couple weeks ago I took a cooking class in Thailand, and decided to make a couple of the recipes from the class last night. Tom Yam Goong (Traditional Thai sour and spicy prawn soup) Ingredients: Medium to large prawns Straw mushrooms Cilantro Cherry tomatoes Small chilis Lemongrass Kaffir lime leaves Galangal Roasted chili paste Lemon juice Fish sauce Chicken stock Sugar Based on my own preferences I replaced lemon juice with a squeezed lime and used brown sugar as my choice of sugar. My local Asian grocer didn’t have any kaffir lime leaves so I left them out. Boil chicken stock Add lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, roasted chili paste, sugar, mushrooms, chilis, mushrooms (if they aren’t pre-cooked) Add mushrooms (if pre-cooked), shrimp, cherry tomatoes Add lime juice and fish sauce Garnish with cilantro…
Coffee, Tea, or Cocaine?
Jared Blank reports that 20% of Air Tahiti Nui flight attendants have been suspended for drug trafficking. Information is limited, but it appears that like most things in French Polynesia narcotics are expensive. So there’s tremendous arbitrage opportunities buying cocaine, ecstacy, etc. in Los Angeles and carrying them to Papeete.
Alitalia Ending its Frequent Flyer Program, Will then Start Anew
The existing Alitalia frequent flyer program, MilleMiglia, is ending on December 31, 2007. A new program will begin on January 1, 2008 — with all old miles available for redemption only through June 30, 2008, unless you take 2 Alitalia flights between January 1 and June 30, 2008.Details on the new program are sketchy, although one-way awards will be available and premium class tickets will earn miles at a different rate from coach (whether this means fewer miles for coach tickets is as yet unclear, but is my best guess). A real disappointment… expiring all miles and ending the existing program, creating a whole new program with mileage only in the accounts of those flying new flights on the carrier. Sad, and underhanded.
Starwood’s Major Cash & Points Benefit Enhancement
I’ve give Starwood a hard time lately, because their points devaluation was a pretty big deal. But they’ve taken a step to give back a lot of value to members with changes to the Cash & Points program. One of the better features of the program over the years has been the ability to combine points and cash at a pretty favorable rate towards award nights. So instead of spending, for instance, 10,000 points on a category 4 hotel you could spend just 4,000 points + $60. This was a better option because you were basically ‘buying’ the difference in points at just 1 cent apiece. However, only some hotels would participate each quarter. Starwood would have to solicit them to do so, and most would opt out except for in their slowest seasons. As…
