News and notes from around the interweb:
- On Thursday I wrote that upgrades are no longer a good use of miles but noted a handful of exceptions — one of the biggest being British Airways upgrades from premium economy to business class. Here’s a great discussion of the exceptional value these upgrades offer, and how to get them.
- Macaulay Culkin Snaps, Then Checks Into an Ibis Hotel. If he picked Ibis because of free Le Club Accorhotels Platinum status, he was sorely disappointed, the program doesn’t offer upgrade benefits with Ibis…
- Virgin Australia frequent flyer cards will become mileage-earning prepaid Visa cards.
- Loyalty Lobby has the scoop on the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles 25% discount on award redemptions for travel through end of May.
- Vanity Fair takes on the New York Times‘ ’36 Hours In…” features with what 36 hours in a city would be like for most people. I always loved United’s Hemispheres Magazine Three Perfect Days features though.
There is a spelling mistake per post. For being so “prolific” the blog posts are often sloppy
@Jonathan – regular readers know I’m not much for editing or spellcheck. Sorry!
I don’t visit this site because of the excellent spelling and editing.
Content is more important. Rock on Gary.
Who cares abput perfect spelling? Not me 🙂
That vanity fair article is pretty short sighted. It’s not as binary as “you either live bear Taipei or you live in New York” (from which, I must note you can get to Taipei in <24 hours) but a lot of people plan multi city trips in Asia and pick a few cities to stop. I've always been curious about stopping in TPE as part of a longer trip to Asia, and the nytimes article actually peaked me interest. Poor, and generally nasty, reporting by Vanity Fair.
Alex, I think it was meant to be a joke…
I had rather get the free miles with the BA credit card then use the cash to pay the fuel surcharges on a first class seat………..I guess it also involves how frequent you want to fly across the pond in business or first each year also………….
@ Alex – yes it’s a joke, but I one I agree with. I love the idea of short weekend breaks, but I can never find any useful advice in the 36 hours in articles.
the VF article is just dumbass. the title should have been “lazy cheapasses should stay at home”
@john – You need to relax and get a sense of humor my friend. The article is more true than many will care to admit and the NYT 36 HR. features are pretty stupid – written by interns most likely.
Is the VA FF prepaid card useful for manufacturing spend in any way?
@Antonio – we don’t have full details yet!
I thought the Vanity Fair article was hilarious and spot on in many ways! A lot of that really does happen when traveling internationally, but of course we all prefer to remember only the fun times later. As we should.
It does highlight the value of being organized…..having a currency plan and an ATM plan……and some intelligence on where you are going and what they provide………I remember flying in to Hamburg and having multiple bags with no euro coin for the luggage cart and none of the vendors wanted my dollars so we ended up lugging bags to the rental car……….sometimes it is the little things in planning that make the trip flow……………
The Vanity Fair article is funny as hell. I’m shocked at how many people didn’t get the joke. Good lord, it’s not intended as a travel guide! It’s a humor article. And frankly it’s also a perceptive take on what would really happen to many people if they jetted off to a foreign country on a whim, without any real plans.
I’m always annoyed by those NY Times “36 hours in…” articles, which seem to be written by 20-year-olds. I can’t think of a single suggestion in one of those articles that I’ve wanted to follow.