I get a lot of interesting questions on the "Ask Lucky" page of the blog. Many of them I don't have an answer to, unfortunately, and I'm fine saying "sorry, I don't know." Once in a while I get a question where I'm just truly stumped, though.
A reader just asked me the following question, which falls in that category:
"Lucky, my wife and I are three months into a year-long trip around the world. We’ve mixed up our stays between hotels and homestays via AirBnB. As someone that is also living on the road, I want your opinion on a recent tragic event witnessed at a hotel in Vietnam.
A small child drowned in a hotel pool. We watched as a guest and a hotel staff member attempted to resuscitate the child. An ambulance arrived after several minutes and took the child for further care at a local hospital. Needless to say, my wife and I were completely shocked and traumatized. The imagery from this event not only clouded the rest of our stay, but will remain with us for a long time."
The post Do Hotels Have A Duty To Communicate Tragedies? appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
I’m more than a little bit tired today, but that’s not important right not. I failed to take my own advice, and wound up making a poor choice last night. Here’s a travel conundrum: You arrive at a hotel at 1 a.m. You have to be up at 6 — although it would be better […]
The post When Hotel Check-in is “A Time for Choosing” appeared first on View from the Wing.
I've been living in hotels full time for almost six months now and the way I see it there are two major downsides to it (while almost everything else is awesome):
-- Laundry. You don't appreciate how awesome having your own washer and dryer is until one of your biggest chores becomes figuring out how to do laundry.
-- Fresh food. I never thought I'd have cravings for yogurt or fresh fruit, but these things things are in short supply when living in hotels.
Anyway, I recently stayed at the Marriott O'Hare for FTU Advanced, and Magic of Miles pointed out to me an awesome feature of this hotel (which she has written about bef0re) -- the hotel has a healthy vending machine.
The post Would You Eat A Salad From A Vending Machine? appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
They say you should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Nevertheless last month I called out Randy Petersen‘s September editorial in Inside Flyer for suggesting that American get ready for a revenue-based program right away… contra the statements made by the airline’s CEO that the focus now is on […]
The post Randy Petersen Calls Me Out: Should American Make a Revenue-Based Frequent Flyer Program Their IT Priority? appeared first on View from the Wing.
At the end of the day frequent flyer programs are lucrative businesses in and of themselves, so the airlines would be dumb to mess with them too much. They literally control every aspect of the currency -- they control how many points are issued, how many points it takes to redeem for something, and even the inventory which can be redeemed for.
But if I'm being perfectly honest, I'm feeling less optimistic about this hobby than ever before, and it's mainly a function of so many negative changes happening at once. Individually I wouldn't think twice about them, and would just chalk it up to "evolution" in the hobby, but together they're a bit tougher to swallow.
What am I talking about?
Let me start by explaining how I earn miles. Unlike others, I don't do "manufactured spending." I find that for the most part it's only marginally "profitable," so it's not really something I do.
The post Is The Mileage “Game” Finally Dying? appeared first on One Mile at a Time.