Now through Sunday the book with perfect reviews, Everyone’s Advice Is Wrong is available on Kindle for the obscene price of $0.00. I only ask that you write your own candid review in return. It doesn’t have to be as great as the one below if you feel differently. Click here to buy for free.
Guns & Butter: Rio de Janeiro Travel Guide
This is a special edition of the Travel Guide as it commemorates one the most fantastic travel experiences, Rio de Janeiro Carnival. (Carnaval en Português) Though the experience was different, the formula for what to do when I arrived in this new city remained the same: Guns & Butter.
- A trip is composed of two factors: Labor And Lazy
- Anything on the line (Production Possibilities Frontier for my fellow economists) is an efficient use of your time depending on your tastes and preferences.
- Anything inside the line is inefficient as should be avoided.
- Anything outside is aspirational but may be impossible to do given the constraints of time and resources.
- The opportunity cost (what is given up) for relaxing and being Lazy is gained by being adventurous in the form of Labor and vice versa.
- Sugarloaf Mountain
- Tijuca Rainforest
- Christ the Redeemer
- Hand gliding
- A soccer game at Maracana Stadium
- More partying at Scala Balls
I’ve Got [E]Mail!
Finally, after almost a year of fumbling around with different host providers TPOL has an email address, alexander at thepointsoflife.com. So send all your spam, award booking, travel questions, and whatever else my way. Now to put an icon on my page…
3 Point NBA All Star Weekend NYC
Southwest Devaluation: Gotta Get Away
Imaginary trip planning is one of my favorite hobbies because I get to fantasize about where I can go. The problem with the points game is transitioning from being a curator of points, putting them on display for all to see, and heeding sound advice: Shut Up and Book! Luckily, airlines and hotels intervene by way of devaluations, incidentally freeing us of our hoarding ways. Though weĀ gripe and groan about the injustice of making free becoming less free, we really should be thanking the power players for encouraging us toĀ get away. Those who are paranoid of the devaluationĀ who plan tomorrow’s vacation today realize the greatest dividends in the points biosphere (see $77,000 Trip Heard Round the World). Those who preemptively book following news of a devaluation find themselves on an unanticipated adventure (see Round the World Dividends from the Geographically Challenged). Which brings us to Southwest Airlines who announced they are going to essentially freestyle their awards chart. So what do we do? Tweet at Southwest that bags and humans should both fly free? No. We should imaginary trip plan. And if anyone’s interested here’s what I’ve come up with. The Mission: burn 87,244 SWA points. The Target: complete the following Trip Report: The Southwest Companion Pass Round 3 (see Round 1 & Round 2) by going to:
- Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
- Montego Bay, Jamaica
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Belize City, Belize*
Ā Onto ‘A Wedding in Scottsdale: Saying āI Doā to Points’==>
UnFare-Gate And the DOT
This silly story won’t go away or maybe I, along with many others won’t let it go. Unless you’ve been living in Denmark, you probably are aware that the mistake fares which provided a golden chariot from London to the US for next to nothing was cancelled by United. Readers grew irritable that I poked fun at the obscene amount of blog coverage the story received. Perspective was lost as people were up in arms that serious blogging is about addressing the issue at hand not classless buzzfeed headlines. Though it is doubtful those readers are reading this, I would like to invoke a famous State Farm employee’s words and say R-E-L-A-X. As is the case with State Farm’s counterpart, Mr. Brady, Un-Fare Gate won’t go away. United is blaming it on the equipment Forex manager saying that it was a third-party who incorrectly stated the conversion of Denmark Krones to USD. Therefore they are within their legal rights to cancel all reservations made as a consequence of said error. You purchased a ticket through the Danish version of united.com during the time when the prices were incorrect. As a result, we are not able to honor your ticket at the price that you paid. Not since George Soros almost bankrupted the Bank of England has a Forex miscalculation gone so awry. Fluctuation in currency occur at the smallest of levels (called pips for fellow traders) so it is unthinkable that such an egregious and elementary mistake could have been made. It’s my contention that United should have honored the fares and held this third-party group of imbeciles liable for the error of their ways. I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. Shit. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail. -Michael Bolton of United’s 3rd Party Sacrificial Lamb So where do we go from here? Well, ThePointsGuy offers directions on how to file a complaint with the DOT which is what I did. Why? Because sometimes we make mistakes booking a ticket and we call and cancel and plead our case only to hear that we still have to pay a change fee. Let them feel our frustration for a change (pun intended) even if it is on a much grander scale.
Why Is New York So Expensive?
When I’m not breaking the Internet by announcing fake breaking news that people have taken too seriously (please post your angry comments on that thread), I, much to my chagrin, have to travel for work. Next month, my duty as an officer of the court takes me to New York City. New York is not my favorite city in the world, it’s not even in my top ten. (So much for no controversy.) Why don’t I like New York as much as other big cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Cape Town, Bangkok, or Flint, Michigan? The reason is that New York is unreasonably expensive. While hotels in similarly posh cities like Singapore or Tokyo charge just as much for the rooms, the level of quality is beyond compare. Check into any SPG hotel with platinum status in Asia and the room upgrade is over the top (see W Doha). Check into an SPG in New York and due to availability the chances of securing an upgrade are far less promising. In my experience, the same is true across all big brands though I’ll hold out judgment on Hyatt till after my stay at the Park Hyatt NYC. Besides the false sense of entitlement of status being overlooked, my real issue is why isn’t there just a solid Aloft Manhattan Downtown that is reasonably priced? That way I can do my work, stay comfortably, and save the cash and points for unprofessional trips… http://www.aloftmanhattandowntown.com/ Well I’ll be… Depending on the nightly rate, maybe I won’t hate New York so much after all. As luck would have it, the Aloft Manhattan Downtown opens a week after I leave.
United IS Honoring the Fare!
Making Mistakes in Booking Mistake Fares
Ah the Danish, what a lovely people. It’s 2nd and goal from the 2 yard line and instead of handing off the ball you decide to go for glory by double checking your calendar, going to seatguru for recs of where to sit, and double back because you’d rather fly Lufthansa first than United first. Now that you have the perfect play set to go, you fumble for a card that needs some love to hit the minimum spend and start fantasizing about how great it will be to fly first-class for $100 instead of $8000+, not to mention that it doesn’t require any points. Error What happened? Let me try this again. Maybe seat 2A wasn’t available. Error Greed is the downfall for all. Those that tried to be too clever instead of going with Beast Mode are kicking themselves for not capitalizing on what potentially could be a next to nothing round trip to London. When TPG tweets, “mistake fare” your only reaction should be book. Where, when, how, with whom, is all irrelevant. Not only do these mistake fares disappear within minutes of showing up but also the chances of the airline honoring the fares is 50/50. Furthermore, if you did book LHR to DTW and realized that nobody wants to go to Michigan, you can still cancel within 24 hours at no penalty. So for those who feel a bit deflated after missing out on that opportunity, fret not, there’s still great deals by selecting Antigua and going from DTW to ORD.
True Detective: The Case of [Un]Lucky’s Mom’s Purse
Unless you have been flying coach, you probably have heard of the golden boy, Lucky’s blog, called One Mile at a Time. Indeed, Lucky and a hand full of other prominent bloggers initiated me into the underworld of points. That is why today I was irritated when I heard that his mother had been robbed at the W Barcelona. Here is my understanding of the facts: The details are creepy but essentially a confidence man approached Lucky’s mom at the hotel while Lucky was working in the room. He had a curious conversation about his flight from Dubai to Singapore that coincidentally Lucky and his mom were also on. From there it gets stranger as the man invites Lucky’s mom for some coffee, an innocent request on its face. She returned to the room and informed Lucky of the circumstances and he advised her to stay away. Lucky heads out for the evening. His mom is in the room when she hears a knock on the door. Sure enough it’s the weird man again who relentlessly asks her to come out to dinner. Annoyed at his presence and wanting to be rid of him, she goes with him to the lobby where he insists on taking her for dinner. Citing the weather, she says that even if she did want to go out she couldn’t because it was a bit chilly outside. The weird man who is growing ever weirder says he will buy her a coat and return to take her out. Apprehensive, Lucky’s mom heads back to the room and locks the doors. Interestingly, the phone keeps ringing and it is assumed it was the man calling. Lucky’s mom refuses to answer. Lucky eventually returns to the room and finds the key no longer works. Security has to let him in His mom was asleep but her purse has gone missing. What gives? First, I am relieved that Lucky’s mom is fine. I could only imagine what my mom would do in such a situation. Having said that, I would posit that this heist was not random but premeditated. There are too many peculiarities that the True Detective must analyze.
- The Target: It is my opinion that Lucky not his mother was the target of this heist. The plan was to get Lucky’s mom out of the room and rob Lucky blind while both of them were out.
- The Stolen Property, the purse: The details of this are still unclear. Lucky goes on to say that his mom allowed the stranger to enter the room and use the bathroom before accompanying him to the lobby. Could it have been lifted during this time?
- The Plan
- The soft target: Lucky’s mom: The weird man fabricated the fantastic story of being on the same flight as Lucky and his mom in order to put her at ease. As others have pointed out, it seems rather likely that the man tracked Lucky’s trip via social media and was lying in wait for his arrival. With a picture profile of Lucky, he was able to wait for him to arrive at the W, make a positive ID on his mother then wait for Lucky to leave before engaging her in conversation.
- The room number: It really isn’t difficult to ascertain the room number of a hotel guest. I’m always happy when a hotel doesn’t follow protocol and gives me my friend or family’s room number so I can send them something or just show up as a surprise. Hotels should only offer to connect you to the room without disclosing the number. In any event, if this was the planned plot that I suspect that it was then another participant could have surreptitiously followed Lucky to his room to find out where it was.
- The room key: Assuming the purse wasn’t stolen from her person, it must have been taken from the room. Here’s how the perpetrators could have gained access.
- “I forgot my key in the room, my name is, my room number is…” amazingly works without showing of ID or by saying simple details like a birth date.
- The key was stolen.
- The key was copied.
- This is the most probable explanation. When a key card is created at a hotel and is replaced, the original card no longer works and the new card becomes the only means of accessing the room. This scenario is consistent with Lucky’s account of events who discovers that his key isn’t working when he returns to the room in the evening.
- The Phone Calls: Lucky presumes that it was the man who kept calling the room which lines up with my theory. The man was trying his best to get Lucky’s mom out of the room so his co-conspirator would have unbridled access to the room.
- Missing Piece
- It seems that surveillance will solve this riddle quite quickly. Did someone besides Lucky and his mom gain access to the room? If not then that doesn’t disprove my theory that the original target was Lucky. Remember, we are assuming the man kept calling the room in an effort to get Lucky’s mom to join him.
- It wouldn’t have shocked me had Lucky’s mom went out for dinner that the stranger would’ve furthered the scam by giving her back her purse claiming he magically found it.
- Inside Job?
- I doubt it.
- My Theory
- Thieves knew Lucky was coming to W Barcelona, how he was getting there, and who he was traveling with. They lied in wait for their arrival. One guy tracked Lucky to the room to ascertain the room number. The other made friendly conversation with Lucky’s mom about Lucky’s hobby thereby gaining the degree of trust needed to enter her room later in the evening.
- The purse was stolen during this time.
- The weird man tried to get Lucky’s mom to go to dinner. She refused. This is where the plot was foiled. Had she complied, someone would’ve had complete access to the room. This would’ve been possible either because they had Lucky’s mom’s key or because they managed to convince the front desk to get them a new one.
- Lesson
- While bloggers are hardly celebrities, they are soft targets. Public social media makes you an easy target especially when anyone and everyone knows who you are. This gives the opportunity to plot a pretty elementary scheme to take advantage of the information that you have volunteered.
- My Advice
- Put the room under an assumed name. Make it a point to have the hotel note that access to the room should not be given without proper identification.