Splurge for a One Day Lounge Pass

Executive summary – if your plans involve waiting time at the airport, access to the airport lounges is relatively inexpensive. Plan ahead – there is some research involved. There are six ways to get access to the airport lounge: Fly business class Have the right kind of credit card (e.g. Amex Platinum, Citi Chairman) Have [...]

Zipcar – More Convenient and Greener than Avis, etc.

Recently tried Zipcar as an alternative to traditional car rental. It is worth it in cities that have good public transportation, expensive car rental and hard to find (expensive) parking. New York, Boston and Washington DC, definitely qualify. LA , San Jose and Dallas do not. The idea is that most of your meetings and [...]

Continental Joining Star Alliance and United

Continental is leaving its alliance with Delta and is joining the StarAlliance, which is United + 18 others (list below). The buzz on the forums is that this is a good thing. What it means to us is: 1. Continental miles will be good for use on UA and vice versa 2. Continental members with [...]

Take My Wife, Please …….. or A Good ElAl Offer Does Not Come Every Day

Actually, your wife, or husband or kid, or ME. What seems to be a good deal from ElAl has just been announced. Buy one business class ticket and get the second at a very reduced price. $499 to NY/ $699 to LA (plus give up 200 – 400 worthless points). Valid from now till the [...]

Avoid Atlanta Immigration

Hi. I wanted to contribute my 2 cents to elliot’s blog. I always fly BA and noticed that there was nothing on the blog about BA. So, here is my first post. I am not British! Avoid international arrivals in Atlanta at all cost. When I arrived there on an international flight I had to [...]

Water on the Plane – An Arbitrage Opportunity

An arbitrage opportunity is “the opportunity to buy an asset at a low price then immediately selling it on a different market for a higher price.” Not so simple for the average man/woman in the street to do. But now its easy – at an airport near you. Value of a small bottle of water [...]

$15 luggage charge – whats next? water? YUP

United and US Air have joined American in charging $15 for the first bag. Two bags round trip now cost $80. One group on a 500 mile trip actually selected a driver to drive all the bags back and forth. If the plane left from LGA – the driver probably got there first. Good news [...]

TLV JFK – Coming Soon – Our Action Items – Stay Tuned

Last night, after the Mashable Bash in Tel Aviv, I spent some time with some of my old chip design buddies. We talked a lot about blogging and web 2.0 and that you need $80M to do a silicon-related startup. Naturally, since they are all senior managers, they gave me lots of action items for [...]

California – Got old relatives on the lower east side?

Did you know that a close relative of the Giant Sequoia tree lives on the lower east side??? It is called a metasequoia (aka Dawn Redwood) and is planted all over the city. At 100 feet, the tallest one is in the Liz Christy Community Garden on East Houston and the Bowery. Picture courtesy of [...]

Acela and Amtrak Service Outage New York Boston

There will be very limited service on the New York – Boston route on Saturday June 14 – Tuesday June 17. Anti-semites. Why couldn’t they fix the bridge on Shavuot! Ashley Express to DC runs as scheduled. This post is no longer relevant, but amtrak may be a better choice then flying in the Northeast [...]