A short collection of recent travel notes. My recent travel has shown me that everything doesn’t need to be new to be great. I walked by Bubby’s and saw a massive line and everyone was taking photos of their food. Then we walked a few blocks to The Odeon and we walked right in without a reservation to a great table. It was a somewhat alarming realization that social media buzz is making the world strange. Thank God there are still some good places left.
Hotel Notes: Chateau Marmont
One place in LA that I think absolutely lives up to the hype is the Chateau. I stayed there earlier this month and was pleasantly reminded of how great of a place it is. The bar is good. The breakfast is decent, the rooms have charm, and there’s more celebrity mystique than you probably expect.
It occurred to me that this is the type of hotel I am most interested in. One with a certain energy and personality. A fancy room doesn’t mean much to me, but friendly service and the small touches (free snacks and drinks in the room) go a long way. While chatting with the front desk man at checkout, I mentioned I was hitting the road straight away. He suggested I stay and use the pool — a perfectly legitimate suggestion. I appreciated the welcoming attitude. When a hotel wants you to stay and enjoy the hotel —that’s what true hospitality looks like. There’s no place in Los Angeles where it all comes together as it does at the Chateau.
Lunch Notes: The Odeon
We went to New York for fall break and learned a few things which gave us hope for the future of humanity. First, if you leave a suitcase on the curb at JFK, some good person will either alert the authorities and/or turn it in to lost and found. To our delight, the JFK lost and found staff are very kind and helpful. We dodged a bullet and were reminded that sometimes the Big Apple can be more like a small town than you think.
Our second revelation was that The Odeon still has it. While my wife was working, I took our children there for lunch and was reminded just how great it is. We colored on the paper tablecloth (them) while drinking Côtes du Rhône (me). The kids split a cheeseburger and fries while I had a croque monsieur. The service, energy, food and room were all doing what we would hope they would do. It was a nice reminder that while the world is going to hell, some things don’t change. It was good to be back.
Bonus: No laptops. No cell phones. Strong dessert program.
A FEW LINKS
A good auction for an organization doing good things. [ASF Auction]
In the middle of this fall break trip to NYC, I found my way onto Fishers Island. [A Day with Redan]
While in Scotland at the beginning of the month, we found what could be the coolest store in St Andrews. [The Old Ghosts]
We went deep on the No Seasons launch with Stone Island. [The Material Review]
Flight Notes
This year has been different on the airline loyalty front. I’ve been flying a mixed bag of airlines and I’m set to lose my Delta Diamond status for the first time in a decade.
This was a conscious decision based on a few factors (not living in a city that’s a hub for any airline, let alone Delta). The second being the overall cost. I would rather fly economy and then buy my way into business when I really need it (say, when I fly to Buenos Aires and each leg is a long red-eye) than spend a lot of money hoping for status or certificate upgrades. My long-term view is that we are on the downslope of airline status actually meaning anything. The future is going to be binary: did you spend a lot to sit up front, or did you not? Your comfort will be determined accordingly.
Speaking of upgrades. In the past I would be fine flying out of my way through a random city to get into business class on a long haul with miles or a confirmed upgrade certificate. Historically, this manifested itself as a flight from EWR to IAH to get on the long haul to Narita. Or from LA to Seattle to go to Milan. I once dragged my wife on one of these circuitous itineraries, and she didn’t seem thrilled and would have preferred the most direct route. Recently, I decided to fly from San Diego to Glasgow on British Airways via the most direct route possible. I learned that BA is truly challenged when it comes to technology. My outbound flight was screwed up with some sort of back-end ticketing situation and then I missed the flight and had to wait until the next day. Then, on my way home, after a fog delay at Heathrow and a missed connection, BA booked me home through Vancouver 36 hours later, with no option to change in the app and a 4-hour wait for Customer Service. I ended up just bailing out and booking a separate leg through American with miles. In a minor act of God, my luggage made it onto that AA flight and arrived with me in California when I landed. The lessons here: BA is the airline of last resort, flying through bigger hubs with more flights and flexibility if anything goes wrong.
Well, if you had status, then you would get help faster. In my opinion, no one is coming to save you. I think the number of people traveling and the amount of elites make it so the airlines can’t really take care of people effectively. They really don’t care no matter what you spend. Perhaps AI will solve this problem? I could see an age where you can actually interact with an airline AI agent that can actually get things done.
I saw a thing on social media that said save your Starbucks stars for airport orders because those are the most expensive locations and you get more value by using points there. Thinking about the strategic use of points, it’s my feeling that you should always keep a reserve of points for emergency flights. This is the best way to cope with inept customer service and flight disruptions. This proved out on my return from London to LA when I had to just buy an award ticket because I knew things were looking bad on BA. I did this on the AA app while waiting in line to speak to someone at British. I knew these flights would fill up, and my quick action got me a seat on what became a sold-out flight. Points can be an upgrade or a dream trip, but they are also an insurance policy.
Last thought: I used Claude to research my refund/compensation options for the two flights and then had it draft the submission letters to BA. So far it has yielded a fee required by law and BA is working to get my AA miles refunded. I was pleasantly surprised at the effectiveness.