SIGNALS
Maine, Lobster, The End of Loyalty, Layers for Fall and a Royal County Down Landscape for My Office.
Welcome to Signals, my attempt to package up all of the interesting bits from the past few weeks and good things I’ve found on the internet.
I. Maine
The update today is coming from the beautiful state of Maine, where the fall colors are starting to emerge. Summer in Maine is hard to beat, but this time of the year is a serious contender. I can’t express just how much I love it here.
After arriving I had the afternoon free in Portland before heading downeast so I made a point to visit the three great menswear shops in town: David Wood, Portland Dry Goods and Portland Trading Company. Despite Portland being a fairly small town it does have a great selection of shops filled with well-made things.
After the shops I went to see longtime friend and ACL contributor Al James for dinner at the Wayside Tavern which was excellent. We tried much of the menu but the local mussels from Casco Bay were the perfect thing for a rainy October day. Food is another area in which Portland seems to punch above its weight. There are so many great places to eat it’s hard to keep up with them all. This weekend the hotels and rental cars were basically all sold out but the city still doesn’t feel at capacity. With so many talented chefs and good restaurants it’s a place worth exploring.
II. Welcome to the Post Loyalty Era
There’s been a lot of people talking about airline loyalty and I can’t help but to reevaluate my personal travel program. I’m actually in the middle of a status match and it all feels very timely. I’m thinking next cycle I will take a step back and look at my relationship with Delta and the status game overall.
The big question is: how can you get the most value without blind loyalty? As status becomes focused on the single metric of dollars spent it’s difficult to justify jumping through so many other hoops. It was eye opening when Delta changed the boarding process with Delta One business class being the first people on. That was a clear symbol of who and what was most important. It was clear that things had changed.
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