Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: September 2008 Archives

In my quest to agitate for better food selection at airports I thought I might mention a few new developments in this vital area.

USA Today has a article out on changes for Terminal 5 at JFK. Terminal 5 is going to be dedicated to JetBlue, an airline I really, really promise that I'll check out someday. Hopefully. In any case, they've really attempted to ramp up efforts to deliver food service that is not exclusively based on breaded, deep fried, and/or coated with wing sauce type foodstuffs. Not that I have anything against wing sauce but it really just doesn't belong on a salad.

The most interesting development is the introduction of a dining option called re:vive. Seriously, don't you hate how punctuation is now a slave to the dictates of marketing? Then again, if you're not a grammarian (and is that a real job, can you get a piece of paper that says "Certified Grammarian"?) do you really care what they're doing to poor defenseless colons and commas?

Interestingly enough I suspect that the real reason they decided to go with the strangely punctuated title of the concept was that plain ol' revive is a little close to 'Revivals' - the name of the arrival lounge that Virgin Atlantic maintains in Heathrow. In any case and leaving aside questions about copyright infringement, re:vive is potentially quite an interesting concept. Basically there are a number of tables or clusters (I don't know what this really means either) that besides electrical outlets for laptops and such, will also have flat screen displays which will list flight times and menus for food and drink. Select something to nosh on and swipe your credit card and someone will bring you eats and drinks in around 10-15 minutes accordingly to spokesmen. Sounds cool. I like the whole not standing in line aspect.

Besides the high tech offerings there will also be a total of 9 full service restaurants that offer Asian, Mexican, sushi, steakhouse and so on. On top of that there's a food court area that purports to offer a 'modern take on the traditional food court'. Since the offerings include pizza, philly cheesesteaks, and burgers, I'm going to take that particular contention with a grain of salt.

Finally there's also some gourmet markets that will offer prepackaged food stuffs probably suited for eating on the run or in the air. There will be vegan kosher, organic and other healthy alternatives that will probably taste somewhat better than cardboard but not greatly. I mean, really how good could it be if it's not dripping in wing sauce?

I approve highly of plans like this and would like to see more airports institute this type of innovation, especially hubs. It would make the delays less onerous.

Thought I'd never write that particular phrase. While perusing a certain travel magazine, an ad reminded me that for some time I had meant to look into programs that allow people to rent fun or sporty cars. As opposed to boring yet sensible cars.

I'm not a car guy. I usually see cars pretty much strictly as a means to an end - getting from point A to B. As long as a car is reasonably comfortable and doesn't break down too often I'm pretty happy. Every once in a while though, the testosterone kicks in and the eyes glaze over, and I find myself lusting over a bit of automotive iron. Oh, there's remorse and guilt later but in the moment something almost atavistic takes over and I gesture at pretty machine and grunt. Ooga, ooga, me want.

Anyway, on occasion I've thought about the concept of renting something with no redeeming social value during a trip to place that has a lot of sun and fun. It doesn't make sense to rent a convertible for a trip to Seattle for instance, but Miami or Orlando? Hey why not?

Hertz has a program called the Fun Collection where one can rent from a variety of different cars like a Mustang convertible, a Jeep Wrangler, a Corvette, and a Nissan 350Z. In the Good Lord, Why? category there's the Hummer H3. I think you can buy a small Central American town for the amount of money it would take to keep one of these gassed up for a week, or at least you could before the dollar went into free fall. Strangely enough, at least for me, is the fact the Ford Edge is also included in the Fun Collection. Not being the car guy I guess I'm missing something - it looks like a crossover SUV. Are these regarded as fun and sporty now? I have a crossover SUV, the Murano, so am I cool now?

Anyway, fun isn't cheap, as everyone knows. Checking prices for a weekly rental in Miami for instance one can get a Ford Focus which is probably pretty much as unfun as it is possible for a car to be for around $340 a week. A Mustang convertible will run $540 and a Corvette $900. If you have to ask how much a Hummer costs you can't afford it. Seriously.

Still if you're looking for something fun, a convertible in someplace like San Diego or LA would be pretty cool. I think I'll go and see if my skill at whining and wheedling the wife are up to an upgrade to a Mustang on the next trip to Orlando.

Disney has announced a new promotion for 2009. Go to Disneyland or DisneyWorld on your birthday and get in free. You have to register your birthday on-line first but then show up on the day of your birth at the relevant Disney venue and voila - free ticket!

Not much of a good thing for yours personally as I see from the calendar that my birthday this year will fall on Memorial Day weekend. So sad.

Go over to Mousesavers and check it out.

Mary, my wife, who is, if anything even more obsessed with information than I am, reminded me that she had put together a chart with data about bag fees for various airlines. So if you're looking for a simple comparison of airlines' fees for baggage, check out her table over on Mousesavers. While it is limited to airlines that fly to or near Orlando, that probably encompasses the majority of the major US carriers.

So go and get your data on!

As mentioned in an earlier article, Alitalia, the major (I hesitate to use the word premier) Italian airline has been hampered in their efforts to find a buyer by the actions of the unions at the airline. Just to reinforce this, one of the smaller unions at the airline went on strike yesterday to protest plans to sell the airline. The proposed buyers would slash the number of aircraft and thus union jobs. The strike forced Alitalia to cancel 40 flights.

So let's see if we can figure this one out. In order to keep the airline afloat, investors who want to buy the airline will have to cut jobs. So some will lose their jobs but others will keep theirs. The unions, or in this case, one small union, feels this is inadequate and strikes, just when the airline is running out of money, forcing the cancellation of lots of flights and thus reducing the amount of revenues that are needed to keep the airline going. This makes acquisition of the airline less appealing. So less chance for anyone to have a job left when the dust settles.

Good work there.

So United decided to up the fee for a checked second bag to $50. The first bag checked still costs $15 each way. This, for the math impaired, means that a round trip for someone taking two checked bags will now cost $130 extra.

Hmmm, let me see. How often, when I'm traveling do I need a second bag? Basically never. The only time Mary and I have not been able to handle a trip with a single bag each is a cruise when we take an extra bag to share for formal clothes. Yes, I like to dig out the penguin suit and sashay around the ship on formal nights. Tuxes are cool. Ask any James Bond fan. For that matter, ask James Bond.

In any case, other than that one situation, there is no reason I can see to take more than one checked bag per person. So this fee isn't really going to cause a lot of angst around the Waring household. It does make me wonder though. Will there be a corresponding uptick in the size of checked bags? I mean to save $100 per trip, would people start buying really big suitcases? And how big is the biggest suitcase on the market?

Quick Robin! To the Batcave for some research!

So it isn't just North American airlines that are suffering during this season of discontent, with no glorious summer on the horizon. Obligatory Shakespeare reference to shore up my literary credentials. I'm pretty sure that won't work but a guy's gotta try.

In any case, Alitalia, the Italian airline of note, has announced that they may not have enough money to buy fuel to keep the planes a-flying. The airline has lurched from issues to problems through calamity and ended up staring catastrophe in the face. Attempts from other airlines to buy out Alitalia floundered. The unions are angry and not helping things at all. So it's pretty much business as usual or at least as business is construed in Italy.

So I think if one's got reservations for next spring on Alitalia one might want to consider alternatives. Just an idea.

Leading Hotels of the World, a partner with American Express is having a zinger of a promotion next month. To celebrate the 80^th anniversary of Leading Hotels they will offer a limited number of rooms at a price of $19.28 for one night only. Participation is limited to one room per person.

The promotion starts at 8:00 am EST on October 1^st and runs for a total of 80 minutes for on-line sign-ups. So one could probably guess that the rooms will all be sold out by around 8:00:032 or so. Some nice locations including a ton in Germany. In the US it looks like several interesting locations including two we've actually stayed at: the Hay-Adams in Washington, D.C., and La Posada in Sante Fe. Our experiences in both were great so we might consider either of these again or another hotel we haven't tried yet.

Oh, by the way the promotion is for the period from November 1^st through December 15^th of this year.

Oil up your keyboards, start doing those finger strengthening exercises now, and get ready to rumble.

And yet another airline has bitten the dust. Although I can safely say that I neither knew nor heard anything previously about this airline except the name. Zoom, a Canadian-British low cost airline, just started flying JFK to London last year. And now they're gone. I guess there's always someone who has the really bad luck to start a business just a few months before the bottom falls out of the market for that particular industry. Thus Zoom. Shame I kind of liked the name.

Maybe, after oil prices stabilize someone will start an airline named Flit! Or Whiz!

So United has backed off plans to eliminate meals in coach on international flights and sell snack-paks and meal-paks. And who doesn't like a Meal-Pak? Alas, apparently, people flying on United internationally. Or least they don't like Meal-Paks they have to pay for and it's hard to fault them for that.

The airline says that the decision was the result of listening to feedback from customers. This I find interesting for a couple of reasons. First - they listened! What's up with that? I mean if they start doing that there's no telling where this might go. They might taxi back to gates and let passengers off instead of imprisoning them on the tarmac for eight hours. Or maybe, even, dare I say it - treat passengers like human beings instead of galley slaves or WalMart employees. OK, the last bit was probably a bit too much. Still it seems like it's pretty unprecedented in the last several years for an airline, any airline, to listen to customer feedback. Especially when it conflicts with the desire to make more money.

Second, I find it interesting that there really was that much feedback over this particular issue. United says that they did a survey or poll on the subject before announcing they were instituting fees and then based on customer feedback (legalese for angry e-mails I believe) decided on reversing this decision. So what was with the survey in the first place. I find it hard to believe a majority of people said no to free meals.

Oh, well. One for the consumer. That's a nice change. Hope it means the beginning of a trend but I'm not holding my breath.

Mary reminded me after I posted the entry on the restaurants we sampled in San Francisco that we also managed to find something in the airport that was not too shabby. We're always on the lookout for eateries that do not offer the usual mildly inedible cardboard sandwiches and gluey soups. I'm looking at you T.G.I. Friday, and you too, Subway.

We arrived early at the airport, which I kind of insist on when it's not an airport we fly from regularly and because I am just really, really kind of twitchy about missing flights. So we had some time to scare up a bite to eat, as our flight was on a commuter jet that was somewhat lacking in the amenities. Like food. Or leg room.

Where was I? Oh, yes arrived early at the airport and it was lunch time and we'd only had a coffee and a pastry for breakfast so we were kind of noshy. Among the offerings in Terminal 3 was Yankee Pier. Part of a small chain of sea food restaurants in the Bay area, it offered the promise of something different - something not necessarily battered, breaded and deep fried and doused with buffalo wing sauce and ranch dressing. With a sprig of parsley on the side so you don't feel that guilty.

The offerings pretty much ran the gamut of New England seafood, though with West Coast touches, like Clam Rolls and Crab Cake sandwiches but with some spice. I had the Crab Louie with Dungeness crab and a spicy Thousand Island sauce. I actually ordered the entrée for nostalgia sake, remembering eating this dish when I was growing up on the East Coast and we used to rent a cottage on the shore during the summer. I was pleasantly surprised to find the dressing wasn't the usual gloppy stuff of memory but a thinner and spicier version which undoubtedly was around 1/10 the calories of the old fashioned stuff.

Mary had an Albacore Tuna Melt that she pronounced quite tasty though her admiration for the dish might have been affected by her affection for the homemade potato chips supplied with the sandwich. I agreed that they were quite tasty and would have enjoyed them even more if I hadn't ended up with a fork stuck in the back of my hand when I reached for a second chip. Mary insisted it was an accident.

I accompanied my meal with an Anchor Steam beer. I know I can get them in Colorado but it just isn't the same. Seafood, even in an airport, just goes better with an Anchor Steam in San Francisco.

So if you're in San Francisco airport and have a little time for a sit down meal I think you could enjoy something a little out of the ordinary. In the future we'll try and post about some other finds in various airports around the country.

This was our second visit to a St. Regis hotel. The first was in Aspen, in the very off-season. Although we enjoyed our stay at the St. Regis Aspen, I don't think we'd consider it one of our favorite hotels or anything.

However, St. Regis is part of the Starwood Hotels megacorporation. We have a Starwood American Express Card, which means we are constantly accumulating "points" we can use for free hotel stays like this one. So we'll probably keep sampling the St. Regis hotels, as long as we can stay there free.

Of all Starwood's brands, the St. Regis has always, in my mind at least, been a little hard to categorize. For instance, W Hotels is hip and trendy, Westin seems to be aimed at well-to-do business travelers, and Sheraton is kind of the middle class brand (though not always). St. Regis, on the other hand, I've always considered to be the luxury brand, but Starwood also has Le Meridien and that is also a luxury brand. Maybe high end and lower end luxury? I don't know. It's a bit confusing.

In any case, we looked forward to checking out the St. Regis in San Francisco. You really can't beat the location, right next door to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) and a block from Market Street. The hotel itself is pretty Moderne or minimalist - take your pick. Mostly marble and stone, steel and glass. I liked it, but it's definitely not a warm homey place where you'd want to spend an afternoon chilling in the lobby.

Our room was comfortable and in excellent condition. It had all the amenities: flat screen TV, another in the bathroom (why? I don't know), nice comfy bed, desk, armchair. Though one quibble, if you put an armchair in the room, which I appreciate, I really do, because I hate watching TV from bed, then do me the favor of putting arms on the chair. Other wise it's pretty uncomfortable to sit in, as I can't drape a leg over the arm and I always feel like I'm sliding off the chair onto the floor.

The room had a bedside universal remote with a large flat screen panel that controlled the temperature, lights, window shades, and probably would have allowed us to access our bank account to see it diminishing by the minute, if we had felt so inclined. One small problem was that there didn't seem to be any way to actually turn off the lighted screen at night, and it was a bit bright. Like searchlight bright. We ended up draping a towel over it, but knew it was sitting there, lurking. Probably watching us.

The bathroom had a set of shutters between the bathroom and the bedroom. Mary dislikes this feature. Does anyone actually leave those open? I'm not sure why the shutters exist. If you want to watch TV while relaxing in the tub, there's already one in the bathroom. Do people have conversations while one is in bed and the other is taking a bath? Is it romantic and I'm a little too old fogey to get it? Many questions, and not many answers.

The service at the St. Regis, from start to finish, was pretty impeccable. The desk staff was knowledgeable about pretty much everything in town and gave clear and concise directions that even I was unable to screw up. I visited the lobby bar to sample some liquid libations and it measured up nicely. Nice snacks too, once it was confirmed that I was a guest and not a random homeless guy wandering in off the street. In my case it's not always clear, I guess.

All in all, the St. Regis was an excellent hotel. Not quite as fancy as our last stay in San Francisco, at the Four Seasons, but very nice nonetheless. And if you're looking for something right next to MOMA, you can't beat it. We'll certainly consider staying there again - especially if the room is free.