An awesome (targeted?) offer from Amex Business Platinum

Just got this in my inbox:

With the subject line: "Richard , earn 50,000 extra points with your Business Platinum Card®" You can bet I'll be taking advantage of this offer!

Another visit to the Centurion Lounge at DFW - drink lists

I (and many others) have reviewed the Centurion Lounge at DFW. It's a great, if often crowded, place to spend your DFW layover, and entry is free for Amex Platinum and Centurion cardmembers. I recently had a several hour layover in DFW and stopped into the Centurion for a couple of drinks, a massage, and a bite to eat. Since I've already covered the lounge, this post is simply to update the current wine and cocktail lists (important information for some!).

Here's the current coctail list:

I reccomend the Rum and 'Choke, which was quite tasty:

The current wine list:

The 'Belleruche' rose was quite nice:

And here's the beer list :

IDB Auctions- Why not use a currency that travelers want?

The recent United Involuntarily Denied Boarding debacle with Dr. Dao got me thinking about IDB auctions. In current practice, when an airline is overbooked or needs seats, they will conduct an "auction" in which increasing amounts of airline specific "currency" (Delta Dollars, or the like) are offered in the hopes that someone will voluntarily give up their seat. Plenty of folks have offered their suggestions about how to make the auctions function better, but I haven't yet seen anyone suggest what seems like the most obvious solution: an auction that's conducted in a currency that the average traveler actually wants.

You see, most airline passengers don't travel all that often. If you fly once a year (or less!) then the opportunity to obtain $X in airline specific currency (that usually carries an expiration date of one year), is hardly compelling. Thus, the value of an offer of, say, $400 in credit on a particular airline carries a substantially discounted value to the average flier. If you have no realistic plans to fly in the next year, the value of the offer is effectively $0. There's a sizeable chance that  a majority of your customers are automatically out of the "bidding" when an auction is conducted in this manner.

So, why not conduct the auction in good old cash? I understand that airline-specific credit is heavily discounted from the airline's perspective, but surely it has some cash  value. Why not start the auction at a meal voucher, a seat on the next flight, and $50 cash. Now everyone is interested. Personally, I've turned down offers of $600 in airline credit when I might have taken $200 in cold hard cash.

The more I think of it, the more sense my proposal makes. Which means there must be an FAA regulation that forbids it!

Newcastle to London in Virgin East Coast Rail First Class

For the next step in our journey we drove across the north of England, paying a flying visit to Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian's wall and to the Twice-Brewed Inn (in Once Brewed, Northumberland). We returned our rental car at Avis' Newcastle Airport office and headed into town to catch our train.  Fortunately, there is light rail service from Newcastle Airport to the Newcastle Central Station where we'd be boarding our train.

Britain has a system of passenger rail companies that operate various regional routes, all of which operate under the National Rail moniker. In our case, we were travelling with Virgin East Coast Rail, in First Class.

Being in First Class we had use of the First Class Lounge at Newcastle Station. This is no airline lounge, so there's not much to report here. It was a pretty basic space, but featured better seating than the platform:

An espresso machine and a cooler of drinks (water and juice):

And some shortbread biscuits:

There's also a private bathroom down the hall.

The train experience itself was pretty basic, but comfortable. First class seating was arranged in a 1-2 configuration with some seats facing forward and some back.

During the week, East Coast's First Class features hot meals with alcohol, but on the weekends the selections are much more limited. There was a choice of wraps and sandwiches with crisps, etc. They were surprisingly tasty:

All that, along with lovely weather for travel, made for a nice trip from the North to the South of England: