The Points Ninja is Back - AGAIN - Covid Edition

 A bit over two years ago, I excitedly announced my return to blogging to my adoring public <crickets>. Turns out it was a bit premature, because COVID. Alas. Well, anyhoo, let's try again, shall we? I'm back! And were going back to England! To Howtown Hotel! REALLY, I SWEAR! At least, I hope so. Just last week I received confirmation from the lovely Mrs. Baldry that Mrs. Pointsninja and I do indeed have a room booked for 5 nights in May! 

Yes, indeed, this is the delightful little hotel that I reviewed a few years back and I'm terribly excited to return to the only hotel that's even more old fashioned than I am. I mean, reservations are made by mail and confirmed by return post! So, God willing and COVID don't rise, the Mrs. and I will be enjoying days of hill walks and misty morning views of one of the loveliest little hotels in the world next month!

The Howtown Hotel as viewed from atop Halinn Fell

I’m perfectly delighted to say that after a long absence, The Points Ninja is back! And with the anticipated return to what is, perhaps, my favorite hotel property ever. Mrs. Points Ninja and I are returning to the Howtown Hotel, the quintessential small English country hotel! More to come soon!

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:

The Club at ATL - A Priority Pass Club and Bottled Water Inside Security!

On a recent trip, I had longish layover in Atlanta and decided to take the opportunity to visit The Club at ATL, one of the many lounges that you have access to if one of your credit cards (such as Platinum Amex, Chase Ink, Citi Prestige, etc.) offers a Priority Pass Membership. Thanks to a tip from Lucky at One Mile at a Time, I knew that I could use the Priority Pass App to access their lounges, provided I set things up ahead of time.

The Club at ATL is located on the mezzanine in the International Terminal, and you can spot it pretty easily as you come up the escalators from the tram.

I headed up the elevators and walked up to the front desk, where the agent scanned the Priority Pass card on my app with no problems:

This is, by no means, a swanky lounge. In fact, the food offerings when I visited where markedly inferior to those at the nearby Delta Skyclub. However, it does cover the basics.

There's a bar, with a decent selection:

A buffet (that was pretty picked over when I was there around 10:30):

Seating with a view of the tarmac:

And a small business center:

The one area in which this lounge stands out is that it is the only place that I know of that you can get complimentary bottled water inside the Atlanta Airport. That's no small thing, particularly if you are getting ready to head out on an international flight where staying hydrated can be a challenge. The Club has two fridges, the one below had 500ml bottles of spring water:

And there was another fridge towards the front that had smaller bottles. This is a nice feature, and I'll probably returning to the Club for this reason alone!