Amex Platinum and the Big Rethink

by Robert McGarvey

If you hold an Amex Platinum card – guesses are there are around 400,000 of us, but Amex does not confirm these numbers – it now has become unavoidable that you do a big, deep rethink: Is this the card that best suits me?

If you don’t have it but are mulling applying – there’s a lush 100k miles sign up bonus right now – do the same rethinking because nowadays there are options at the lofty Plat level, notably the Chase sapphire reserve. The era of Plat hegemony is over.

That rethink maybe is all the more urgent because, as the pandemic loosens its grip on our psyches, many of us are facing up to the reality that we will be doing less business travel for the foreseeable future. How much less, for how long? I do not have a crystal ball that can answer those questions. But for now I am assuming I will do minimal business travel in the remainder of this year and I did none in the first half.

I mention that because for years I justified paying for Amex Plat as a business expense that made tedious business trips a mite more tolerable. The club access alone justified the cost but then Amex lost access to all but Delta clubs among the domestic carriers and the Centurion, while lovely, were few in number and then became vastly too popular. The Centurion became the Venice of airport lounges or maybe it embodied that Yogi Berra line, nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded. But, for me, the pleasure of Centurions had vanished amid overcrowded lounges and a scarcity of seats.

Then there’s the question of guest access at Centurion. Amex plans to begin charging for guest access (up to $50 a head) but not until February 2023 – so if air traffic in fact picks up and stays up, as some pundits predict, the Centurion will remain as inviting as a 6 train at 4pm on a Friday night in July at Lex and Grand Central, at least until the guest head count falls in 2023.

The final shoe dropping is the big fee increase – from $550 to $695 as of July 1, 2021. Remember, too, the card cost $450 in early 2017. That’s a 54% bump in just four years.

And does the card still fit my evolving lifestyle, the post pandemic me?

Yes, Amex does conveniently calculate that I saved $250 using the card this year on purchases at BestBuy, HomeDepot, Goldbelly, and there’s another $200 in Uber credits plus miscellaneous givebacks on PayPal purchases for another, say, $100. Add in the free cellphone protection, free Global Entry, etc.

There’s also a new $240 annual digital entertainment credit which will cover my NY Times subscription. And a $100 Saks credit.

Very probably there is $695 in perks.

But do I want these perks? Really?

What I keep choking on however is what seems a good deal – a new, monthly $25 credit at Equinox, the fitness club, and that money can be used at an in person club or an online service. The latter costs$40/monthly so net $15 to a Plat cardholder. Here’s the deal however: I am more like to get my hair dyed green and my nose pierced than I am to use Equinox, not that I have a problem with the club, just that it has little to do with who I am and what I do (and my personal exercise is to tie on a pair of $100 walking shoes and walk, which I did for 10 miles this a.m.)

A lot of the Plat perks seem, well, like stuff we laugh at the characters in Babbitt when they crave similar shiny objects in their day.

It was all so much simpler when Plat gave me airport club access and I flew enough where that mattered.

Now the Amex club access is tarnished, Priority Pass benefits seem to have shriveled for cardholders. Restaurant lounges are excluded.

To renew or no? I can renew at the old rate when my term comes up next month.

But going forward is this new lifestyle card – because that is what Plat now is – right for me and my lifestyle?

And do I really want to spend time tracking and logging the perks and benefits which do change? I want a credit card that works for me. Not vice versa.

I just am not sure about renewing. But I will be by next year. Ask me then.

Awards travel update: I used Amex miles, converted into Delta miles, to buy two round trip comfort class tix from PHX to MAD in September. Cost was around 190,000 miles, which worked out to about a penny a point. But, hell, a lot of those miles were earned buying groceries at Whole Foods, paying dentist bills, vet bills, and other routine, mundane charges. A free trip to Spain in return is an ok deal in my mind. Even if I fell far short of my 2 cents a mile target.

Are Rewards Flights to Spain Just Overpriced Today?

By Robert McGarvey

Or is it just that the cash price for the flight is inflated in the first instance?

I am planning a trip to the Iberian Peninsula in early fall.  It had started as mainly Portugal but Portugal has been imposing lockdowns, etc. as it wrestles with an outbreak of the delta variant of Covid-19 – probably all to the good in the long term – and now my focus has shifted to a trip to Madrid and points north in Spain (Leon, Santiago de Compostela, etc.).

So I look on Expedia and, shut my mouth, a Delta flight from Phoenix connecting through ATL is priced at $2296 for premium economy for two fliers, and that is as good a fare as I see except for Condor which flies a milk run with multiple stops (including one in Frankfurt). The Condor flight may be cheap but no…I am not prepared for that long a flight.

But I have a stash of Amex miles.

So I go to the Amex rewards page, plug in details, and a rewards flight is 229,690 points.

Ouch. That is a penny a point.

But I do not see much better deals for any flights to Madrid.

Here’s the other mystery: Is it better to lock in that fare now and part with the miles (I’ll probably plunk down the points, rather than pay cash, because I got ‘em and there’s no value in holding the things since they generally just lose value)?

You may be thinking, there are better deals to other places in Europe? You are right.  But they do not have the Prado, nor do they have the jamon and the short beers that always seem like a 3-star lunch wherever I have eaten and drunk in Madrid.

No, Spain it is, Madrid it must be, and points will be my currency.

One more thing I ponder – is it worth my time to transfer points from Amex to Delta and buy the flight from the airline? I have done that before, for instance when Amex and Delta had a bonus deal going (my memory is that I got a 50% bonus, so 100,000 miles became 150,000).  But I don’t see a similar deal at Amex now  that involves European carriage.

When booking at Delta, miles for two is 240,000 plus $115.50 in cash. A bit dearer than via Amex.

Choices, choices, choices.

Why fly Delta anyway? The flights and prices are comparable to American Airlines from Phoenix and, in this town, those look to be the best to Spain, at least for now. More flights, on more airlines, will be scheduled in the coming month (assuming Covid remains tamped down in Europe and the US) and I do not plan to make a commitment for at least two weeks. So the options may change but, right now, it’s American versus Delta and Delta has a narrow lead because the club in Phoenix is good as is the one in Atlanta.

But I remain gobsmacked at the mileage costs for such flights and in the early fall.  Not prime summer (although who knows that summer will be peak this year for European travel, probably not).

Am I just stuck in a past era?

Or have flight costs been bumped up right now simply because jet fuel is pricey and airplane capacity remains limited, as carriers scramble to get planes and crew and supporting infrastructure in sync?

And who am I to complain? Essentially free flights to Spain. In autumn.  

It’s a good, if dear, life.

Will Airline Passengers Have to Weigh In Before Boarding?

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By Robert McGarvey

Suddenly the Internet is afire with rumors that very soon we will all have to submit to a weigh in before boarding our next flight.  Even the mainstream media has joined the frenzy.  The headline on WKRC TV’s web page screamed: “Airlines may start weighing passengers before they can board flights.”

The Deseret News in Utah headlined: “Airlines might weigh passengers before boarding flights.” The subhead added: “A new initiative would require airlines to weigh passengers.”

The New York Daily News noted: “Airline passengers may have to get weighed before boarding.”

Unexpectedly, there even is a proposal involving passengers and weigh-ins that is kicking around Washington DC.

Before plunging into that, however, understand that airlines have had the option to weigh passengers for some years.  Personally I have been asked for my weight several times when flying in Alaska.  When planes are small and land on water the pilot needs to distribute weight in the plane with care.  It may be an awkward question but there are times when you will be asked and when you think on it you will be glad the pilot asked.

Airlines also already require passengers to fit in a seat with a seatbelt buckled (an extension is OK) and the armrests down. Obese passengers who don’t fit can be required to buy a second seat or deplane.   

Back to what triggered all this teeth gnashing: In May 2019 the FAA issued an advisory circular where it mulled what changes needed to be made in accurately guessing passenger weight (along with weight of carry-ons).  That is important because an airplane has a maximum weight load and much of what is on the plane already is weighed (checked baggage and freight for instance).  The big unknown is what we weigh and how much stuff we are stuffing into the overhead bins and under our seats.

Airlines had until June 12, 2021 to file a plan for more accurately estimating passenger weights.  Thus the recent angst about possible mandatory weigh-ins.

Overweight planes do crash.   Sometimes they are so stuffed they cannot manage a takeoff. Usually these are small, private planes but occasionally a commercial flight crashes due to excess weight – notably and sadly a 2003 US AIrways crash that killed 21.  The NY Times lead gives the facts: “ A commuter plane that crashed on takeoff from Charlotte, N.C., in January was 400 to 1,000 pounds overweight, and two bags in its tail baggage compartment were so heavy that it took two handlers to carry each of them, a sign that the plane was tail-heavy as well, people involved in the investigation said.”

What grabs me in that paragraph is how comparative small the deadly weight was – perhaps a half ton or less.

Keep that number in mind.

In 1980 the average weight of an adult man was 172.2.  A woman weighed 144.2

In 2014 the average man weighed 195.7.  The average woman weighed 168.5.

Let’s assume 200 passengers on a plane, with males and females evenly split.   That means the passengers now weigh at least 4780 pounds more, about two and one-half tons.

Seasonal weight differences also come into play.  FAA numbers seem to believe we are five pounds heavier in the winter and that could be explained by a topcoat and a heavier weight suit.  

So what the FAA is looking for in its 58 page advisory is a new game plan for guesstimating passenger weight for the purpose of deciding if a plane is safe to fly.  Airlines had two main options.  They could actually weigh every passenger in the boarding process, or they could rely on government estimates about our weight.

There never was a mandate that required passengers to be weighed.

Not surprisingly, per the Washington Post, airlines have indicated their preference for using government weight data.  No airline contacted by Wapo indicated it had a plan to actually weigh passengers.

That shouldn’t be a surprise. As a nation we despise our annual weigh-in at a doctor’s office and often dispute the findings (“Im wearing heavy shoes, take off five pounds!”).  We certainly would not welcome a public weigh-in with our weight flashed before a throng of passengers (doubtless all Keto diet practitioners).  Of course no airline would inflict that on us.

Proving that there indeed are limits to how much abuse airlines will heap on us. And that perhaps is the biggest surprise in this blog.

To Cruise in 2021 or Not To Cruise, That Is Our Question

By Robert McGarvey

That is the question.

You might think every cruise line has the same Covid protocols.  The plague is a national, indeed planetary, issue we all face, and therefore a uniform response might seem the most straightforward path to thwarting the disease and its crippling paralysis of the cruise business for well over a year.  You would be wrong.

The four big lines – Carnival, Royal Caribbean, NCL, and MSC – have four different responses.

And some lines have different responses for different ships and different countries and even different US states.

Worse, at least three ships in the early cruise fleets already have Covid cases. More on that below, but this reality underlines that Covid is a persistent threat that needs dealing with in our world.

Here is my advice about 2021 cruising.

First off, don’t even think about sailing from Florida or Texas.

Our ban on all Texas and Florida cruises is because the governors of those states and their legislatures have made it illegal for a business to demand proof of vaccination of its customers and, whoosh, there goes the basic cruise line tactic for preventing a recurrence of the devastating and deadly Covid-19 epidemics on multiple cruise ships last year.

Understand, to bypass a lot of CDC hoops involved in restarting cruising, a line can fast track its sailings by requiring that 95% of passengers and 95% of crew be vaccinated.  Texas and Florida are saying no can do. 

The Texas governor has no leverage – only Galveston ranks as a top 10 embarkation port.  It is easy to tell the Lone Star State’s governor to pound sand and New Orleans  – the 11th busiest cruise port – is ready to step in and pick up the slack.  Me, I’d much prefer a Corpse Reviver in Nola anyway.

But Florida is a more complex matter.   Three of the top three cruise embarkation ports are in Florida and four of the top 10.  Eliminating this state from cruise sailing is thorny- and potentially devastating to tens of thousands of Floridians whose livelihoods are dependent on cruising.  Word of advice to Floridians: tell your governor he is demanding an unscientific and dangerous approach to cruising that will unnecessarily endanger passengers and crew.

Until he changes his policy our advice stands: just do not cruise out of Florida.  Lots of Caribbean islands are scrambling to fill in for Florida. There are and will be cruises in the region.  

Aren’t some cruise lines saying their ships embarking from Florida will require vaccinations? Yes they are. But I see no reason to believe they will have the backbone to stick with that position in defiance of the Florida governor.  Maybe they will.  But I would not risk my health on that bet.

The ante is upped, starkly and scarily,  by the fact that three recent cruises have been scarred by Covid-19 cases.  An MSC Mediterranean cruise announced that two passengers – traveling separately – tested positive for Covid-19 in routine tests administered by the line.  The ship was denied docking in a Malta port – shades of early 2020 cruising! – but went to Sicily where the passengers who tested positive disembarked.  

MSC passengers on this cruise were not required to be vaccinated but were required to take two tests, one a few days before the cruise and one midway in the cruise.

“If anything, this is another demonstration that the protocol works,” a line spokesman told the Washington Post.

If he says so….

I will not even think of sailing a ship that does not require vaccinations for the vast majority of passengers and crew.

But that may not be assurance enough. Breaking news is that Royal Caribbean has cancelled a number of sailings of a new ship because of an outbreak of Covid-19 among crew. No passengers were yet on board. But…

Meantime, two passengers aboard a Celebrity ship that set sail from St. Maarten – with all passengers vaccinated — tested positive in a required end of cruise testing, according to the Washington Post.  

The passengers had been sharing a cabin.

Passengers were required to show proof vaccination and also to show a negative test result taken within 72 hours of embarkation to sail on the Celebrity ship.

Presumably the passengers who subsequently tested positive met those requirements. One hopes they weren’t using the counterfeit vaccination cards that apparently are popular in the anti-vax and Trumpie circles.

“This situation demonstrates that our rigorous health and safety protocols work to protect our crew, guests and the communities we visit,” a statement from the line said.

I have a question – probably you do too.  What vaccine did the passengers have?  Both Pfizer and Moderna boast effectiveness rates around 95%.  The J & J jab is around 76% effective.  And if you had a choice – I know if I had a choice – we’d sail only with those vaccinated with the Moderna or Pfizer shots.

But right now we don’t have those choices.

We do have a choice of lines we’d sail on and, right now, the policies do differ dramatically. MSC has no vaccination requirement, NCL has a 100% requirement. Carnival, the biggest cruise line, says 95% of passengers will be vaccinated.  Royal Caribbean seems to have different policies for different lines. Celebrity seems to be sticking with a 100% vaccination rule.  Royal Caribbean itself says it will not have a vaccination requirement on voyages embarking from Florida and Texas but it adds that unvaccinated passengers will have to meet special, unspecified requirements.  

So, should you cruise?  That’s your call.  Personally, I am in no rush to climb aboard a ship leaving any port.  I am far busier plotting a possible European vacay in the fall.

I want to cruise again, I am sure I will, but I cannot say with any certainty when that will happen. We are still in a pandemic, people.  The disease keeps morphing, nobody knows how the vaccines will hold up, and I frankly like my odds a lot better on land than in a sealed container at sea.  

But monitor the many cruises that now are embarking. Are they suffering Covid cases? How are they handling them?  Your answers will tell if you are ready and eager to cruise.  Or not.

You Are Not Going to Europe This Summer

By Robert McGarvey

My bag beckons, it is half packed and you are likely doing similar with grand visions of a pint of bitters in London or an Armagnac in Paris or a Vinho Verde in Porto.  

Sober up.  It is not happening, not this summer.

Not unless you have a long held ambition to be an extra in Marat/Sade.  

Tune back to May 7. That’s when the UK issued its list of so-called green light countries. That’s where UK residents can travel without ado and return similarly. No tests, no quarantines.  Not on the list were France, Spain and the US.  On it were the Faroe Islands, the Falklands (aka the Malvinas), Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, Gibraltar, Israel, and Portugal (plus a couple Portuguese islands).

No fools the Brits, this unleashed a stampede to Portugal (even in a pandemic would you crave an excursion to the Malvinas and, no, I have no idea how you would get to these remote south Atlantic islands).

Flashforward to June 3 and a reshuffled UK list of safe destinations excluded Portugal and from June 7 on Brits returning from Portugal need to self isolate for 10 days and take two PCR tests.  Of course that change triggered stampedes at the Lisbon and Porto airports – some carriers even shifted extra metal there to appease the exiting mobs.

That paragraph captures why we aren’t going to Europe this summer.

Don’t think it’s a Brit thing that has nothing to do with us. Here’s the deal: a lot of how we travel to Europe will be impacted by what limitations the UK puts on travel. And there is no guessing that.

What’s more, just about every big nation now is behaving as erratically as the UK. Including us. Including much of Europe.

Don’t think the Falklands are a go, either. They aren’t. Tourists are currently denied entry, including cruise ship passengers. I know, drat.

Nothing is certain, nothing can be counted on with international travel.  What we know to be true today may be ancient nonsense tomorrow and the reason of course is that the pandemic keeps morphing, nobody knows how the vaccines will fare against still emerging variants, and nations are frantically trying to balance public health concerns with demands by their domestic travel providers to lower the barriers and let the cash registers ring.

A week ago when I looked, the sane way for me to get to Porto was to fly LAX to LHR, LHR to OPO and that was easy and modestly priced on BA – but with Portugal now demoted to the UK amber list, will the flights remain? Probably not.  Because very probably most Brits will stay home – or convince themselves they really want to go to Iceland, a nation with twice as many sheep as people. Look it up.

And when the UK’s next list reshuffle is issued around June 24 will Portugal be upgraded to green and, who knows, maybe Iceland will have been downgraded to red as the virus has jumped to sheep.

Just kidding about Iceland’s sheep.

But no joking that there is no guarantee where Iceland will fall in the next reshuffle.

Just about everything else also remains uncertain. Spain, for instance, has said it will be open to all vaccinated travelers as of June 7 but hunt for details and there are none.  Will it apply to Americans? Only vaccinated travelers are welcome.

Americans flying to France are welcome – if they arrive with a very recent PCR or antigen test. Only vaccinated travelers need apply.

A complication is that fake vaccination cards continue to be sold online so who could trust one? Especially at an overseas passport desk? We don’t know how foreign governments will validate CDC vaccination cards presented by Americans and we don’t know what additional proofs they may require. Thus the French solution.

Portugal, by the way, says it will open to vaccinated US travelers. “We are in a position to approve the opening of non-essential travel and flights to people from the U.S. to Portugal as long as they have a vaccination certificate,” Economy Minister Pedro Siza Vieira, cited by Portuguese radio Renascenca, said on June 8, per Reuters. But no details are known.

Meantime, all Americans returning to the US, vaccinated or not, need produce a current covid test result.  There do not appear to be any countries to which this does not apply, although as with everything else in this column the facts change seemingly daily.

That border entry test requirement from the CDC dates to January 12, however, and there has been no motion to change it.

Are you beginning to feel just a little crazy?

Personally, I find myself thinking if maybe I would prefer a vacay in Yellowstone – is Yogi Bear still around?  With the right laughs I just might forget how crazymaking and frustrating trying to plan international travel has come.

The Maskless Wars: In the Air and at Restaurants

By Robert McGarvey

I am still wearing a mask when indoors in public spaces – even though the governor of Arizona, where I live, has issued an executive order that lifted Covid-19 restrictions (such as capacity restraints) on businesses and barred local governments from enforcing most mask mandates.  So now ever louder voices are raised insisting that we have a right not to wear a mask – even before the governor’s order a meeting of the Scottsdale school board dissolved into chaos as mask deniers bellowed out their refusals.

A private business can insist on masks but still there are protests that this robs people of their rights.

There is no such right and it is also simply dumb to insist on such a “right.” We are not out of the pandemic yet.  As “As long as there is some degree of activity throughout the world, there’s always a danger of variants emerging and diminishing somewhat the effectiveness of our vaccines,” said Anthony Fauci in an interview with the Guardian.

That’s why it is crucial that we still wear masks, certainly in indoor public spaces, and practice social distancing.  To fail to take such simple steps is to endanger ourselves and others. It will also slow the recovery of the travel and restaurant sectors.

That is reality.

But I expect the wars to get louder, angrier, more violent.

Especially in the places travelers congregate.

As we begin to travel again we will be on the frontlines of these battles. I am looking forward to travel, but not to these skirmishes.

Even in the skies – where a federal mask mandate remains in place until September – there is increasing anti mask violence. There is no exception for the vaccinated (although many think there is) when it comes to mask wearing on airplanes.

Matters are so heated in the skies that both American and Southwest have halted booze sales in coach, mainly because drunken passengers just are more obstreperous and violent.

Airports, too, are mask required zones – although reports multiply of maskless offenders testing the readiness of authorities to act on the ground.  Busses and trains also have many mask refusers.

But transportation isn’t the worst place when it comes to mask issues.

Matters are getting more perilous at restaurants – places not covered by the federal mask mandates and where many governors have been erasing mask requirements. Even Starbucks and Chipotle have dropped their mask requirements wherever they can, saying only the unvaccinated are required to wear masks.

The problem with that – at least going by what I am hearing – is that it is the vaccinated who are still wearing masks indoors.  The unvaccinated, taking advantage of the reality that there is no easy way to prove vaccination status (I don’t carry my CDC card and know nobody who does, at least when we are not traveling), are stripping their masks and pretending they have gotten the shots.

They of course are threats to the rest of us and to each other – and, sadly, it is they who will prolong the pandemic even though they often are also pandemic deniers who also deny the 600,000 who have died from the disease just in the US.

Employees in retail naturally have rising concerns as they interact with maskless, unvaccinated customers. Will many quit? That’s a good guess.

One sector where I expect the mask wars to only get hotter in restaurants.  For instance, in Mendocino CA, a place called the Fiddleheads Cafe charges diners who wear masks a $5 surcharge. What’s weirder is where this is happening.  Biden got two-thirds of the county’s vote in 2020.  Mendo is, shall we say, a laid back place. It has long had an anarchic streak, however, and I suppose that’s what is playing out at Fiddleheads.

I get it, too. In restaurants in particular masks are a complication (when to wear it, when not?).

I have eaten in a restaurant exactly once this year and that was on an outdoor patio.

I do not expect to eat indoors at a restaurant this summer.  Why? To be a witness to anti mask stupidity?  Besides, I am growing fonder of Uber Eats and good food is getting brought to me.  I eat it in peace at home.

Will I next cross air travel off my list because of the mask defiers? We will see as the summer plays out.

New Bookmarks for Safer Travels

By Robert McGarvey

Used to be, as I planned a trip, I’d look at a weather report for the destination and, in very special cases, I’d consult a crime report for a foreign destination at the US Dept. of State.  That about did it for my information curiosities and, note, I don’t believe I ever consulted crime data for US cities, only for some international cities.

But now as I find myself contemplating travel to several destinations, both domestic and foreign, I suddenly want more data – and that is why I am creating new travel bookmarks that I will share with you because you just may have similar needs.

The big difference in my 2021-2022 travel planning: disease, particularly Covid-19, looms large in my thinking.  There are places I just will not go to because I would not feel safe and, yes, I am dually vaccinated. Plus I had the disease 15 months ago so I have antibodies and probably am resistant to Covid-19.

But resistant to all variants? To new strains?  I don’t know and I am not going to risk a trip to a place where I might run into a Covid variant I have no immunity to.

About 5% of the world’s population presently is fully vaccinated – which means 95% aren’t.  It is going to take at least a couple years to distribute vaccines widely and that is a wildly optimistic estimate.  

That means international travel will slowly rebound and it will be on a destination by destination basis.  

Bookmark this page via Statista that shows Covid infection and death rates by country and offers fine tuned date for the last 7 days.  Places I don’t want to go to right now include Hungary, Peru, and Brazil –  too many cases, too many deaths.

What about India?  It happens not to be on the Statista page I am looking at today and that’s important to understand,  No site I am aware of is comprehensive – all crunch data using their own methods and own feeds. So you have to look at multiple sites.

But any reader of the international news knows India is afire with Covid-19 and the end does not appear near. It is one of the scariest places on the planet right now.

And then there are countries that have released no data.  Tanzania is a case in point and I know I won’t even think about traveling to a place where its Covid infections and deaths are state secrets (or, even worse, just not counted).  Sadly, much of the undeveloped world fits into that category.  They are not hiding information so much as they just don’t know their incidence rate, death count, or when vaccines will be available to their populace.  

Another, useful tool is from the Lowy Institute and it allows us to compare countries in terms of Covid responses.  Search for Portugal and Spain, for instance, and to my eyes their Covid patterns have been quite similar. That’s useful to know especially since many of us are probably weighing options for either/or trips – Jamaica vs Dominican Republic, for instance, and today the differences seem minimal.

Of course the facts are fluid.  Countries that once seemed to have Covid under control now are messes. The Seychelles is a case in point; it had ranked among the most vaccinated countries.  But a majority of the people had gotten China’s Sinopharm vaccine and questions swirl around its efficacy. Now there are lots of active cases in the Seychelles. It’s not a place I would visit.

But fluid facts mean we have to check frequently.  Last week’s reassuring research may take a deadly turn today. Or a country with a bad bout of Covid infections may turn a corner.

Another new twist for me: I plan to check US infection and vaccination stats before traveling to domestic destinations.  Some parts of the country just are stubbornly anti-vax and while I won’t argue with them, I also won’t mingle with them.

That’s why I’ve bookmarked a widget at Becker’s Hospital Review that shows the percentage of a state’s population that has been vaccinated. Mississippi and Alabama bring up the rear but that’s no surprise. They have vaccinated fewer than one in three.

Also useful is a CDC Covid tracker that lets us drill into county specific infection incidence data across the US.  Get specific when looking. Incidence can multiply within a few miles.  

Do I enjoy this data crunching?  I do not.  But I would enjoy being bed-ridden with an encore battle against Covid even less.

But at least, data in view, I am newly confident about traveling.  I just plan to do it as the numbers guide me.

Towards a Personal Commitment to Sustainable Travel

By Robert McGarvey

I hear the buzz – you do too – all around us now is the sound of travelers planning, packing, moving.  After 16 months of no travel (in my own case), it is plainly exciting to be again thinking about hitting the road.

But in my own case – and I am not preaching to you, just relating – I plan to travel in a much more sustainable way.  Climate change is real.  It’s nonsensical to deny it and where I live, in Phoenix, it is easy to see.  KTAR sums up the numbers: “[In 2020] Phoenix broke records for the most 95-degree days (172), 100-degree days (145), 105-degree days (102), 110-degree days (53) and 115-degree days (14) in a year with daily heat records being shattered 18 times throughout 2020 and tied another 15 times.”

Meantime, we are depleting our groundwater reservoirs and the Colorado River, which supplies much of the water that irrigates the west, just is coming up short.

In Arizona, climate change is not a parlor game word.  It’s become a matter of life or death, for many plants and animals and very possibly, in the long term, even humans.  Don’t snigger about the last. A 2019 Sierra Club Magazine headline told why: Can Phoenix Remain Habitable?  It asked.  The article is a good read and it spells out how Phoenix could dodge this bullet. But it is not optimistic that sanity will prevail because the city talks a good game…but real steps are fewer.

Which is why it comes down to me, by which I mean all of us who live in Phoenix – and since the planet is facing the same climate changes, pretty much all of us everywhere

That is why I am mulling where, how and why I travel.

Understand, I remain deeply skeptical that we will soon see a vigorous return to 2019 level business travel.  Between the frugality of CFOs and the lethal state of Covid-19 around much of the globe – to say nothing about the one in two Americans who are not yet fully vaccinated – there simply is no rational forecast that sees business travel rebounding this year and possibly not next.  Will there be more business travel in the second half of 2021 than there was in 2020? Of course there will be and that is because there were less than half as many business trips in 2020 as in 2019.  It won’t take much to log higher numbers in the second half of 2021 and that won’t prove much, either.  

Personally, my position will be that I will take business trips where and only where an in person appearance (as opposed to a virtual appearance via Zoom) is likely to produce better results.  Face it, hitherto, we took a lot of trips because, well, that’s how it always had been done. But the long travel hiatus has made it easy – necessary – to experiment with alternatives and, guess what, often they work. 

Before booking a business trip I will ask is it necessary? Is it wise?

A lot of times I probably will decide the trip simply isn’t needed. That will save money, save my time (business travel is hideously wasteful of the traveler’s time), and perhaps help save the planet.

Flying is bad for the environment. According to the BBC, “Around 2.4% of global CO2 emissions come from aviation. Together with other gases and the water vapour trails produced by aircraft, the industry is responsible for around 5% of global warming.”

That seems a small number?  Perhaps.  Indeed, buildings and cars are by far the biggest producers. 

But I already am very mindful of how much I drive (just a few thousand miles per year) and where the thermostat is set.  So I will also do my bit to cut out unnecessary business travel too.

Another target will be unnecessary leisure travel – and already there is talk of a lot more of exactly that.  I cannot tell you how many people I know who are dreaming of a trip to Antarctica and that has to count as perhaps the most unnecessary trip imaginable.  Watch the Bourdain show and if you want realer sensations, stick your head in an icebox for a few minutes and finger the ice cubes.  

In 2019-2020 about 74,000 of us traveled to Antarctica and, according to research published by Cambridge University, “The average tourist trip to Antarctica results in 5.44 t of CO2 emissions per passenger, or 0.49 t per passenger and day.”

OK, maybe some travelers in fact have good reasons for this trip. I don’t get it but that might be my failing. We each have to do our own calculations.

But the point stands: my commitment going forward is that the leisure travel I take will be done with a mindfulness of the environment and I won’t take the trip if there are other ways to gain the experience.  

That means I won’t be taking impulse weekend trips to Madrid, as I have done, or Berlin.  But travel I will…just not so much and only after I weigh the pros and cons.  

It’s the least I can do to help save the planet.

The Florida Governor and Cruising’s Return: The Pound Sand Chronicles

By Robert McGarvey

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis cannot have it both ways when it comes to the return of cruising.  He is trying but he won’t succeed.

And he is threatening the vacation plans of many of us who had looked forward to the resumption of safe cruising.

DeSantis – pursuing political agendas that lack commonsense but in an era of alternative facts such has become something of a norm – now has some big players in the industry close to telling him to go pound sand.

Back in early April Florida, at DeSantis’ direction, filed suit against the CDC demanding an immediate resumption of cruises.  “We don’t believe the federal government has the right to mothball a major industry for over a year based on very little evidence and very little data,” DeSantis said in a news conference at Miami’s seaport.

DeSantis of course wants cruising back because Florida wants the money it produces for the state. Some $9 billion annually is brought in by cruise lines in Florida and many millions more in paychecks for cruise employees and DeSantis, presumably blinded by the glitter of so much gold, simply no longer sees the many thousands of Covid-19 deaths that hit the cruise industry in the first half of 2020 and the tens of thousands of cases.

He may think there is little evidence and less data but he simply is wrong.

But saying DeSantis is a demagogue with no respect for facts hardly is news or even interesting.  What is interesting is that when the return of cruising to his state has become imminent he has thrown a spanner into the ships’ engines mainly because he wants to be seen as a “courageous” campaigner against forced vaccinations.

Idiocy? Of course. But this is special stupidity because it might actually prompt many cruise lines to pull out of Florida and shift their home ports into friendly Caribbean nations that, you bet, will do what needs doing to build up their cruise related income.

Flashback a year ago and I thought I’d never cruise again.  The industry’s handling of the virus was inept, mendacious, and deadly.  But now the CDC has issued guidance designed to get cruises safely sailing again.  Masks are required, shore excursions are tightly controlled, and in lots of ways cruising will be different.

But a reality – understood by many cruise executives, even if politicians do not get it – is that many of us were not going to cruise again unless significant steps were taken to assure the safety and health of passengers and crew alike.

In that vein many cruise lines now promise all crew will have been vaccinated and ditto passengers. Here’s a list of lines requiring passengers to be vaccinated and, yes, this includes most of the ships an American is likely to sail on.

I applaud this decision and I realize it is driven by economics. The data just had become overwhelming that a vaccine requirement is a sine qua non for a return to cruising.

But not if DeSantis has his way.  You will remember we left the governor as he filed suit against CDC demanding a green light for cruising.

I don’t know that you can say CDC had issued a green light but it definitely turned off the red and the light now is amber.  Do as CDC asks and a line can sail. And a line can do it faster if it requires a high percentage of passengers be vaccinated. Are the requirements onerous? Yes.  But desperate and dangerous times call for dramatic measures.

And yet DeSantis now has taken steps to ban businesses in Florida from requiring vaccination passports from customers.  “It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society,” DeSantis said at a press conference.

He means for that ban to apply to cruise ships.  Some lawyers argue – and they probably are right – that what the ships do is a federal matter, outside the purview of a governor.  But already Norwegian Cruise line is threatening to pull its ships out of Florida and sail out of those Caribbean ports we mentioned earlier.  

“Cruise ships have motors, propellers and rudders, and god forbid we can’t operate in the state of Florida for whatever reason, then there are other states that we do operate from,” said Norwegian CEO Frank Del Rio. “And we can operate from the Caribbean for ships that otherwise would’ve gone to Florida.”

Meantime, Carnival, the largest cruise line, now says it wants to start sailing from Florida in July – if it can reach an accord with CDC which has said it will relax some restrictions for ships where virtually all crew and passengers are vaccinated. Carnival has plainly indicated it is prepared to deal with CDC. “We continue to have constructive discussions with the CDC but still have many questions that remain unanswered.  We are working diligently to resume sailing in the U.S. and meet the CDC guidelines,” Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line, said in the statement.

No mention is made of DeSantis and his attempt to outlaw vaccination passports in Florida.

Let’s review. DeSantis has a fit and sues CDC to end its ban on cruising because of the adverse economic impacts on Florida, the nation’s biggest cruise port.  CDC modifies its orders, the cruise lines decide they can work within the new rules and – to solidify passenger confidence – they decide to require vaccinations of passengers and crew.  And now DeSantis says a business cannot require vaccination passports of its customers.

Which means many won’t feel comfortable cruising, especially not if the ships are welcome zones for wacky anti vaxxers.

If DeSantis gets his way, just forget about cruising from Florida.

Sigh. I said it earlier but it’s worth repeating: Go pound sand, DeSantis.

The Amex Platinum Cashback Sweepstakes: A Lazy Man’s Lament

By Robert McGarvey

Looking at my May bill from Amex, I was struck by something I had never noticed before: green dollar amounts, at least in the bill I look at online.

Nope, Amex is not on a new sustainability kick.  The green is there to make me notice credits to my account.  Like what?  $18.07 in a PayPal credit (reimbursing me for a New York Times subscription paid via PayPal).  $50 for a purchase of Maryland crab cakes via Goldbelly (the initial charge was $119, but Amex kicks back $50 each on up to three purchases by June 30).  $50 for a Saks purchase (that amounted to $60 initially).

Not noted on the monthly bill, there also was a $15 Uber credit that I used for an Uber Eats lunch.

Add in another $12 for cellphone coverage, also not noted on the bill.

That’s $149.07 in credits.  In one month.  

Sure, I have not set food in a Centurion Lounge this year (in fact not in a full year).  I did not use the Amex $200 airline credit last year and may not use it this year.

But when I see credits actually flowing into my account that may hit $1000 for the year and almost certainly will eclipse the $550 annual fee, I am less peeved about the perks I am not using than I am satisfied with the perks I am claiming.

Am I thoroughly content? I am not.  That is because for some years I have had a lazy man’s relationship with the Platinum card.  I used it frequently to access the Centurion lounge and that alone justified the fee by my calculus.  (Amex now dings a cardholder $50 per guest and that valuation would put breakeven at 11 visits.  But factor in the annual $200 Uber credit and 7 visits is breakeven.)  Toss in the cellphone protection and I would have gotten plenty from my Plat card.  

Easy peasy.  

That was before, when I traveled and used the benefits I had acquired the card to enjoy.

Now I have to work to breakeven and, honestly, I am too lazy to enjoy it.  It takes sorting through possibilities whilst wearing a green eyeshade. Amex showed me 100 credits and perks I am eligible for – my understanding is that the lists are personalized for the cardholder.  Your 100 won’t be identical to mine.

Most of the benefits are meaningless to me.  20% off on purchases at Adidas.com. Bonus miles when shopping at Macy’s. $20 back on a purchase of $100 at Lamps Plus – you get the drift.  Lots of places where I don’t shop and don’t plan to shop.

I am open to new places – in fact I had never shopped at Goldbelly until a JoeSentMe reader praised the $50 cashback offer. When I looked I saw Chris Bianco, Russ & Daughters, Langer’s Deli and already there are more places where I want to shop than I can claim $50 refunds.

For every store that interests me there are five or ten that don’t. Blue by ADT, Terrain, Persol eyewear, and more that I ignore as I scroll through the list.

And even the offers that interest me have varying strings attached. With Saks, it’s $50 twice yearly at six months intervals. With Goldbelly it’s $50 on three purchases of $100 or more. Before clicking buy, if you are counting on an Amex refund, remember to check the fine print on the offer.

Many offers can be used only by the primary cardholder. But some are available to secondary cardholders. But you have to know which is which.

You also have to remember to enroll in programs you want to use. Enrollment is not automatic in most cases.

And now I also have to monitor several sites that report on new Plat benefits (and rumored benefits).  I found the cellphone coverage at one such site, and now see that Amex has made permanent access to Lufthansa lounges for cardholders flying that carrier.  A cool perk in Europe, one I may use before the year is out.

But I had to work to discover it. 

I want credit cards that work for me, not the other way around.

Of course there also are rumors of a Plat card revamp – with talk of a fee boost to $700 and a bunch of new perks including an annual Clear membership (worth $179), an entertainment media credit ($20 monthly for select streaming services) and the list goes on  Nothing is certain about any of this – we’ll report on it when the facts are known – but it may introduce new variables into the keep or jettison decision.

In my current frame of mind, unless travel in fact rebounds I will probably let the card go if the fee jumps to $700. It’s just too much work to make it pay off. 

But maybe I’m just a lazy guy.