For some reason on these dates Avis had a Camaro for only $80 a day, last time I checked it was $160 per day. I picked up the Camaro and immediately realized that it was not the best car to drive around NYC in. The seat is real low, the windows are tiny and there are huge blind spots on every side. This car is pretty much the opposite of what you need when driving in NYC traffic. It is fun to drive once you get used to it and it got lots of attention driving in the city, almost every valet and parking attendant commented on it.

My first night in New York I stayed in the Plaza hotel on Fifth Avenue by Central Park. The room I booked, the Plaza King, is normally $595 per night which is a ridiculous but about standard for a 5-star hotel in NYC. I was able to get a “deal” on the room for only $500 plus taxes. I didn’t use the Centurion Travel service to book the room so I didn’t get the American Express benefits. When I gave them the Black Card to pay for the room I asked if I could get an upgrade to a bigger room, they said “no problem” and gave me a Deluxe King room which is about 100sf bigger. The first downside was that the hotel sold all of the rooms facing central park as private residences so the remaining rooms don’t have the best views. They also had no rooms available with more than one bed, which is a problem if you are traveling with someone you don’t want to share a bed with (my brother in this case). They do offer a roll away bed which they charge $75 for, it is not a regular cot like they have in most hotels, it’s a real bed, my brother said it was more comfortable then his own bed. The hotel in general was really nicely done, and everything was very luxurious. The hotel has a Rolls Royce Phantom that is available to drive guests around the city. This sounds way cooler than it is, they will only take you a few blocks from the hotel and the driver was a total asshole, he was even talking on his cellphone while driving us in the city, which is not only rude but illegal (I’ll post a picture later). All in all I enjoyed the hotel, the room had a cool remote that controlled the lights, TV and AC. The AC was excellent I got the room down to 52 degrees which is the perfect sleeping temperature for me. I will probably not stay at the Plaza next time I’m in NY b/c of the price but if money is not an object, this is a great place to stay.

David

My departure from Detroit was on a Delta flight at 7:15AM to La Guardia, returning on Monday at 9AM. Four days before the flight I got an email from Delta confirming my free first class upgrade, so far so good. I got to the airport about an hour before the flight, the first class security line let me cut in front of the one other person in line (he didn’t look too happy about it) the Delta Crown Club was very comfortable but did not offer alcohol before 12PM on Sundays, I will definitely be using it in the future (why not if I get in free?). The only problem is that they don’t announce when they start boarding in the Crown Club so I missed first class boarding. I did get to cut in front of the line of about 100 commoners who were still waiting to board for economy class, haha suckers! (just kidding).

When I arrived in New York contrary to the weather forecast, it was raining hard. I got on the Bus to Avis, they asked my name and then told me they did not have me as a preferred reservation so I would have to go inside the Avis building and talk to a customer service rep, this didn’t sound right b/c I have an Avis Presidents Club membership through American Express. I went inside, waited for a half hour and then asked why my reservation wasn’t ready. I was told that the problem was that my wizard number wasn’t given to Avis when the reservation was made, I know Amex has my wizard number and they told me that I was going to get a 2 class upgrade b/c I was in the presidents club so it sounds like they just screwed up. The reservation was also for an intermediate size car, I requested a full size. Because my wizard number wasn’t provided at the time of the reservation they didn’t have a 2 class upgrade available so all they had was a Hyundai Sonata, no GPS available either. I called up Amex and gave it to them for the screw up but they wouldn’t do anything to help, I’m still trying to get something out of them.

Driving in my crappy Hyundai with no GPS I managed to get to my destination using my iPhone for directions, then I went to Best Buy and bought a GPS. I had a couple of stops to make before going to the hotel and every time I stopped I had to park about three blocks away (as usual for New York) I was wearing my brand new Hickey Freeman suit and I had no umbrella, it was raining really hard and by the time I got to the hotel I was completely soaked.

At one of my stops I realized that I left all my cash at home, I called American Express and asked if there was a way they could help. The Global Assist department agreed to wire me the money which would be available immediately (for free), I would have to pick it up from a check cashing store. I asked for $500, they asked me if I was sure that would be enough, feeling like the guy from coming to America I said “maybe we should make it $1000″ they said no problem the money is there you just have to pick it up. The check cashing place turned out to be about 30 minutes away, even though it was only about 2 miles. I picked up the money with no problem at all, pretty cool.

The hotel I stayed at is the W Times Square, right in the heart of the city. I was upgraded at check in courtesy of American Express, and I received an $85 credit to the Blue Fin, the restaurant in the W. The room I had was a “Fabulous” room with one King bed. I requested an upgrade to a suite but they were fully booked. The room was on the 47th floor and had a phenomenal view but that’s the best part of the room in my opinion, everything else was unimpressive. The room was small and the bathroom has a sliding glass door that does not lock, it may seem cool but I found it rather disturbing especially when housekeeping came in while I was taking a crap.
The people that work in the hotel (housekeeping aside) were extremely nice and very helpful, but overall the hotel doesn’t even compare to the Encore in Vegas which costs less per night.

After checking into the hotel I decided to buy some throw away clothes to wear until it stopped raining, the W provided me with an excellent umbrella so I walked a few blocks to the Gap to get some cheap clothes. I got what I needed and went to pay, my American Express Black Card got referred to the fraud department when trying to charge $120. I had to wait 30 minutes before AMEX decided that I was who I said I was and finally let me buy my clothes. By the time I walked out of the Gap the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. I did a little shopping and walked around the city for a few hours before meeting up with a friend. I had American Express make me dinner reservations at one of my favorite NYC restaurants, Le Marais, even with AMEX calling I still had to wait for a half hour to be seated. I had a great steak dinner when they finally served us, the food alone was worth the trip.

I decided that I didn’t want to come back home so fast especially b/c I wasted half of the day with all the rain. I called Amex and asked them to put me on the 6AM flight Tuesday morning, no problem just a $150 change fee (delta direct charges $200). I had to work on Monday from 9-6 so I went to the Regus Business World office in Rockefeller Plaza, I get free membership through American Express, I also get a free private office for a half day. As usual with Regus they had no idea that I was supposed to get the free office, they didn’t know about the Black card, they said I needed a platinum card, after looking into it they gave me an office for the whole day. In between phone calls (AT&T dropped almost every call I made in NYC) I was able to go out and enjoy the city a bit, I went to the Rockefeller observation deck which was cool even though it took a long time to get to the top with all the lines you have to wait in. I walked to Central Park, checked out some shops on 5th avenue and decided that next time I go to NY I want to stay at the Plaza hotel, it looks like it has real class.

On Monday morning I got an email from Delta saying that I was upgraded to first class for the return trip, sounds good. Sometime during the day AMEX called me to say that there was a problem with my ticket, apparently my credit card was declined and they wanted to know why it would be declined. Yes, American Express was calling me to ask what was wrong with my American Express card. I called American Express customer service and they said no charges were declined, I called Delta and they said I was booked on the flight in coach, they said I was in first class before Amex changed me back to coach b/c I had requested a specific seat. What I actually requested was that they book me a specific seat and attempt me to upgrade it to first class, they got half of the request right. Neither Delta nor American Express could guarantee me a seat in first class at this time.

After a 3PM lunch I started to feel sick and I thought maybe it would be smarter to get on a late flight home, Delta and AMEX couldn’t change the flight without charging another $150, I was not willing to give them any more money at this time so I was stuck until 6AM. I didn’t have a hotel room b/c I was planning on staying out most of the night anyway. From 6PM until 3AM I basically did nothing but walk around and look for bathrooms. I had only slept about 3 hours Sunday night and I didn’t sleep at all on Monday night so by the time I got to the airport at 4AM I couldn’t even stand straight. The Delta counter wouldn’t help me b/c the flight was operated by Northwest, I had to go to the Northwest counter. The “Northwest” counter actually says Delta on it, and they wouldn’t upgrade me or even look at the email I had from Delta b/c “that’s Delta not Northwest, it doesn’t matter what they say”. I ended up getting the upgrade about 10 minutes before the flight and was actually given the same seat as on my original ticket. The flight was pretty comfortable until on final approach to Detroit when we had to go-around and fly a different approach b/c of a bird strike with the plane ahead of us, it was a little scary being half asleep hearing the engine at low power for the approach and then all the sudden full power and steep climb but I got to fly over my house which was actually pretty easy to spot, that was pretty cool. The flight only got in about 10 minutes late and I picked up my car and drove straight to work. When I got home I went straight to bed and slept for over 12 hours but I’m still tired so I’m heading to bed now. I think I’m going to put off 24-hour vacations for a while, too many problems so far.

David

One cardholder wanted to locate and purchase the horse ridden by Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. The horse was located in a stud ranch in Mexico, purchased and delivered to Europe by the concierge (from http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/blackcard.asp)

I haven’t thought of much to ask my concierge for yet, I only called in twice but so far they haven’t done anything I couldn’t do. The first time I called them I asked them to find me a local store that carried Pantherella Cashmere Socks, or a store that could ship them to me. This is the response I received:

I was not able to locate anything local or any physical stores for that matter, near you or in the US. Below I have listed 2 links that do sell the socks and ship to addresses in the US. I was able to find some places in the UK that will ship to the US but they are not partnered with us, so I cannot recommend those for you. Please look over these links below.

http://www.customshirt1.com/Socks_Mens_Cashmere.htm 

http://www.dann-online.com/pantherella_socks_from_dann.htm

I was expecting more, like an offer to order them and have them hand-delivered but I couldn’t find anything better myself so I’ll say they did OK on this.

Today I wanted to go to the Detroit Tigers game and sit behind the Tigers dugout, American Express is supposed to have access to the best tickets around. I told them I was willing to sit anywhere in the infield box behind the Tigers dugout or in the dugout itself if they were really good. They knew I was joking about sitting in the dugout but they did offer to call up and ask (I told them they should but I don’t think they did). They were unable to get me any tickets in the sections requested through the ticket department but they did offer to go to third party brokers for me, I declined. I was able to find the tickets I wanted on Stubhub for about $30, I’m sure they would have found those for me if I asked but the bottom line is that in this case it was easier and faster for me to look myself than to call the concierge.

In another case, Daniel asked his concierge to get him a limo on a saturday night at about 2AM (actually sunday morning) to take him to the Casino. The Concierge said there were none available and that they couldn’t call the Casino for us to ask them to send a car. It took me two phone calls to find a limo that was available. That was pretty disappointing.

I’m not saying that the Concierge is useless, I do still think there are things they can help with, especially when traveling. What I am saying is that if you think that when you get a Black Card you can get whatever you want with a single phone call, you are mistaken.

You can find out more about the card at http://www.blackcardsource.com/

Daniel and I both got black cards today, we didn’t get the cards ourselves, we had someone add us as additional cardholders. We do have to pay the annual fee of $1,500.00 each and we have to pay our bill in full every month. From what I’ve read of the material that came with the card most of the rumors about it are false but there are some amazing benefits that I will try to take advantage of to make this card worthwhile.  I will post some of my experiences with the card soon, trying to decide where to use the card first. I doubt if I will get any reaction from store clerks in metro Detroit as they probably have no idea what the card is, not many rich people come here to do their shopping.

I had a rental car reserved from Avis through their “preferred” program, they were  supposed to have a convertible waiting for me in the lot so I wouldn’t have to wait in line with those people who are not “preferred”. Of course there was no one working in the Preferred department so I had to go inside and they said my reservation was for a premium size car, not a convertible, it looked like rain so I let them get away with that. The car they gave me was a Chrysler 300C which is supposed to be comparable to a Buick Lucerne , I suppose Avis would say Janet Reno is comparable to Jessica Alba, after all they are both female (on second thought I can’t be so sure about Janet Reno). I was also charged an underage fee even though my account was setup to waive underage fees and they would not take it off.

Determined to enjoy my “vacation” I drove on to the hotel in Chaprel Hill, The Carolina Inn, a four star hotel owned by University of North Carolina. They were booked solid so would not allow early check-in, so off I went to explore the city. First I stopped in Costco to buy a digital camera, this was the best part of my trip, the people there were much nicer than at the Costco by my house and everything went smoothly. I drove out to downtown Durham and walked around for a few hours, it looked like a cool city even though it was completely deserted, maybe everyone was in church. I walked around the Duke campus for a bit to pretend I was in college (I never went), wasn’t really much to see just a bunch of old buildings.

I was going to check out downtown Raleigh but my stomach started acting up and it was 95 degrees out so I went back to the hotel, which let me check in even though it was still an hour early. I slept for about an hour and when I woke up I felt so bad that I decided to go home early. After paying $175 to change my ticket and $75 to upgrade to first class on the first leg of the flight (there is no first class on the DC to Detroit leg) I finally made it home. The  the first class upgrade was disappointing as United doesn’t really treat you any better, maybe it was b/c it was such a short flight. All in all a pretty crappy vacation. I still like the idea of going on unplanned one day vacations so I will try again in a few weeks.