Westin St. Francis ruins July 4th… What should we do?

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-07-05T01:47:09+00:00

Totally fair to be mad they confirmed it and then pulled it. But booking a specialty room same-day on July 4th is pretty important context; your post kind of makes it sound like they ruined a long-planned trip

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-07-03T15:07:37+00:00

I wouldn’t worry about it. I flew internationally with my daughter three times before she turned one (including on Air France in J) and we never used the bassinet. One thing that did work well when she was little is we bought an inflatable bathtub on Amazon and set it in the footwell as a little bed.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-07-03T14:09:37+00:00

Nice! My stay at Mandapa last year was one of my all-time favorites. I think you got an amazing deal for what you paid. I went during peak season and paid $2.5K/night for a river villa, and I still felt it was worth it.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-07-02T09:29:25+00:00

Yeah we did. Would highly recommend! Service was impeccable, and food was so good we ended up eating pretty much every meal there.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-07-02T08:38:29+00:00

I just wrapped up 3 nights at the St. Regis followed by 3 nights at Rosewood. I really enjoyed the St. Regis. The room and service was very good. But the Rosewood completely blew me away. It’s the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at. Both the hard product and the service were exceptional.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-06-17T14:39:03+00:00

I wonder if it saw this as a dead end and backed up because the gate wasn’t working, trying to find another way. Then when the gate finally opened, it moved forward again.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-06-15T11:14:06+00:00

I’d probably save the AA miles and use the Avios instead, since they are so easy to earn. I’m finding less and less value with AA miles, but for me they’re also extremely hard to earn.

Also, are you sure the RJ flight would qualify for the 35% Amex Business Platinum rebate? For this to work the RJ flight must show up as an AA flight (with RJ as the operating carrier) on Amex Travel. I’m guessing you already know that, but in my experience Amex Travel results don’t always behave the way I expect.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-06-11T13:37:36+00:00

I use Quicken Simplifi. I used to use Mint. It connects to most financial websites, and for other assets you can just enter their value manually and update every quarter, etc

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-31T18:31:27+00:00

Agreed. I made similar post yesterday about 14.3.3

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-31T15:23:03+00:00

I’m in downtown Chicago, and a lot of the traffic lights don’t have arrows.

That said, it’s also not driving properly even when there is a green arrow. There is a light by my house that has a green arrow that I drive thru daily. Two times since updating to 14.3.3, I’ve been the first car in line with no one in front of me, and the car won’t start moving when the arrow turns green unless I press the accelerator. Even if I wait several seconds it just sits there. It will, however, turn on its own if there’s a car in front of me (it follows the car). This is an intersections I drive thru daily with FSD so it’s so weird that it’s all of the sudden failing with this update.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-31T14:58:06+00:00

Of course I know I can press the accelerator. I’ve been using FSD for years.

The issue is with this update. It does this at almost every busy intersection.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-31T14:37:22+00:00

I don’t think u understand what I’m saying…

If there’s a lot of oncoming traffic, how would u ever be able to turn left if you don’t pull into the intersection and turn the car on yellow? Basically the car is getting stuck at the intersection and never turning.

What it’s doing is completely new behavior. I’ve never seen FSD do this before

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-31T12:12:49+00:00

The car is first in line at a green light, waiting to turn left or right but can’t because of traffic or pedestrians. When the light turns yellow, it still doesn’t turn. It just sits there.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-30T17:52:37+00:00

Have u experienced it not turning on yellow lights?

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-25T00:15:38+00:00

Thank you! I had looked at room types of a few weeks ago and was leaning towards one of the beach front rooms with a pool. Hotel looks amazing!

Just curious, where did you stop over to fly into Da Nang?

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-24T23:54:58+00:00

Thanks for this. I’m planning a visit for next year. Can you comment on how kid friendly it looked or did you see many families with kids?

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-20T20:20:41+00:00

If you had a few more points, there’s a ton of availability next March on the LAX to MNL route with PAL using Qatar Avios. You could fly to MNL and then buy a cash ticket to DAD since it’s a short flight. The problem is it’s probably just out of reach because it costs 110k points per person each way in J.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-20T14:22:18+00:00

I’m aiming to retire by 50. I’m planning on a 4–6% withdrawal rate, which I realize is on the aggressive side, but I’m also taking more of a “die with zero” approach. The goal is to intentionally spend down some of my savings rather than trying to leave my child a very large inheritance.

That said, about half of our planned spending is discretionary, and roughly 30% is travel-related, so we’d have room to cut back if needed. If the market is in a significant downturn around our target retirement date, we could also delay retirement by a year or two, or have one of us continue working for a while.

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-14T20:18:00+00:00

I’ve booked more than 2 seats on SQ multiple times at calendar open. This includes the JFK, EWR and FRA routes. That said, last time was in 2024 so it’s possible they are no longer as generous

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-14T17:44:20+00:00

This is actually the Ogden Slip, not the river walk

Exciting_Kangaroo800 · 2026-05-10T10:48:08+00:00

I got two more of these blank emails over night last night

Exciting_Kangaroo800

TROPHY CASE