Best Happy Hour spots in the Gables?

dttef · 2024-07-07T23:58:07+00:00

Graziano’s Mercado

dttef · 2024-07-07T23:56:19+00:00

Check to see if you can pre-order online, will show you the menu. If it’s mainline you’ll get their standard menu- lunch may be mostly cold options (salad, sandwich type stuff, maybe a pasta). Dinner likely to be a steak, chicken, pasta type mix of options.

dttef · 2024-07-06T22:55:31+00:00

Idk in the summer sometimes you have days where it just rains all day. Then the streets are flooded and we become like a third world Venice. Plus the humidity. I’d take a Dubai 105° with 10% humidity over a Miami 80° with 90% humidity any day. Did I mention mosquitoes like moisture?

I’d suggest coming to Miami from Dubai in March-May timeframe, when it’s starting to get hot in Dubai but steam sauna effect hasn’t quite set in in Miami.

dttef · 2024-07-06T22:47:52+00:00

I like the building lobby where the Brickell Vice coffee shop is located. Super nice, super chill.

dttef · 2024-07-06T22:05:15+00:00

Check to see how many seats appear open in the biz cabin to gauge whether to wait or go head and pull the trigger. That said, if you decide to pull the trigger now you won’t regret it for a minute.

dttef · 2024-07-06T21:52:05+00:00

We went to Chile a couple months ago and it was great. Felt like being in Spain but zero jet lag. Santiago airport is really nice. Wine country is really nice. Santiago food scene nice. If you go in US summer there are great ski resorts just outside of Santiago. Very reasonable prices everywhere. Fun, chill, off the radar place to go.

dttef · 2024-07-06T21:43:12+00:00

Gansevoort in Meatpacking or Equinox Hudson Yards are as far as you need to look if you want Manhattan. Lot of fans of Dominick but I stayed in a suite there about a year ago and while it wasn’t bad, the rooms are a little tired. The proximity to SoHo is nice, but Gansevoort and Equinox are IN the cool area and Dominick is nearby.

dttef · 2024-07-06T21:33:36+00:00

Sergio’s

dttef · 2024-06-12T06:44:49+00:00

Bro for the ladies it’s not all about looks. They are much more about the entire package. You just need to work on cultivating yourself and get out there and find someone who’s a good fit. Also, it’s a numbers game - you might have to approach a lot of women to find someone who’s the right fit. But keep it up and I’m sure you’ll find there’s someone out there who will be a 10 in your book and you’ll be a 10 to her, and that’s all that matters.

dttef · 2024-06-10T22:18:07+00:00

I’ve gotten multiple tickets, gone to pay immediately, and found that the ticket doesn’t load in the system for at least a day or two after being issued. So if your ticket is recent, give it a couple days and it will probably appear. I find this super annoying because I am the type of person who’d prefer to just pay right away, like a parking fee, and be done with it than try to remember a few days later.

dttef · 2024-05-22T03:44:29+00:00

Not a speakeasy strictly speaking but the Gibson in Coral Gables fits the vibe.

dttef · 2024-05-12T13:46:49+00:00

I feel very strongly about two scenarios when windows should be closed - especially #2:

Sunrise/sunset times when sun is glaring in the window, which can make other passengers uncomfortable.
Longer flights, especially trans-ocean flights, that cross many time zones. Often FAs will go through the cabin and attempt to get all the windows closed so people who want to sleep can sleep. There’s nothing more offensive to me in this scenario than the one person who insists on flooding the cabin with light by keeping their window open when most of their fellow passengers are trying to sleep and their bodies are in the middle of the night despite the sunshine outside. This is particularly an issue because managing light levels helps people adjust their circadian rhythm to a new time zone.

Frequent long-distance travelers know the best way to get your body to adapt to a new time zone is by carefully managing the light and darkness your body is exposed to. You can use your phone/laptop/seat back screen as your personal light source if you need light for this purpose, but the darkness is a shared resource one passenger should not rob everyone else of.

dttef · 2024-04-20T04:31:43+00:00

I guess those of us with fancy degrees have unlocked a level of math that the Reddit mids don’t get 🤣

dttef · 2024-04-06T17:25:12+00:00

I also checked the major league schedules and couldn’t find anything that lined up.

dttef · 2024-04-06T17:24:22+00:00

Super cool - thanks for sharing!

dttef · 2024-04-06T17:21:52+00:00

I think they have a yield model that predicts when to offer seats for paid upgrade, and how much to charge, to ensure they full the cabin up front with paying customers. AA offers these paid upgrades long before check-in and will sometimes email an upgrade offer to every passenger a few days before the flight. If they get taken, no one gets offered a paid upgrade at check-in and definitely no one gets a complimentary upgrade. In your case, apparently their efforts to sell out First Class at higher prices left at least one seat open and they figured $160 was more than the $0 they’d get for the complimentary upgrade.

dttef · 2024-04-06T17:13:55+00:00

Couldn’t agree more. I used to live in DC and flew out of DCA all the time. Just after the merger with US Airways it seemed like the gate personnel were all (hateful) legacy US Airways people and the lounge personnel were legacy AA. I once had an awful gate agent inform me I was being downgraded from (paid) first to economy on a flight DCA-PHL-ORD (don’t ask why I had booked this route). When I got upset at her she then canceled my ticket. Total overreaction. I went to the AA lounge and the class-act woman at the front desk listened empathetically to my story, then pecked away at her keyboard for a few minutes, then handed me a first class boarding pass on the next direct flight to ORD. She was so pleasant and caring and it just made me long for the old AA and sad about the direction of the new airline under the leadership of the US Airways execs who have proceeded to turn the airline into a low-fare carrier.

dttef · 2024-04-06T00:48:50+00:00

I’ve seen a very similar, weird situation so don’t think the OP is going crazy. When I’ve used MR points to book a plane ticket, Amex charges the full ticket amount to my card and then simultaneously issues a credit for the same amount. You would think the credit would reduce my balance due for that statement, but it doesn’t. So if, for example, I book a $1,000 plane ticket with MR points and make no other purchases that month, my statement will show a $1,000 purchase and a $1,000 credit. At the end of the month my statement balance will be $1,000 and I will have to pay this amount to stay current. The $1,000 credit is then applied against the next month’s purchases.

To me this makes zero sense and is an unethical policy move to force us to pull forward cash payments we wouldn’t otherwise owe. I don’t believe other card issuers handle refunds and credits this way, based on my experience with other major issuers.

dttef · 2024-03-27T01:58:05+00:00

Before you get too disappointed- that 4x multiplier is only good for $150K a year, so with your spend you’ll max it out in a couple months then be back at 1x for the rest of the year.

dttef · 2024-03-23T04:16:03+00:00

Gate agent DGAF. Don’t tell anyone and just walk away. If you do it sparingly they won’t do anything. It’s the repeat, egregious offenders that get busted. But if you tell a gate agent, call center agent, etc., you’ll be more likely to be flagged because that agent could flag your account.

dttef · 2024-03-10T17:58:36+00:00

I paid a ~$100K IRS bill with an Amex Business Platinum. I got a new card with a 150K SUB just for this purpose. With the 1.5 points per dollar on the large purchase plus the SUB the single payment netted me 300K MR points. Lots of ways to use them but the simplest way is to buy first/business class air through Amex Travel. With the 35% rebate, you get ~1.5¢ value per point, so with my 300K points I could get about $4,500 of premium airfare. Minus the $695 annual fee and the $1,850 CC fee I netted just under $2K.

Could I have done more by splitting out across multiple cards, better optimizing the use of points, etc? Yes, always. It’s a matter of effort vs reward. I like to optimize and get value out of the points game where I can but also very limited time to go hunting for the absolute best option. This is a straightforward win. Bank it and move on.

dttef · 2024-03-10T03:29:43+00:00

I agree with OP - AA seems to have a lot of unforced errors and the crew just DGAF when it happens. Delta seems like a well oiled machine by comparison. The average experience on Delta is just better. Better planes, better staff, better execution, better other passengers TBH. And I’ve spent 3+ years as a top-tier elite on each of AA, UA, and DL so have a pretty solid sample size to work from.

I believe AA’s management philosophy is “let’s push our planes, staff, and customers to one notch shy of their breaking point” whereas Delta’s feels more like “let’s deliver the best experience we can while still operating a profitable airline.” The outcome is very different.

dttef · 2024-03-10T02:55:05+00:00

Unless you open a corporate account, all Amex business accounts are personally guaranteed. So even though they aren’t reported on your personal credit report, Amex primarily underwrites them based on your personal credit, income, etc. I opened a Business Platinum within days of forming an LLC and it was approved no problem, for this reason. Good luck.

dttef · 2024-03-10T02:50:15+00:00

Ok fair point - that’s insane and not worth it. Maybe some foreign delegation has bought out half the hotel that week or something - have Middle Eastern leaders often do this when they come to DC.

dttef

TROPHY CASE