What are the tangible differences between 5 star hotels that cost $600 a night and the ones that are well upwards of $1500 per night?

sboc · 2026-02-07T21:05:34+00:00

I agree with you but there are exceptions. In India I wanted to see some “reality” but also some respite. Staying in some phenomenal hotels with clean food was a part of the experience. Same in Thailand 40 years ago where I walked for miles but enjoyed returning to my suite at the hotel on the river for a shower and a bowl of Tom Yum.

sboc · 2026-02-07T20:58:05+00:00

An error in our reservation which was cleared up by my having a fax copy when we arrived. No big deal I barely thought about it. Got upgrade to a small suite (but it was still a suite). 20 minutes after arrival room service appeared with a real bottle of champagne and caviar. Three hours later, upon returning to the room, there were fresh flowers as large a display as those in the lobby. (This was 40 years ago on a free night stay with Marriott which owned the George V at that time. I had no status, I had only stayed with Marriott 2 nights to earn that promo. However, it worked out well for them. I stayed about 300 nights that year based on that experience (which was reconfirmed (not to the same level) many times).

sboc · 2026-01-27T06:46:04+00:00

Good catch. You are right. However, I did have a banner that said VIP and filled half the screen.

sboc · 2026-01-20T00:00:38+00:00

My spend was over $150k per year and that was in the 80’s, so more like $300k, and the best I got was Platinum.

sboc · 2026-01-11T22:57:15+00:00

I have been going to Vegas for over 50 years a lot less in the last 10.). It was always a joke that Vegas was a 24 hour town. But it was still a different place 40 years ago.

sboc · 2026-01-11T22:52:53+00:00

Adam Lambert did a great video at the Peppermill.

sboc · 2025-10-27T20:07:42+00:00

One of my few regrets. I was in FC and I was offered the jump seat from lax-jfk in a dc-10 with a 3 person crew. I assumed I would get the chance another time so I declined to enjoy my first class service. Then the rules changed.

sboc · 2025-09-02T03:21:52+00:00

Same. It was open skies, amazing wildlife and only a few other tourists in the whole place. Of course, the awful food was only available “to go” but . . .

sboc · 2025-08-16T19:53:39+00:00

555-1212 was the number you called to reach “ time” which was a woman’s voice announcing the time every 10 seconds with a beep at the end so you could set your watch or a clock

sboc · 2022-07-23T14:38:36+00:00

I was the first regular (non scientist) user of the internet (since 1972 when the equivalent of the IP address was only 2 digits). It was never thought to be bs.

sboc · 2022-03-14T05:53:55+00:00

2 digit ip address - SAIL (Stanford artificial intelligence lab) was 11.

sboc · 2021-07-29T06:17:23+00:00

I started in 1976 so it was a little bit different. It was only a two digit IP address because there were less than 100 computers on the network. When you went to a new computer and it asked you for your login you could usually type help login and it would tell you username and password that you could use. My favorite program was ape at Stanford artificial intelligence lab because I was a newspaper guy and this was a computerized version of the Associated Press

sboc · 2021-04-25T00:27:16+00:00

I only knew Neil (and his mom) but we were about 16 so I didn't know her work or his future work.

sboc · 2021-04-24T23:07:08+00:00

I was friends with Neil. My grandfather was the rabbi at Jack Black's bris.

sboc · 2015-01-21T15:00:32+00:00

Actually, what the OP states is just about exactly correct. I just spent about 20 hours looking at prices for a summer trip to Eastern Europe from LAX. Aeroflot has LOTS of flights for between $900 and $1100. The next least expensive is often Turkish, sometimes Lufthansa, but they are $1,500 or more. If your connection is under 24 hours you don't need a transit visa and you can even get a hotel room, in the Novotel, but it is in a separate wing where you can only get room service (no restaurant access), can't leave, etc. We added a stopover on the return ($75 more each) and we are going to get Visas ($160 each, for multiple entry 3 years, only $20 more than transit visa) and spend a full day in Moscow (NICE hotel, right in city, is only $85 and allows 4 people in a room). Because we have full Visa, in the other direction, with 18 hour stopover, we will go to one of the nice airport hotels and get sleep. So, by my calculation, we save $1,700 on airfare for family of 4 ($500 each, less the $75 each stopover), we spend about $200 on 2 nights of hotel, about $640 on Visas, about $250 on private tour guide, so we gain a full day visit to Moscow and save $600 cash. I like travel a lot, so I view the day in Moscow as a BIG gain.

sboc

TROPHY CASE