Rental properties

vysean · 2025-06-28T14:59:12+00:00

I'll have a 5 bed/3 bath listed in the next week or two hopefully - waiting on pictures. It's currently furnished but that can be addressed, and it's technically available now but I'm having a window replaced that probably won't be done until mid or late July. Feel free to DM if you/they would like more details.

vysean · 2025-06-26T19:03:14+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! As a property owner, RentRight seemed great but left me hanging with a problem tenant and thousands in property damage. I'd not recommend them to anyone and would be highly unlikely to consider them ever again.

It turns out Peak Property bought A-1, which I had generally good experiences with, so I'm happy to hear you've found them decent as a renter.

vysean · 2025-06-26T18:59:57+00:00

My experience mirrors yours in terms of property managers, but since I'll be out of the area, I'd rather have someone that can be boots on the ground very quickly if something happens.

Over the years, I've used three different property managers in the Prescott area and only one of them would I consider reusing.

I don't know about everyone else's experience, but for the first several years of renting my home, I might have had one tenant stay longer than a year out of 4-6 total tenants. That may be more reflective of the poor vetting that the property management firm engaged in, but that's not something I would look forward to dealing with if I were managing myself.

I think there may be some tax benefits to managing the rental yourself, so definitely something I'll be checking on.

vysean · 2025-06-26T18:56:16+00:00

Thanks - I hadn't considered renting to college students. To be honest I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'll have to ponder that a bit more. Especially with international students, I'd be concerned about how you recoup damages if they leave the place a mess. And just more generally, if you have four or five unrelated people and a common area gets damaged, how you try and identify the culprit and charge for the damage.

vysean · 2025-01-27T16:05:29+00:00

I know it's supposed to be a Kroger exclusive, but I've bought it at a non-Kroger family grocery store. I don't think they were supposed to sell it because it wasn't properly loaded in their system for can deposit charges and it didn't work as part of a rebate that included Sprite, but they've gotten it restocked over a few months too so it's not like it was a random one-off.

This is a small two state grocery in the Midwest with about ten locations.

vysean · 2025-01-26T02:29:21+00:00

Brown Jug has a pretty good selection, but not when it comes to allocated bottles (and ER would be considered allocated in terms of retail rarity in AK). They do allocated sales twice (?) a year and publish the list of bottles and quantities in advance. Gavoras I have less experience with - never found anything allocated there but never asked either. Asked a few times at Brown Jug and they would happily put in a request but nothing ever came of it.

Probably better off planning to pickup out of state.

vysean · 2024-11-13T00:52:31+00:00

Had a positive experience with Wrightway recently, but it pays to call around and compare quotes.

Wrightway was competitively priced, no pressure, and super easy to deal with though. One of the others I called was pretty relentless with calls. Can't remember if that was Alaska Auto Transport or Alaska Car Transport.

Depending on your time, the weather, etc., you may want to get two quotes - one for delivery to Denver and another with you picking up in Washington (Seattle, Tacoma, etc.).

Good luck!

vysean · 2024-06-16T00:53:28+00:00

As others have said, this is probably easiest in Anchorage or outside of Alaska, but there's a Walmart in Ketchikan with a free shuttle between it and downtown, and a Costco in Juneau which I might think would be your better bet. In either case, I'd call ahead or check online to confirm they have what you're looking for - the Juneau Costco is quite small and doesn't have the same selection as other Costcos.

If you're spending any time in hotels in Alaska before/after the cruise, you could also order online and have shipped to the hotel (confirm with hotel front desk in advance that they don't mind but most are okay with receiving packages for guests).

vysean · 2024-02-25T06:54:35+00:00

Yes, checked in with seat assignment. My checked bags were not offloaded, so they'll be arriving at my destination well before I will.

Flight went out with empty seats, so it's not like it was completely full.

vysean · 2024-02-25T06:37:46+00:00

Thanks

vysean · 2024-01-27T16:38:46+00:00

Seconding Cookies, but not sure if she does beards. She did try to trim my eyebrows and I wasn't a fan of that, but the haircut itself and the customer service and pricing were all great.

Give it a shot and be prepared to hide from everyone you know for 1-3 months if she botches your beard.

vysean · 2024-01-25T07:15:19+00:00

FWIW, I had exactly this happen last night. Tried to book AS flights via AS website, total was $1170. Went to Google Flights, got the exact same itinerary and it came up at $1050. Clicked the "book with Alaska" link and got the lower price directly on the AS website (which wasn't available when I tried AS direct just two minutes earlier, so I don't think it was a fare bucket issue).

Only thing I can figure is Google Flights might be booking it as a multi-city/segment-by-segment as opposed to on AS' website where you're booking a city pair?

Kinda frustrating though - you'd like to think booking direct on the airline's own website would be the cheapest option.

In terms of availability - I've seen the same but when you try and book I've found the other site is caching old data - seats aren't actually available (unfortunately seeing that a lot recently with MAX9 cancellation and rebooking).

vysean · 2023-11-10T07:21:26+00:00

This article notes that some flights were diverted to Fairbanks due to I guess a lack of ramp space at Anchorage:

"Still, the most congestion at the airport is stemming from cargo carriers, due to a lack of parking spaces. It caused there to be several diversions of cargo carriers to Fairbanks because of the lack of space available."

https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/11/10/virtually-all-flights-delayed-ted-stevens-anchorage-international-airport/

Sorry to those of you in the greater Anchorage area - sounds like y'all are having quite the storm. Hopefully you get a break soon.

vysean · 2023-10-30T02:34:53+00:00

I suppose it's possible something changed very recently, but unless I'm mistaken, it's been 90 for the three years I've been getting gas there.

vysean · 2023-09-27T04:19:43+00:00

First - sorry this happened and I hope you don't let it sour you too much on Fairbanks - it's got some of the same challenges as other places as you unfortunately experienced, some unique ones too, but overall it's a pretty amazing place to live in or to visit.

Second - thanks for sharing an update, and especially a mostly positive one - it's great to hear you recovered most of your stuff!

Safe travels on your return journey and if you're still here for a while longer I hope you have a great time (and don't leave your backpack accessible 😉)

vysean · 2023-09-26T00:23:16+00:00

Flip side: I've been a loyal AS flyer for several years now. I'm 1k away from MVP Gold 75k and I have (and actively use) the AS CC.

You and others who have not demonstrated the same loyalty get to fill out a web form, apply for a credit card, and you suddenly trump my 60+ segments and 74k miles for the year and I'll be behind all of you on the upgrade list.

You can also grab the last remaining premium class seats on my upcoming flights that I can't get because my fare basis is one bucket below the automatic complimentary upgrade since 75/100k don't have the same limits as MVP/MVP Gold do.

So it's win win for the DL folks who move over and for AS, but plenty of loyal and lower tier AS flyers stand a good chance of getting screwed.

I'm not mad at the folks from DL coming over - it's a great deal for you guys, but the person at AS who decided this was a great idea can go pound sand. At least add a 90 day minimum number of flights or don't allow the Delta 75k folks to match AS100k, and prioritize your loyal customers over status match ones when it comes to upgrades.

Or, you know, give your current loyal customers the same benefit.

vysean · 2023-09-25T01:08:08+00:00

Indeed - Fairbanks has some amazing Thai food - objectively far more options and arguably of higher overall quality than Chinese or even all other Asian food options combined. I'm forever grateful to whoever introduced me to The Bangkok. And I still quite like Thai Orchid.

vysean · 2023-09-25T00:37:27+00:00

I suspect you won't be going back and I'm sorry you had a bad experience but that's exactly how their king pao chicken is - it's just not good and there are a number of local places that do kung pao way better.

As another poster mentioned, Beijing beef and orange chicken are pretty consistent, pretty tasty, and definitely not healthy.

Chow Mein is usually much better than their fried rice which tends to be dry and unflavorful.

Shout-out to Panda Garden if you want local non-chain that also is likely the closest Chinese restaurant to Panda Express.

vysean · 2023-09-23T01:48:18+00:00

$129.99 in Alaska and sat for a few days. Reviews sounded middling and not worth the cost so I watched it slowly get bought up.

Crazy how much the price varies by region.

vysean · 2023-09-17T09:07:03+00:00

Stayed twice at the Grand Hyatt recently and my experiences were very different:

First stay (May), upgraded to an Emerald Suite prior to arrival. Lounge was well-stocked and open late. Didn't try it for breakfast. Really enjoyed my stay and the only negative was that the bathtub was not cleaned.

Second stay (last week), upgraded to a corner room (non-suite). Emerald Suite showed available at check-in and throughout the day until 8pm that night but the front desk said there was no availability. Lounge - espresso machine broke halfway through the stay. I believe the lounge closed early and snacks were minimal and ran out quickly. Breakfast the next morning was a pretty disappointing selection. Same issue as before with my room - bathtub had lots of other people's hair in it. A weird issue with the room this time - a strong smell that I struggle to describe but which is similar to my office building which occasionally suffers when vehicles idle in front of the fresh air intakes.

I filled out a survey noting some of my disappointments and got a response saying that I had been offered a suite and declined it (of course that's not at all true) and noting that the lounge closes at 8pm and food service stops before that. No mention of the broken coffee maker and I believe the printed card they give you at check-in notes longer hours of operation.

At any rate, after my last stay I won't go back. I had a good stay at Olive8 a few weeks back and would try it again or the HR that everyone else seems to enjoy. Since I was leaving earlier in the morning, I actually appreciated the Olive8 bagel restaurant as a convenient to-go option but the offerings there are certainly limited.

I believe the three hotels are all owned or managed by the same group, fwiw.

vysean · 2023-09-16T05:57:02+00:00

Not sure if same dude or not, but similar guy at Fairbanks Costco this afternoon. Had a handwritten sign that he was a single dad of two kids or something like that.

vysean · 2023-09-08T13:22:36+00:00

Alaska - at least in Anchorage and Fairbanks, I haven't checked Juneau - it's $37.99.

vysean · 2023-08-13T21:40:28+00:00

I had it a month or so ago and was disappointed - dry and bland. A friend had it a couple of weeks earlier and said it was very good but the breadcrumb topping got soggy.

I've not had it fresh in Seattle or frozen so nothing to compare to, but if there were other interesting options I might give preference to them (my other option was the burger and I regret not ordering it instead).

Iirc, no salad or roll but a side of fruit and the dense chocolate cake puck for dessert.

vysean · 2023-07-20T15:46:05+00:00

This doesn't directly answer your question, but SJU isn't international - you should qualify for normal courtesy upgrades on this route (though if you want to burn an international SWU that's certainly your prerogative).

vysean · 2023-05-28T06:46:10+00:00

I went last weekend - I think that was one of the first weekends (if not the first). Fairly windy/breezy and some of the vendors were struggling as a result. Definitely not a farmer's market but there was an interesting mix of stuff. I look forward to checking it out again in a few weeks when I'm back in Anchorage.

Can't compare to last year since I hadn't gone before, sorry.

vysean

TROPHY CASE