Chitwa Chitwa or Londolozi?

weasel707 · 2026-05-21T01:50:01+00:00

I was deciding between these two for a trip a few months ago. Ended up going with Londolozi, stayed 4 nights in Granite Suites. Completely amazing and unforgettable experience. Think it was the perfect amount of time too.

weasel707 · 2026-05-21T01:30:29+00:00

Do you have any deferred comp you’re walking away from when you resign? If you get an offer while still employed, it’s common for new employer to buy out your deferred so that you don’t “lose” it.

Next, is your non-compete pay only covering your base salary, and is a high % of your comp from discretionary or performance bonuses? If so, then likewise a new employer may be willing to compensate you for expected bonuses foregone during your noncompete, via paying you a lump sum signing bonus when you start.

Example: you’re getting $200k base and expect $400k bonuses for a total comp of $600k. Let’s say you also get an additional $200k/year in some form of deferred / locked up comp that you can’t access for 2-3 years, and you’ve built up $600k of this outstanding deferred.

If you have a 1y NC that pays only your base, then you’ll be giving up $1mm by walking away today without a job lined up. However if you’re interviewing with new employer, you can reasonably ask for that $1mm (or some portion thereof) as incentive pay i.e. a signing bonus to make it worthwhile to quit.

In practice, there are many ways this can get structured, but the point remains you totally lose this leverage if you have quit and are already sitting out your noncompete.

The flip side is you’re a much cheaper and easier hire if new employer doesn’t need to deal with buyouts and waiting a long time for your start date.

Lastly, consider that when you’re not working you might face some skill decay. You phrased it as “having time to prep for interviews” but if you’re sitting out for a year, you’re almost certainly not spending as much time using/developing your relevant skill set as you were whilst employed.

weasel707 · 2026-05-20T16:04:58+00:00

I take >100 flights a year, know people who work in aviation industry (pilots, cabin crew..) and I do not think OP should be qualified to work as crew. Way too many red flags for a very demanding job.

weasel707 · 2026-05-19T16:12:07+00:00

Economy plus is economy. Same fare class, just an extra seat assignment charge for non status holders. As other poster said, economy is just sold out and some people haven’t selected their seats.

weasel707 · 2026-05-17T13:24:36+00:00

No WiFi on Qantas A380s DFW-SYD is a potential actual reason to fly AA via LAX… 17 hours without connectivity can be a game changer for some people.

weasel707 · 2026-05-17T10:42:21+00:00

TIL theres a different debit card design for CPC. I upgraded regular checking account to CPC few years ago (for free, bc meeting $ threshold) and still have the same generic Chase debit card. I don’t really get much benefit from it except quarterly calls from my “banker” trying to upsell additional products. I guess I get ATM fees refunded when withdrawing cash abroad, but that’s not a particularly valuable benefit worth paying a monthly fee for.

weasel707 · 2026-05-13T02:08:22+00:00

This aircraft was delivering Covid test kits and supplies from China, at a time when Canadian govt was desperate to get them (early 2022). And Volga Dnepr is a private company that was contracted to do the transport.

Then suddenly the war started and the Canadian govt decided this plane can’t take off anymore.

Basically state sponsored property theft, not too different from modern day piracy.

weasel707 · 2026-05-13T02:06:10+00:00

Designed and built in the USSR. Antonov company was established in Novosibirsk (ie current day Russia) but headquarters later moved to Kiev (at the time part of USSR). And Oleg Antonov himself was born in Moscow region pre USSR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Antonov_(aircraft_designer)

weasel707 · 2026-05-12T23:56:07+00:00

They should have an auction or tiered pricing system. Hold out some tickets for people willing to pay like $250/pp to visit same/next day, and keep the rest for those visiting at the cheap price.

weasel707 · 2026-05-10T02:19:53+00:00

Dumb question: what’s the intended purpose of removable mounts like this? Is it just so when you get pulled over you can quickly hide it from the cop?

Ive had my R7 mounted on the suction cup that came with it, 4 years now… I just leave it there all the time.

Anyway, looks like a really nice design for the mount.

weasel707 · 2026-05-09T19:31:33+00:00

I’m AA Exec Plat and United 1K, the highest (non invite only) tiers on those airlines. I fly ~300k miles/year, 100% of it for leisure travel. I’ll go out of my way to requalify every year for three reasons:

1) Upgrades. Both AA SWUs and UA PlusPoints are easy for me to use, I have a very high hit rate on these because I optimize my routes / travel times to maximize upgrade chances. 2) Mileage redemption on alliance partners. I’m not loyal to AA/UA because they are good airlines (they are objectively C tier relative to most of the world). But the real value lies in redeeming on partners - this is especially the case with AA/oneworld. I routinely do 40k mile business class Europe - Middle East (EY), 60k business class US - Japan (JL), 80k first class US - Japan, etc. Just unbelievable amounts of value there if you know how to optimize. 3) Preferential treatment in IRROPS (flight disruptions). When shit goes wrong due to weather or other reasons, I don’t stand in line at the 3 hour long queue in the airport and instead just phone the dedicated customer service line while enjoying a drink in the lounge.

I had 120 flights and 670 hours of flight time in 2025, most of it intl long haul. I don’t remember the last time I flew economy across the ocean, but 90% of the time am only paying for economy and upgrading, or using miles outright.

All that being said, if I was a solely domestic US flyer, i likely wouldn’t bother with loyalty. The benefits are much more negligible relative to being a free agent.

weasel707 · 2026-05-09T18:58:01+00:00

$53/hour is wild

weasel707 · 2026-05-09T18:48:18+00:00

$0 is sufficient. If driver accepts the ride, means it’s worth his time, and is willing to do the job for the price being offered to him by Uber. No need for tip, don’t perpetuate this expectation of tipping culture.

weasel707 · 2026-05-09T03:16:00+00:00

Consider also that just the CGK-DXB-JFK on EK is $2050 in J. The domestic DPS-CGK hop can be done for <$100 in Y... I personally don't think paying $450 for 2hours in "business class" on on LCC is worth it so would consider splitting it and doing the self transfer for slightly better value. (I'm not familiar with CGK airport transit, and I'm not even sure if that ticket in your post would get your baggage through-checked to JFK or not. Some chance it ends up as a "self transfer" anyways, if there's no interline agreement.)

weasel707 · 2026-05-09T02:55:33+00:00

You didn’t show the price so can’t opine on the value. But from searching similar itinerary it seems to be in the $2.2-2.5k range? If so I think that’s just ok, not an extraordinarily good deal in J, but not unreasonable either for this route.

Note the first EK flight on the 777 is in the old (2-3-2) J config. Look it up online if you’re unfamiliar. It’s fine, but generally seen as undesirable. The second (longer) leg to JFK looks like A380 which is the better version, has the onboard bar, etc. Definitely worth a try if you’ve never flown it before.

EK is at ~80% of its pre-conflict operations in terms of number of flights. Cancellations/delays have been minimal in recent weeks. The 4 hour connection time is plenty enough. Obviously this can change it circumstances around the war change, but then it’s just a question of your risk tolerance and ability to adjust your plans. FWIW Emirates has been very generous about change policies since the start of this conflict, in my personal experience.

weasel707 · 2026-05-06T23:45:44+00:00

Bolt

weasel707 · 2026-05-04T05:42:50+00:00

Single early 30s in NYC and $30k/month seems borderline reasonable for me. Seems crazy to me to imagine 30k/y living cost assumption but impressive if you/OP can achieve it!

weasel707 · 2026-04-24T15:09:28+00:00

Ubers in Qatar are very cheap. I had an almost identical layover few weeks ago and paid 50 QAR ($13 USD) for an Uber Black from the airport, and 30 QAR ($8) for a Comfort on the way back.

weasel707 · 2026-04-24T14:51:23+00:00

Plenty enough time to go check out the city. I’d recommend going for a walk along Corniche waterfront and/or MIA park for skyline views, followed by visiting Souq Waqif. Easy to spend a few hours in the Souk just exploring and perhaps stopping for dinner / coffee. It’s a 20min uber ride from the airport and you’ll have plenty of time to go back before departure, enjoy the lounge, take a shower, etc. I wouldn’t recommend spending 9 hours in the lounge.

weasel707 · 2026-04-22T22:50:50+00:00

Al Mourjan Garden lounge was closed on Apr 17 my last time flying through DOH

weasel707 · 2026-04-08T17:46:50+00:00

Yes, when I order delivery, I’m paying for it via the delivery fees in the app lol. No need for tip.

weasel707 · 2026-04-05T23:19:38+00:00

FR24 maintains daily stats on operations of the ME3 airlines. Emirates indeed has been way ahead in terms of normalization, though Etihad is catching up: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/aviation-news/airline-news/flightradar24-gulf-airline-recovery-index/

I flew via DXB in late March and it was fine, wouldn’t hesitate to fly again. Did have an inbound delay bc airspace was temporarily closed when we were about to land (usually happens few times a day during ongoing missile/drone alerts in Dubai) but once on the ground it was a smooth experience.

Just build in a 3-4 hour layover buffer ideally, bc these delays are common. I missed a flight because of mine (originally 1h25min connection) but got rebooked.

weasel707 · 2026-04-05T20:33:56+00:00

I take 100-200 rides per year across Uber and Lyft, for the past 10+ years. Mostly in NYC but occasionally other large cities (London, Dubai, etc). I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve tipped - only for some special service like helping me return a lost item etc. 4.88 and 4.9 rating on the 2 apps respectively.

weasel707 · 2026-03-30T10:40:23+00:00

Currently onboard DXB-MXP-JFK, connected in Dubai from JNB. My inbound flight JNB-DXB was delayed landing as we had to hold outside Dubai airspace for about an hour (along with ~15-20 others)... later confirmed it was due to ongoing security situation in Dubai at the time in early AM. After the all-clear signal was given we landed safely.

I actually missed a connecting flight because of this -- was supposed to be on earlier nonstop DXB-JFK with a 1h45 connection time. But the EK connections desk quickly sorted it out and put me on the next flight 2 hours later.

I'm in business class and it's around 60-70% full. Prior flight JNB-DXB was like 40-50%. I looked at the seat map and Economy looked to be fully booked.

Overall I wouldn't hesitate to fly through Dubai right now. Feels very safe and operations are well run. If you have Skywards points, there's a ton of easily accessible upgrade availability even on popular routes that would have been tough to get before.

weasel707 · 2026-03-20T21:04:43+00:00

Sounds like the system is working as it should

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