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Just grabbing a bite to eat at the Continental President’s Club in LGA (for all its problems it has the best cereal selection of any club I’ve been to) after my 3rd flight leg out of 16 (!) until the end of the year and will be in NYC for the weekend and then in Toronto until Wednesday.  Updates may be sporadic especially while north of the border.

I was the apparently the only elite flyer on the flight who paid for coach as I got the only elite upgrade on the flight and no other elites were on the upgrade standby list and the flight went out with empty first class seats.  Gotta love the transparency that Continental offers via their PDA site! Incidentally (for those of you now checking out my seat assignment on the PDA site) 1B is truly a great first class seat on the 737-500 series. It’s a bulkhead but it has a great cutout for your feet and hand luggage.

Another cool service that I just learned about 3 minutes ago: faxzero.com I’ve always wondered how to print things at the club and this is the answer-fax it for free to the self-service fax machine!

More thoughts/trip notes from 31,000 feet in the sky…thanks for the free wi-fi Airtran and gogo!

-This was my 5th trip to NYC this year of 1 night or less…which is fine because that’s about when my NYC tolerance level runs out.  (My trip back to NYC next week will actually be for a weekend-2 whole nights!)

-I’m flying in business class.  Airtran gave myself, my wife, and my mother comp upgrades due to my elite status!  The business class really is quite nice for an LCC.  Lots of legroom, wide leather seats, tons of great free drinks and even non-alcoholic drinks like Fuze, Smartwater, Vitamin water, etc.  And the flight attendant has already refilled my Fresca three times without asking!   There is also a free snack basket that has T.G.I. Friday salt and cracked pepper chips under OK parve supervision that I’ve never seen sold in any stores.

-Avis hooked me up with a nice Caddy for the trip…at $30/day, market rates for gas, and valet return service it’s hard to go wrong! Gotta love Avis Chairman status!

-Clubhouse Cafe on 46th street in the city is simply awesome.  The fries are crisp to perfection.  The Brazilian drinks are great as well.  Their Caipirinha (pronounced Ca’eye-pa-rinya) is great! My recommendation? An off the menu option that’s popular in Brazil, A Caipirinha de Maracujá, or Caipirinha made with passion fruit.  It might be an acquired taste after a year in Brazil, but it tasted great to me. Plus when I go there I get to brush up on my Portuguese with all of the Brazilian employees…

-I used my free Diamond Hyatt Place night in Secaucus, NJ.  Typical great Hyatt Place!  Every room is a mini-suite with a pull-out couch, semi-room divider, 42″ LCD, emtpy fridge, nice work desk, free wi-fi, and a great free breakfast with Tazo teas, Seattle’s best coffee, Quaker oatmeal, cereal boxes, fruit, etc.  It’s not too far away, and there’s some great shopping nearby.  The rumor mill is that there will soon be some more Hyatt Place properties in Manhattan.

-I was able to use the United Red Carpet Club (RCC) in LGA for the first time thanks to Continental’s switch to the Star Alliance. Here’s a quick comparison.

Pros: It’s much newer and way nicer looking than the dreary Continental President’s Club (PC) in LGA (easily the worst looking PC I’ve ever been in, but then again LGA has some of the worst terminals that I’ve ever been in so it still beats that).  There are also self-service cans of soda available, which is better than having to ask for soda from the bartender at the PC

Cons: The RCC charge $$$ for all alcoholic drinks (Free in PC’s).  They do not allow you to take newspapers/magazines from the club like the PC does. Their is no ice water dispenser like that have in PC’s, you must request water from the bar.  There were no kosher snacks besides for apples. (PC’s will often have granola bars, chips, bananas, apples, and cereal boxes.  They even had matzah and other kosher snacks on Passover!)

So the RCC has much better facilities but worse services…tough choice!

Ding…they want me to turn off my computer, the FA just announced to please put our seats up to the upright and most uncomfortable position…how true it that!  I better just publish this before the wi-fi gets turned off…

Hope you enjoyed this mini-trip report!

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Some thoughts from 31,000 feet in the sky…

-If GoGo’s plan to give away free wi-fi is to entice people to pay for the service in the future I have to say that it’s working at least on me. Flights have never gone by so fast before!

-I’m posting now aboard Airtran from Akron to LaGuardia for the first of 2 NYC trips within the next 2 weeks.
It’s the first time this year that I wasn’t able to land a complimentary elite business class upgrade as the flight was oversold. I had forgotten just how tight the seat pitch is on Airtran’s B717, a miserly 30 inches!

-Both of the following free wi-fi codes still work like a charm on Airtran:
airtrantrygogo
bosbwi

-Some 30% of the passengers on this flight are Orthodox Jews. The Blue Fringe band is sitting just behind me and I’ve seen more than a dozen people that I know from the local Jewish community. I wonder how long it will be before Airtran starts selling kosher meals on this flight

-It’s incredible how Continental has ceded the Cleveland-NYC market to Airtran. Granted that Akron is a less convenient airport for most people, but this round-trip flight cost just $89. The identical flight on Continental within just a 1 night stay was over $800! Seems like it’s worth the extra 15 minute drive.  Mind you that you can always fly back one way  from NYC to Cleveland on Continental for about $60, but that requires hidden-city ticketing which is officially against the terms of most airlines and you wouldn’t be able to check luggage…

-Yes, the Bose QC15’s really are that much better than the previous generation QC2’s at noise cancellation…Wow!

I didn’t think I would really care to stay connected while flying, but it really is quite nice and a great way to pass the time.

I’m posting from 28,000 feet in the air on an Airtran flight (free upgrade on a $29 coach ticket to business class, of course) from Akron, OH to LaGuardia.

I was able to connect to the Go-Go internet on the ground, but it only started working once the flight passed 10,000 feet.

The speeds are slightly slower than the last Airtran flight that I was on, it’s running at about 1 mbps down and 350 kbps up.

At a regular price of $9.95 I’m not sure who would pay for 45 minutes of slowish wi-fi, but as long as GoGo keeps on giving it out for free then I’ll keep on using it!

The following 2 codes worked for free access:

airtrantrygogo

bosbwi

Codes are specific for the airline you are on, as aatrygogo and deltatrygogo did not work on Airtran, but do work on American and Delta respectively.

Anyway I’m off to my newest (twin!) cousin’s bris and to buy an esrog set for the holidays and and then flying right back home to Cleveland tomorrow night!

Related:
Update #1
Update #2

Thanks to Amigo for being the official sponsor of Dansdeals.com updates while I’m in Israel! I’m using their USB Modem now to update the site. The card runs on Orange’s HSDPA network and the speeds (about 2 Mbps download and 300 Kbps upload) are great for a wireless card. It has worked flawlessly everywhere in Israel where I have tried to use it and it is invaluably useful!

I almost exclusively use my miles for Business or First class tickets. A coach ticket from the US to Israel on continental is 45K miles each way, but can be purchased for about $600 each way, which means that you’re only getting a value of 1.33 cents per mile. A BusinessFirst ticket though can cost $2,500 each way giving you a value of 4.17 cents per mile.

But what to do when there are no BusinessFirst seats for the dates they you need? Well I got our seats into BusinessFirst just days before departure…

Continental’s Plan B for a BusinessFirst award works surprisingly well once you find an agent who knows about it. Credit goes to FT for the details.
It works like this: If there is a standard coach award seat you can call up the international reward desk and ask for a BusinessFirst ticket but be seated in coach and placed on a waitlist for a BusinessFirst seat. For EWR-TLV your account will be debited 60,000 miles for each way.
You will either clear the waitlist into BusinessFirst no later than 24 hours before the flight or the waitlist will expire. If at 24 hours before the flight you still don’t have a BusinessFirst seat then at the airport you have to find an International Concierge or other knowlegdable looking agent and tell them that you are a displaced BusinessFirst customer. If they have no idea what you are talking about tell them to look up “gg onestandby” and review lines 85-89 which spell out the details of this reward. (This is reminiscent of “gg checkpoint line 53″ which you have to reference to show agents how to give you a security pass for you and your guests to access post-security Presidents Club’s if you aren’t flying.) If they need to verify that you have a BusinessFirst reward have them call up the reward desk.
Still not able to get a seat in BusinessFirst? Just call up the reward desk after the flight and they’ll give you a refund of the difference between the standard coach award and the standard BusinessFirst award.

At any rate the flight was very nice. When I flew to Israel 2 years ago in BusinessFirst Continental still had the old video system that cycled through a few movies. The new large touch-screen AVOD system allows to choose from hundreds of movies, TV shows, games, and music. You can pause, fast-forward, and rewind as you please.
For dinner the people who ordered kosher meals got:
-An appetizer bowl of nuts, craisins, and sunflower seeds.
-A first course of a roll and a fish salad.
-A choice of your own personal bottle of kosher red wine or Chardonnay (or both!)
-A main course option of fish or chicken with another roll, fruit, and a chocolate fudge cake.
The kosher Breakfast was cheese blintzes, a roll, J&J reduced fat cream cheese, norman fat free fruit yogurt, a fruit bowl, and a cheese plate.

The seats recline at a 170 degree angle which is fine for sleeping. Continental’s new lie-flat BusinessFirst seats are slated to begin being installed in September.

Immigration at TLV was shockingly easy, we weren’t even asked a single question!

I turned down an upgrade at Budget for a Hyundai I3 hatchback in favor of the Mazda 3. I’m not sure how every rental car company is Israel gets away with making Liability insurance mandatory. By having a World Mastercard they let you decline the CDW coverage, but even if your personal car insurance covers liability they still force you to take their own liability coverage at $14/day, which effectively doubled the rate.

Israeli GPS systems are very hard to use on the english settings. There are so many ways to spell a city and street name that it is very hard to find what you need. Zefat, Zfat, Tsfat, Tzfat, Safed…every city and street probably has half a dozen ways to spell it and only one will work in the GPS. Nevertheless once you find the place you want to go they do an amazing job at navigating, probably better then an American GPS.

When I was looking for hotels for a base in the North I was shocked at the pricing. I know it’s high season and all, but the going rate was about $250/night. There are no Hilton or Starwood hotels any more in the North so I found a Holiday Inn in Tiberias which is part of the Priority Club program.
The paid rate was $250/night and it costs 15,000 PC points/night to stay there. Priority Club normally sells its points at 1.15-1.35 cents per point, so buying them directly from Priority Club wouldn’t yield much of savings. AMEX MR points transfer to PC at a 1:1 basis and Diners club points transfer at a 1:1.25 basis but that would still be a lot of points to transfer for a Holiday Inn.

The solution is Priority Club’s new cash and points redemption option. With the option you can redeem 5,000 points + $60 for a hotel room. Unlike with Starwood’s cash and points option though what actually occurs is that the $60 buys you the remaining 10,000 points that you would need for the 15,000 point Holiday Inn award. If you can the room you will therefore get a refund of 15,000 points! In effect you are thus able to purchase PC points at 0.6 cents per point by using the cash and points workaround. 15,000 points at 0.6 cents per point would make the Holiday Inn Tiberias $90/night which I reserved.

When I went back to the Priority Club’s website the next week I saw that the Holiday Inn Tiberias was on a PointBreaks special of just 5,000 points/night. So I canceled my previous reservation and rebooked for 5,000 points, or just $30/night!

The hotel is located about 1 mile south of the downtown midrachov, so it’s in a much quieter area than the former Sheraton Tiberias which was right on the noisy midrachov. Upon check-in I was given the option of staying in the Golan wing or the Kinneret wing. The Golan wing room was tiny with barely enough room the bad and a bathroom. The Kinneret wing room was much nicer and bigger with a nice entry-room, decent sized bathroom, a couch, a desk, and even a balcony! There was a box of delicious (kosher lamehadrin) chocolate chip cookies, 2 small bottles of red wine, and 2 bottles of water waiting in the room for us.

I’m holding a few days after this, but that’s all I have time for now, I’ve still got a lot to talk about like using gizmo5, Amigo’s push to talk service, and a report on the brand new Mamilla Jerusalem hotel.  Feel free to post comments with your own thoughts and anything I can do to make these trip reports most helpful!

I’m posting from a nice comfy couch at the Continental Presidents club in Newark, where it’s T-90 minutes until our flight to Israel.

The main Presidents club in Concourse C here is very nice and roomy, and is 2nd only to the expansive 3 floor lounge in Houston terminal E.

I realized that I may have some issues upon entering the Presidents club when I saw that I had 4 potential ways to enter the club for free: My Amex Plat charge card, my Presidential Plus Mastercard, my lifetime PC membership, and my BusinessFirst boarding passes…

It’s hard to explain the exact appeal of the club to someone who’s never visited one, but it definitely improves the entire travel experience.  This morning I had breakfast (Honey nut chex, bananas, and a granola bar) at the Cleveland lounge and now I’m filling up my water bottles with ice cold water for my flight.  Wi-Fi and Alcoholic drinks are all complementary.

The showers here are nothing spectacular but are very nice to have after a long trip.  The shower attendant will even press your clothes and give you a BusinessFirst amenity kit regardless of whether you are flying or not just for the asking!

For those who were asked from my last trip report, on my Airtran flight Skype and Gizmo5 were not blocked, however after placing a call it was only clear for the first 5 seconds, after that all that was heard was digital musical notes.  Go-Go is definitely using some sort of blocking system so as to not allow VOIP.  In addition the system only works when you get above 10,000 feet, it won’t work at the gate.

Here’s my trip outline:

-Renting a Mazda 3 from Budget for 2 weeks for $240 with a corporate rate.

08/24: Continental 84 EWR-TLV: BusinessFirst class.

08/25-08/28: Holiday Inn Tiberias (Normally $250/night, paid $30 a night-more on that in the next report1)

08/28-08/30: TBD. (Kfar Chabad or Jerusalem)

08/30-09/01: Mamilla Hotel, Jerusalem (Normally $300/night, paid 5,000 SPG/night)

09/01-09/07: King Solomon, Jerusalem

09/07: Delta 153 TLV-ATL: BusinessElite class lie-flat seats on the new 777-LR aircraft.

Yikes-Time to head to the gate for the secondary TLV screening…catch ya from the holy land!

Note: As this site has always been about travel and deals I’m going to try and incorporate both aspects as I post trip reports from the road.  Regular deals will still be posted so if you don’t like the trip reports-just skip ‘em!

I’d like to thank Amigo-US for making possible and being the official sponsor of the updating of Dansdeals.com while I’ll be in Israel!

Right now I’m posting from 30,000 feet in the air aboard Airtran flight #201 from Akron, OH to LaGuardia.

Airtran has GoGo wi-fi on all of their planes and it’s free through 08/31 with code: 159FLT3161

You have to first create an account and then select the $9.95 flight access in order to be able to enter in the code for free access.

Speeds are decent, about 2 Mbps download and 350 Kbps upload.  I can’t say that I would ever spend $10 for internet access on a 1 hour flight, but I’ll sure use it when it’s free!

With my Airtran Elite status my wife Mimi and I both received complementary battlefield upgrades to business class at 20 minutes prior to departure due to some no-shows.  There were half a dozen folks that requested to purchase upgrades after I had requested my elite upgrades, so kudos to the gate agent for not selling them out from under my feet! In the upgrade world a battlefield upgrade is any upgrade that does not clear in advance, and has to be cleared by a gate agent.

XM radio is free on all Airtran flights, but there’s nothing that I really want to listed to at this time of the morning.  It would be nice to have though when flying during a ballgame! There is a nice selection of free premium drinks (non-alcoholic and alcoholic) in business class and there even a few kosher parve snacks like kettle chips and granola bars that are most appreciated.

We leave to Israel on Continental flight 84 next Sunday! It’s been 2 years since I was last there, so I can’t wait!

Know any great activities anywhere in Israel that you’d like to share?  Have something you’d like me to write about from Israel? Post ‘em here in a comment!

Our very own dansdeals.com forum administrator (Eli) and moderator (Levi), went on an incredible trip to Hong Kong, Macau, Beijing, Tokyo, Oahu, and Maui.

Eli has graciously typed up an incredibly detailed report of the entire trip with great advice and ideas and posted it on the trip reports board of the Dansdeals forums.

He was even able to use the free wi-fi on AA deal to submit the report from 35,000 feet!

They used one of my favorite awards, the AA OneWorld award, to book the trip in business class.

With that award, instead of using miles to fly to a single place for a set amount of miles (for example a business class ticket to Israel would be 135K miles) you book multiple flights and add up the total flown miles to determine the zone and its cost.  You could fly to Israel using a Zone 5 OneWorld award for just 115,000 miles in business class.

There are a few catches with OneWorld awards:
-You must fly on at least 2 OneWorld carriers (and AA can not count as one of the 2)
-You can’t have more than 16 flight segments.
-You can only have a stopover once in each city.
-You can only connect in the same city twice.
-You can’t stopover or connect in the city where travel originated.

With just under 20,000 flown miles, they were able to squeeze into a Zone 6 award which costs 130,000 miles in Business class.  Nicely done!


Want to make your own OneWorld award? Churn the Citi AA card or Get a Starwood AMEX and start spending! 20,000 Starwood Points becomes 25,000 AA Miles with Starwood’s 25% airline transfer bonus.

I spent the day today with my dear wife at the Cavs-Pistons game at the Palace of Auburn Hills where the Cavs finished their 1st round playoff sweep of the Detroit Pistons. (12 more wins to go for Cleveland’s first championship in 45 years!)

The coolest part?

The place was packed full of excited Cavs fans! Cavs’ play by play announcer Joe Tait even said that in his 39 years of calling basketball that he had never seen an opponent’s arena so full of fans of the visiting team! The “Lets Go Cavs” and “MVP” cheers easily drowned out any “Lets go Dee-troit” attempts… According to ESPN Joe Tait even joked that “It’s great to be in Cleveland” and the Pistons’ Antonio McDyess said about the Cavs turnout and chants that “It was just embarrassing.” How awesome is that???

The mood after the game all around the arena was breathtakingly celebratory, it’s truly hard to describe the scene, but it was basically a road game with ecstatic Cleveland fans and Ohio license plates everywhere you looked.

It was well worth the 3 hour weekend drive to experience.

Even Sarah’s Deli, a sweet little Detroit kosher restaurant, had at least 4 tables full of Cavs fans by the time I got there. If you find yourself there, ask for a Bubba Burger with Pastrami (A burger with 3 slices of hamburger buns and excellent breaded onions with bbq sauce) together with their famous ranch dressing, it’s truly outstanding.

I’ll be back in Cleveland tomorrow evening, but do any readers have any good Detroit tips for the daytime? Any good kosher groceries to pick up in Canada in case we take the bridge to Windsor? Post ‘em now!

Related posts:
-Up For Grabs: Panoramic View Suite At The Encore Resort By Wynn In Las Vegas!
-On The Road: The Upgrade Dilemma Edition…
-SIZZLING FOR AMEX PLATINUM CARDHOLDERS!!!!!! 2 FREE NIGHTS AT THE WYNN AND ENCORE HOTELS IN LAS VEGAS!!! (Still Alive!)
-Starwood AMEX Linky
-Platinum AMEX Linky

Here is a collection of random thoughts and advice from my recent trip. I’d appreciate feedback in the comments to see if this type of report is worthwhile or not...

Departure: Sunday, 03/15 on Continental flight 757 leaving Cleveland at 8:50pm, arriving in Las Vegas at 10:30pm.

-This may have been the latest east-west coast flight that I’ve ever been on. It’s kind of nice to have a whole day to do stuff before the trip, but when you arrive at your destination you are totally wiped out.

-The sold-out flight was surprisingly light on elites. As of Saturday night Continental had not sold a single first class seat, so all 9 elite members who had tickets on the flight were given complimentary upgrades, leaving 7 open first class seats.

-On Sunday I noticed that Continental had blocked seats in the first class cabin, indicating that coach was oversold and Continental was going to have an op-up situation. An op-up occurs when the airline needs to “bump” people from their coach seat into first class due to too many seats in coach being sold and not enough no-shows in coach. Anticipating this I was waiting at the gate 70 minutes prior to boarding. At 60 minutes when the gate agent arrived I was able to easily land an op-up for my wife just for the asking.

Invaluable tools used: pda.continental.com, seatguru.com and flyaow.com/classamex.htm

-Just as we were about to board the flight the lead flight attendant was knocked unconscious by the errant luggage of a passenger. We were deboarded while 2 ambulances came to take her to the hospital. Continental quickly scrambled for a new flight attendant and the flight took off only 40 minutes late and landed only a few minutes behind schedule.

-The brand new Continental Presidents Club is the nicest non-hub lounge that I’ve ever seen. It is expansive and has a beautiful view of the Vegas skyline.

-I brought along the lonely planet guide for Vegas as well as the lonely planet guide for the incredible looking Zion and Bryce Canyon just in case…

-Renting a one-way car from Avis the airport: $280 with tax.
Renting a one-way car from Avis on the Las Vegas strip: $170 with tax.
Only problem: The strip location wouldn’t open until Monday morning, which meant finding my own way to the hotel on Sunday night.
You definitely want to rent a car in Vegas as there is an abundance of free parking at every hotel, and the good kosher restaurants are over 7 miles away from the Strip, or about an $80 taxi ride round trip!
We wound up with a fully-loaded Saturn Aura with leather seats, which turned out to be a nice mid-size car, perfect considering the amount of miles (over 600!) we put on it in such a short time.

-Supposedly there is some law that the strip hotels can’t provide shuttle service to/from the airport. So that left me with the taxi vs. shuttle debate. The hotel said that a taxi should run about $15, so with the shuttles costing $6.50 per person it seemed like a no-brainer to take a taxi…Until I saw the impossibly long line for the taxi.
I had read in the lonely planet guide that the airport porters have access to skip the taxi line and one even offered his services when we doubled back inside the airport after seeing the taxi line. For a simple $2 tip for our solitary suitcase we skipped the entire taxi line.

-The lonely planet guide warned about taxis fare-gouging by using the airport connector tunnel to the interstate for a longer route. Instead it suggested to tell the taxi to take paradise road. Good luck with that though-our taxi driver refused! At 11:30pm, which was 2:30am as far as my body was concerned. I was too tired to argue with the steadfast taxi driver. The fare wound up being $27.50, and incredibly the guy had the nerve to scream at me for not tipping! How about following directions next time buddy?

-It’s hard to express just how nice the Wynn and Encore resorts are. To get an idea, they cost over $5 Billion (yes, with a B) to to develop. The Wynn opened in 2005 and the Encore just opened a few months ago. They are true masterpieces. The 2 buildings are attached via an ultra-high end shopping mall.

-The Wynn and Encore hotel checkin areas appear to be chronically understaffed at nearly all times. Surprising for such a luxury hotel…

-We started off the trip with 2 nights at the Wynn. The nights were absolutely free! No tax, no nonsense, no nothing!
At check-in I was given a personalized letter thanking me for coming and offering $120 of breakfast credit, $90 of lunch credit, and a 4pm late checkout. I explained that as a religious jew I wouldn’t be able to partake in the food offerings and asked just to trade it for free wi-fi (normally $14/day), which was immediately granted.
As part of the AMEX package we were upgraded to a panoramic view room on the 58th floor, which was quite spectacular!
The room had it all, an amazing view, a coach and workspace, a widescreen HDTV, etc. The bathroom was huge and had 2 sinks, a jacuzzi, a separate shower, and a separate room for the toilet. The robes provided were splendidly luxurious.

-We had no problem checking out of the Wynn and immediately checking in to the Encore. Same deal, except this time I was turned down for the free wi-fi. We were upgraded in the Encore as well to a panoramic view suite on the 55th floor.

-The Encore is brand new and we both preferred the look and decor of the Encore. Also the room layout, with a split bedroom and workspace was nicer at the Encore as well.
I also loved the power panel at the Encore next to the bed. From it you could control the shear drapes, the main drapes, all of the lights in the room, and you could even turn on a privacy light so you aren’t disturbed by housekeeping in the morning. Another nice thing at the Encore was the number of available outlets-at the Wynn those were hard to find!

-There is so much to do (Visit Paris, Venice, NYC, Cairo, and French Polonesia) and free shows (Volcanoes erupting, pirates fighting, fountains dancing, circus acts, Carinival, etc.) to go to in Vegas to keep you occupied for days without betting a dime. And that’s all besides for other sites and side trips like the nearby Red Rock Canyon, Hoover Dam, or even the Grand Canyon and Zion/Bryce.

-If you look around you will find promo offers at every hotel for signing up for their frequent players card. For example we got $20 of free play at the Excalibur just for showing them our Wynn room keys!

-Tix4tonight offers up to half off on dozens of shows. They have multiple locations throughout the strip and it’s definitely worth stopping by before paying retail.

-If you are into gambling it’s worth investing the $0.97 to buy a card like the blackjack basic strategy card, which limits the house advantage to under one half of a percent. The casinos allow you to refer to the card while playing. (If you’re mathematically inclined it is also totally legal and fairly straightforward to count the cards in play to actually give yourself an advantage over the house. Just do it discreetly as it is frowned upon…)

-Kosher restaurants that we went to:
Adar Pizza: Great location, but breathtakingly overpriced. $15 for a calzone? $7 for fries or refried onion rings? $6 for an ice cream?
The kicker? After returning 2 pitchers of water with highly suspicious objects in them we were offered bottled water-and then charged $4 for it!
Once and done.

Panini Grill: About 8 miles from the strip, the food was very good but the service was entirely incompetent.
My wife’s greek salad ($10 was quite good, but I decided on a eggplant parmigiana ($12). What came was literally half of an eggplant, skin attached, with cheese on top. When I asked the waitress where exactly the sauce was, she apologized and brought it back to the kitchen. When they remade the meal the eggplant was still frozen in the middle. At this point they asked if I would just like another meal so I chose one of the ravioli dishes. What came out was entirely different…a plate of spaghetti!
Aurghhh!
Finally they got me the ravioli, which was actually quite nice, and comped us a delicious piece of cake (normally $8). They were friendly and quite apologetic throughout, so I did actually leave a nice tip…

Village Steakhouse: Now this place is a gem!
Service was outstanding, and everything we ordered was made to perfection! One night I got the green peppercorn prime reserve steak and the next night I ordered the orange bbq ribs. Both were absolutely incredible and well worth their ~$40 price tags. The side dishes were even more impressive. The sweet potato fries with maple aioli were out of this world. Best of all a generous portion of them was just $5. The menu was different both of the times we went (both of the entrees I ordered only appeared on one night) which was neat as well. The complimentary bread and dips also changed between the two times that we went. Equally impressive (especially for those who have been to restaurants with me) is that I never reached the bottom of my water glass!
This is also located about 8 miles from the strip.

-On Wednesday I hid the room key to my Encore room in the parking garage in anticipation of giving the room away for that night. Joshua F. was the first confirmed respondent and he had the privilege of playing detective trying to find the hidden room key! Congrats on getting the free night!

-We decided to drive from Las Vegas to Irvine, CA where my wife was to attend a wedding. People there seemed shocked that I would drive. Honestly I can’t understand why. It took about 3:45 to drive the 260 miles at an average speed of about 70mph. In order to fly it would take well more than that to return the car, clear security, fly to LAX/LGB/SNA, rent another car, and drive to Irvine.

-Those Virgin America creative floks weren’t making up the “somewhere over Zzyzx, CA” place in their promo video. We passed by the sign for it on the drive! Double miles if you can pronounce that correctly!

-I took the liberty of slipping out of the wedding in order to go learn with my brother JJ in his yeshiva for an hour before treating him to a “gourmet” meal at Jeff’s gourmet. Mmm now those are good homemade onion rings!

-We stayed in the category 2 Westin LAX for 4,000 Starpoints. The paid rate would have been over $200+tax!
I was upgraded to a terrace suite with 2 rooms and a nice balcony with just clear skies above it. A decent hotel, but it can definitely use better soundproofing!

-We flew back on the red-eye, Continental 634 from LAX-CLE which was a completely sold-out flight. Luckily we were seated in row 14, in which you probably have more leg room than first class, and have the added bonus of being able to recline while the row in front of it has no ability to recline on you!

-Poor timing: With an 11:20pm PDT red-eye return flight, I was on one of the last Continental flights to not qualify for the double elite miles promo ;(

Pictures (Click on thumbnail to expand in a new tab/window):

Wynn Bathroom 1

Wynn Bathroom 2

Wynn Bedroom

Wynn Phone (personalized)

Wynn Room Key (personalized)

Wynn Hotel

Wynn Hallway

View of Encore From Wynn Room

Encore Bathroom

Encore Bedroom 1

Encore Bedroom 2

Encore Entryway

Encore Living Room

Encore Hallway

Sweet Potato Fries At Village Steakhouse