Yesterday, the Telegraph of London announced that Intercontinental Hotels (IHG) had spurned a 6B GBP bid to acquire the chain. The source of the offer is unconfirmed, though speculation has it that Starwood may be the suitor. In the financial world here is what would have just happened to the IHG stock price: Market Cap prior […]
Anatomy of a Live Deal – How to decide if something is a money maker or not
In the world of finance there are many ways to calculate if a deal is worth the investment or not. One I like for its mathematical simplicity is the Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value calculations. I won’t get into the full mechanics of them here today, but suffice to say that if […]
Terms and Conditions – Abide by them, or exploit them?
What approach do you take to terms and conditions? In the business world I have mentioned how I have broken terms, conditions and rules to get to goal, so I am no stranger to doing so, but in doing so I also had my own set of ethics that I followed. I might go so far […]
Introducing The Forum at Saverocity
Today we are launching The Forum at Saverocity . The purpose is to discuss ‘gaming everything’ – from exotic frequently flyer point awards, to reducing taxes and retiring early. I see it as the embodiment of Saverocity, and it’s all about you. Why a forum?
A Tale of Debauchery AKA the Fat Bastard’s Challenge!
I caught myself being judgmental again, one day I will stop… I saw a post over at Points Summary from Jamison where he spoke about being downgraded from First to Business for his Taipei- Hong Kong (TPE-HKG) flight (schedule to be 1:40 in duration) as it is Cathay Pacific you could spend British Airways Avios and […]
The Dark and Sinister World of Cash Back Kick Backs
Inspired by the comments over at Travel Blogger Buzz I’d like to talk about the sinister world of Cash Back Kick Backs…. I’ll give my view, based upon my understanding of how they work, and open the floor to anyone who would like to share perspective or correct them. Of course, if anyone decides to talk […]
Ripping Up Lotto Tickets
I love observing unusual behavior. One thing that I saw both in the UK and in the US is that gamblers like to rip up their losing tickets. There is a mindset shared among them where if, on the off chance they made mistake and discarded a winning ticket, they don’t want someone else to […]
Deal, or No Deal? Buy Starwood SPG Points with a 25% Discount
Buy points promotions occur across many programs on a fairly regular basis. Let’s take a look at this latest one from Starwood SPG to see if it is worth jumping on or not.Before we go into the analysis we need to give a nod of the head to subjectivity. There could well be a person […]
What is a DO? And why knowing made ours Epic
This must be the most asked question of the month for me, ‘What is a DO?’ nobody seems to know, but everyone wants to go! This post will explain what a “DO” is, and why our latest one was a success.Firstly, don’t feel bad for not knowing, it is actually a British term. The closest […]
Up to 90% off W Hotel Linens at Gilt- Stackable
Frankly, I am about done with sites like Groupon, however Gilt tends to offer some decent deals, and I saw one today that might turn out to be a real bargain when stacked. For new customers, I have invite code which gets us both $25 in credit there (you get $25 off and my account gets […]