It's the swine flu, not the plague.

I have seen and heard about the "outbreak of the deadly swine flu", and would like to help people understand some basic facts about the flu.

a.) Your best protection is basic prevention. - Wash your hands regularly.  Be aware of those around you that may be coughing, or otherwise expressing symptoms, which include coughing, sore throat, lethargy, nausea and vomiting, runny nose, etc.  Note that the symptoms are consistent with the body's reaction to most illnesses, including the common cold and severe allergies.  Correlation does not equal causation, and vomiting does not equal the swine flu.  For those of you who constantly use hand sanitizer, you have likely managed to diminish your body's immune system by depriving it of consistent exposure to bacteria and illnesses, and thus, may have increased your chances of the illness, should you come in contact with it.  Nice work.  

b.) If you're healthy, and you live in the United States, it is not deadly.  It's not that the flu can't kill you; it's that the flu won't kill you.  As I write this, 20 out of 149 cases have been confirmed.  Today, that's roughly 13% (tomorrow, 20/149 is still 13%, but the numbers will likely be different tomorrow), but that is likely to explode far lower tomorrow as yahoos with runny noses from every state run to be treated with what they believe is assuredly their beginning-of-the-end. 

Good luck, and Godspeed.

The Relationship Between Hotel Quality and Cost.

I used to be a Starwood Hotels guy, but then I realized something about hotels.  

Justin's law of hotel value:  Once a set of fundamental requirements of a hotel room are met, there is a nonlinear relationship between a hotel's room rate and the total cost of the hotel stay.  

Huh?  Stay with me, here.

Basically, if you have a room at a cheap hotel, you'll have a cheap stay, but if you have a more expensive room at a nice hotel, you'll have a FAR more expensive stay, compared to an identical stay at the cheap hotel. 

Huh?

Here it is:  Once you have the basic essentials of a hotel, like a bed, TV, private bathroom, etc., you've got a baseline price for a hotel room in a given market.  If you can find a hotel room at the basic cost  "threshold" for a given market, you'll find that it includes more amenities that you might WANT for free.  The more expensive a hotel room gets, the more you have to PAY for amenities that are otherwise free at hotels closer to the basic cost threshold.  

Take, for example, any given Quality Inn.  It's a relatively inexpensive hotel room, in the grand scheme of things.  You're not expecting a flat screen in every room, or a lavish pool necessarily.  You'll expect the basics of a hotel; bed, bath, TV.  Now, Quality Inn will generally include a free breakfast, frequently a hot breakfast, free wi-fi, free small business center, free use of fax, etc.  Nothing extravagant, but note the common term, "free."  So your total hotel stay will be in line with the room rate times the number of nights.

Now, take for example, any given Marriott.  It's not extravagant, but it's a "nice" hotel.  You're going to pay significantly more for a Marriott room in a given market over a Quality Inn.  What do you expect?  A nice bed, a nice bathroom, and a nice TV.  The Marriott, though, will include, breakfast for a fee, usually a hot breakfast, wi-fi for a fee, business center for a fee, use of fax for a fee... see where I'm going with this?  Why is the hotel 20%-50% more than what I call a "threshold" hotel, but the SAME services are free at the "threshold" hotel and cost money at the "premium" hotel?  While the hotel should cost 20%-50% more, based on the room rate, it doesn't.  It will cost far more for the same stay, because you'll pay the additional 20%-50% for the room rate, PLUS the additional $20-$50/night for the same amenities.  Hence the nonlinearity.  And it only gets worse as the hotels get nicer.  

This is what Justin's law of hotel value is all about.  As the hotel rooms cost more, the total cost of the stay diverges as the price of the hotel room increases.  "Cheap" hotels remain cheap with the cost of the room, but expensive hotels become more and more expensive as the cost of the room increases.

So today, I'm a Choice Hotels guy.  I have been for a handful of years now.  The Choice Hotels program provides great benefits at a wide variety of hotels.  More importantly, though, the cost of the rooms is generally around the "threshold" price, keeping the total cost of the stay reasonable. 

Here's my recommendation, then.  If you want a nice room, book the nicest room in the cheapest hotel that HAS the amenities that you want, and they're more likely to be free and/or cheap, than if you book the cheapest room in the nicer hotel that has the amenities.  If you want a pool, clearly you have to go where the pool is, but book the CHEAPEST place with a pool, and then get the nicest room you can, for a treat.  The folks behind the counter will see you're the big fish in the little pond, and take care of you accordingly.  If you're the smallest fish in the biggest pond, you're more likely to get the "how nice that you decided to play at the $2 table at Ceasar's Palace" look.