Hi members!
I hope you enjoyed last week’s field guide on CBD. This week, we’re preparing you for one of the most complex, difficult, and soul-crushing topics to master: how to travel intelligently.
The playing field is far from level when you step into the world of airlines, hotels, and credit-card companies. Multibillion-dollar companies employ thousands to squeeze that last cent out of you, make you jump through impossible hoops, and shift the blame when something goes wrong. Uninformed, the average traveler trying to battle the travel-industrial complex is bringing a Wiffle-Ball bat to a gunfight.
We’d like to help. Over the course of this week, we’re going to arm you with knowledge, starting with today’s deep dive into the world of credit-card rewards and miles, and how to get the most out of them. And as the week progresses, we’ll send you more tips and strategies to get the most out of your journeys, including:
- Picking the right time to visit specific cities around the world
- Everything you need to know about TSA PreCheck and Global Entry
- The way to pack—and things you should always keep in—your carry-on.
- Whether you should pay in local or home currency.
- How not to get ripped off when exchanging money.
We’re also adding a little something new with this guide—a way for you to ask us questions that we’ll answer on Friday. If there’s anything you’d like to know more about travel, click on this link, fill out the form, and we’ll get back to you at the end of the week.
New videos this week
Our video squad remains as busy as ever. In our members-only video series, Quartz Academy, Box CEO Aaron Levie shares what he’s learned about tailoring your pitch to any audience, whether it’s for a cold call, or to potential investors as you prepare to go public. At each step, Levie says, there are several key questions you need to be prepared to answer.
Our editor in chief, Kevin Delaney, also has an interview with Dan Doctoroff, the CEO of Alphabet company Sidewalk Labs. Earlier in his career (before he was a deputy mayor of New York and CEO of Bloomberg LP), Doctoroff founded a nonprofit, NYC2012, to bring the Olympic Games to New York City. The bid ultimately failed, but the detailed plans provided a blueprint that has essentially guided the city’s development ever since. That experience has taught him many lessons, not least, the power of the deadline.
Conference calls, old and new
We have a full conference-call lineup this week, including a conversation with Quartz reporters about the continuing situation in Hong Kong as well as a belated call about CBD with last week’s field-guide author, global lifestyle reporter Jenni Avins (who was busy last week doing another conference call with our finance and economics editor Jason Karaian from the Cannes Lions advertising confab).
If you miss a call and want to see it later, you can always go here.
We record our calls, and post them after they air. For example, we had a great call last week with Quartz future of finance reporter John Detrixhe and cryptocurrency reporter Matthew De Silva about Facebook and its newly announced digital currency, Libra.
I’ll have more details on our HK and CBD calls soon, so keep an eye out in your inbox. And if you have any other questions, comments, or ideas for things we should be covering, write us at members@qz.com. As always, we’re psyched to hear from you.
Here’s to a rewarding week,
Sam Grobart
membership editor