buggins0402

Thanks.  I switched to my Amex Delta Card when they upped grocery points.  Lousy redemption, but live in a hub.   All my cards are travel cards.  

But, I’ll switch back to using the Sapphire now.  If we can never travel again, at least it can act as cash back with the Chase points.  It is a lousy redemption value, but not worthless.

11 hours ago, Hlitner said:

We arrived on the 15th at DFW!  We did not see anyone have their temperature taken in public, although many from the Madrid flight were taken away and handed over to CDC folks.  Those folks from the Milan flight had a single page health form that they had to complete and turn in as they went through the CBP Passport check.  Since we had arrived on a flight from Puerto Vallarta, where there are no confirmed cases, we were not asked any health questions nor did we need to fill out a health form.  When we passed through the CBP Passport check the agent simply ask us if we had traveled anywhere other the Mexico.  

 

This evening we again saw a TV report that showed long lines at DFW.  We did not experience any significant lines, but part of the reason is we both have Global Entry.  When we had to check back in through TSA to get to our domestic flight there was no line for TSA Precheck and the regular line was also very short.  DW and I figure the lines at DFW must have happened after we left the immigration area around 4:45 pm.   While we were in that immigration area the regular line had less than two hundred and there were 4 or 5 agents handling that crowd.  But it was moving slowly because many had arrived on a flight from Europe.

 

Hank

How were things in PVR your last few weeks?  We were there for almost a month until the 4th of March.  The final week in the resort seemed much less busy.  

We followed almost the same path as you back home. PVR, DFW, DTW.  No questions from anyone where we might had been at DFW. 

15 minutes ago, Ragnar Danneskjold said:

You are right.  I had ad blockers on so only saw the basic text.  Not sure I would give a lot of credence to the article, after taking a look at it’s source...

Lesson learned...double check sources and if in question...pose as a question not as fact.

58 minutes ago, davecttr said:

Apparently only food outlets and pharmacies can remain open, no bars etc. Home deliveries will be allowed. They should know within 2 weeks if this draconian measure has any positive effect.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51845817

 

Thanks all that have responded to my question....with firm facts and good sources.

Just traveling to Europe may become more difficult:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/11/politics/cucinelli-us-travel-restrictions-europe/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

I just saw a tweet that Italy is requiring all non essential businesses to close....can anyone confirm?

2 hours ago, Shawnino said:

 

Kinda.

The one thing it can't really take into account (he claims) is the share price. 

Markets are trading very irrationally right now.

A new, or old, credit facility that says "if the market cap drops below X, the new rate rises to Y" could be a serious issue. 

Things must have changed in the many years since I looked at these things... I never saw a revolver with market cap triggers (or forgetting in my old age). 

38 minutes ago, floridatravelersforlife said:

And with lines of credit, come bank mandated financial ratios which, if violated, cause creditor default, so let's see the financial results of the first three quarters of this year before we panic.

Given that the new liquidity facility was negotiated recently, it probably done with projections that take recent events into account.

4 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

Very interesting indeed - I too hope that they are right.

Thanks 🙂

I’m also hoping the groundhog was right about an early spring  the Northern Hemisphere and a very mild winter in the Southern (this paper is correct.)😀

13 hours ago, Paulchili said:

You may well be right but the credit really goes to the Singapore government and health authorities for being prepared and handling it promptly - this is what you would expect in a place that I think is cleaner even than Switzerland and were it's against the law to chew gum 😀 and where you never have to worry about eating food from street vendors.

Have they not been prepared and handled it promptly I would assume that there would be more community spread like in all other places.

In other words, I don't think that it was the heat that stopped the community spread - at least IMO.

Some good news.....hope they are right.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3550308

58 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

You may well be right but the credit really goes to the Singapore government and health authorities for being prepared and handling it promptly - this is what you would expect in a place that I think is cleaner even than Switzerland and were it's against the law to chew gum 😀 and where you never have to worry about eating food from street vendors.

Have they not been prepared and handled it promptly I would assume that there would be more community spread like in all other places.

In other words, I don't think that it was the heat that stopped the community spread - at least IMO.

Totally agree.  We don’t know what stopped the spread in Singapore.  I wish we had done more. 

1 minute ago, Paulchili said:

If it did there would have been no corona in Singapore where it’s always hot and humid.

Was there much community spread there?  I thought most was imported, but I could be wrong.

Obviously, there is too much capacity right now for demand.  One only has to look at the airlines cutting capacity.  Itineraries will have to be cut back, move overs to remaining itineraries offered, and some ships sidelined for at least short term.  Hopefully, creditors will realize this a short term bump and work with the cruise lines. 

Market hit first circuit breaker.

39 minutes ago, npcl said:

CCL has got to be burning through its on hand cash pretty quickly.  Total current liabilities from their last 10k was a little over 9 billion of which 1.5 billion is current portion of long term debt, account payable 750 million and customer deposits in the range of 4.7 billion, compared to cash on hand of 500 million and trade and other receivables of 440 million.

 

They have lots of assets, but they (mostly property and ships to the tune of 38 billion) are not very liquid, so they could very easily run into a cash crunch if this goes on very long.

 

 

What is the committed bank LOC and usage?

10 minutes ago, FredT said:

I think the most telling thing is NCL changing policies in that they are ONLY refunding deposits on cruises in the form of Future Cruise Credits.  Someone has calculated that the bad publicity and ill feelings of their customers is less important at the moment than retaining all that cash........

Most of the competition is doing the same.

16 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

The large cruise companies such as CCL and RCI will likely survive but are going to take a huge financial hit.  MSC should also be fine given its very deep pockets and position in the Container Ship industry.

 

What do you think?

 

Hank

Agree. If it is short term, NCL could also make it. Viking and Crystal might be toast. 

But, then again during the financial crisis I moved all my cash assets within the “Ring of Fire”...so I tend to be more overly conservative. My coworkers called me “chicken little” back in 2006 about the impending housing meltdown, so I was right on one count.

edit...just had a moment to second think.  Bankers will know this is temporary situation, it will depend on how they think this will impact future cash flow compared to the debt load.  

55 minutes ago, sayanne said:

 

 There is no reason for anyone looking at the US right now to assume that our citizens aren't as easily carriers as those from other hot spots around the world.

 

We may know in the next few weeks.  If I heard Fauci ( who seems like a straight shooter) correctly just now on Meet the Press, they expect to have 7 million test kits available by the end of next week.  What struck me as important...he seemed to indicate testing will not only be doctor ordered of suspected cases but community sampling, to try an identify hidden pockets.  

 

The latter would be important to beat this back.  Unfortunately, this probably should have been done for the past couple weeks. 

 

9 minutes ago, MoniMommy said:

If cases are reported in Mexico, Mexico could start denying entry to cruise ships which would make Hawaii cruises difficult or impossible because there would be no foreign port to call on before returning to US.

I was in a Puerto Vallarta resort during most of February.  I chatted with two women from a cruise ship, who had bought a day pass....who knows they might have been from the Grand. After this, I can’t see these excursions being sold by the resort.

During  the last three days of our stay, I noticed hand alcohol sanitizer bottles showing up all over...at the pool towel desk, at reception and at the bellhop desk.  They were not there earlier. 

2 hours ago, Markanddonna said:

Alyssa James, 

Which country can you point o as an example of doing a better job than the USA?  None!  I follow the Worldometers data and countries far smaller than ours have much higher rates. I think the CDC and the USA have made really sound decisions, starting with our banning people who had been in mainland China to travel here. The natural progression into the community was inevitable.  Now, our country needs to work on getting medicines and vital products into the control of our own country's companies. China is welcome to continue to produce cheap toys and trinkets and other nonessentials. 

 

I recall reading that Singapore, which is a major flight hub in Asia, instituted draconian measures to try and contain it’s spread.

Nice government website to update the populace

https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-cruiseships-exclus/exclusive-u-s-considering-discouraging-some-travellers-from-cruises-sources-idUKKBN20T2B1?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Interested in how this might be received by the cruise companies.

28 minutes ago, iancal said:

Our fear is not the virus.  It is more the fear of being quarantined on or off the ship, being restricted as to where we can fly, origin or departure, and the fear of ending up with a surprise cruise itinerary that we do not like because of closed access to ports.

 

For now our plan is to make travel plans that can be cancelled without penalty until we see where this goes.  It is early days yet on this issue and we suspect that it will get worse before it gets better.  

We are also making no travel plans that cannot be cancelled without penalty. 

We just returned from over  three weeks in a Mexican resort while this was blowing up elsewhere.  I couldn’t help but think how easily a resort could have the same issues as a cruise ship, given the close proximity of people. Also, the resort was selling day passes to cruise ship passengers. 

I had been looking at a Atlantic European cruise for fall...but, no longer. If things settle down we could always fashion something similar on a land basis, last minute. 

Interesting observation on a flight yesterday...everyone around us (including me) was pulling out wipes  to clean tray tables and armrests. While, I don’t know how much it will help, planes are probably cleaner than they have been.

It is not like the flu has gone away.  So, on top of that, we now have a virus that by some estimates is by some estimates 20x more deadly and growing exponentially because of it’s unusual attribute of asymptotic spread.

I am not ruling out the possibility of the cruise lines temporarily mothballing ships if the Med season becomes difficult due to port closures, getting staff (from unaffected areas to ships) and cancellations of customers due to the uncertainty.   One week ago, I wouldn’t have thought this possible.