This weekend we examine how to get the most out of all-you-can-eat salad bars from how to make sure you get what you want to piling the most for your money onto your plate. (Watch out! These techniques have been banned by Pizza Hut in China.) Next we take a look at strange items that travelers leave behind in hotel rooms. Finally, TSA reports that this year’s haul of spare change left behind at security checkpoints topped $400,000.
Salad-bar strategy: The battle of the buffet
Here is a fascinating article about the psychology of the salad bar, or the all-you-can-eat buffet. For salad-bar fanatics, here is a like to the mathematical study.
The article is filled with links to other interesting studies that show the amount you eat depend on how many are eating together and on the sex of the group. There are plenty of thoughts to chew on.
A mathematician, an engineer and a psychologist go up to a buffet… No, it’s not the start of a bad joke.
While most of us would dive into the sandwiches without thinking twice, these diners see a groaning table as a welcome opportunity to advance their research.
Look behind the salads, sausage rolls and bite-size pizzas and it turns out that buffets are a microcosm of greed, sexual politics and altruism – a place where our food choices are driven by factors we’re often unaware of. Understand the science and you’ll see buffets very differently next time you fill your plate.
Applying mathematics to a buffet is harder than it sounds, so they started by simplifying things. They modelled two people taking turns to pick items from a shared platter – hardly a buffet, more akin to a polite tapas-style meal. It was never going to generate a strategy for any occasion, but hopefully useful principles would nonetheless emerge. And for their bellies, the potential rewards were great.
Hamster named Frederick among bizarre items left behind by Travelodge guests
We have all left a hotel and later remember that we forgot something. For most of us it a phone or laptop charger, pyjamas, clothing and teddy bears. But, Travelodge in the U.K. have reported items left behind ranging from hamsters and toddlers to cases of masks and in one case, the ashes of a man’s dead wife.
Among the quirkier items left behind include a life-size Mr Blobby costume, a case full of 100 Duchess of Cambridge masks, and an urn containing the ashes of a guest’s late wife.
One careless visitor left a box contained £50,000 worth of watches and a newlywed bride nearly lost her Vera Wang wedding gown when her husband forgot to pack it.
Staff at Nuneaton Travelodge were even treated to a Christmas surprise when a couple left an entire Santa’s grotto is their room.
They appear to have held their own early celebrations, and left a whole Christmas tree with decorations, lights, a model reindeer, a Father Christmas outfit and a turkey dinner behind.
In 2011, TSA collected more than $400,000 in forgotten change at checkpoints
In a real-world follow-up to our story about TSA keeping spare change, the 2011 figures came in at more than $400,000. The spare change left at security checkpoints exceeded that of 2010. The Consumer Travel Alliance is working with Rep. Jeff Miller’s (R-FL) office to deny TSA these funds and have them distributed to airport charities instead.
“TSA keeps travelers change accidentally left at checkpoints as an appropriations backfill for agency activities,” Miller said. “There is no incentive for TSA to try to return the forgotten change to its rightful owner.
“The amount of money left behind really surprised me — $400,000 annually is nothing to sneeze at,” he continued. “Travelers’ lost change should be put to good use, and there is no better organization to use this money wisely than the United Service Organizations.”
The airports where passengers left the most spare change were New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, where $46,918.06 was found, and Los Angeles International Airport, which collected $19,110.83.
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and San Francisco and Miami International airports, which saw $16,523.83, $15,908.02 and $15,844.83 left behind respectively, rounded out the top five.
Washington’s Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport collected $2,502.83 and $13,945.18.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
