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Business Travel Column Struggling To Maintain Relevancy

Joe Brancatelli is a long-time business traveler, a print media consultant and the guy who writes the Seat 2B column for Portfolio. At least for now, anyway: The magazine recently decided to cut 20 percent of its total staff, scale back its print production schedule to 10 issues a year and chop its web crew from 35 people to 5.

So with the magazine struggling to make good on a rumored $100 million start-up investment, business travel spending on the wane thanks to a global recession and a historic election taking place, you know, right now, what did Joe write about today? Ultra-premium loyalty programs so exclusive you can't even sign up for them.

After a seven-paragraph anecdotal lede, Brancatelli finally starts outlining some of the outrageous perks that travel companies apparently still shower on a small group of guests who, despite being important enough to earn unimaginable coddling from airlines and hotels, still need an extra ego boost. Of course, reading about the "secret societies" won't get you any closer to joining them because "If you have to ask, you don't qualify."

So, what's the point of the article then? We're not 30-year veterans of the publishing industry, but at least we try to be relevant and interesting on a daily basis.

Related Stories:
· Secret Societies [Portfolio]
· Empty Nast Syndrome [NYO]
· It's Nasty over at Conde [NYP]

[Photo of Conde Nast HQ: Tone Walker]