Magna sells 4 NYC hotels for nearly $500 million
Magna sells 4 NYC hotels for nearly $500 million
The sale of four hotels to undisclosed “large institutional owners” is the biggest NYC portfolio deal of 2025 so far.
https://www.hotelinvestmenttoday.com/Deals/Mergers-and-Acquistions/Magna-sells-4-NYC-hotels-for-nearly-500-million
NEW YORK CITY — Warwick, Rhode Island-based Magna Hospitality has sold four Hilton-branded New York City hotels for $489.8 million to undisclosed “large institutional owners”, according to multiple reports.
Magna Hotel Fund VI, a fund managed by Magna Hospitality, sold the 1,129-room portfolio which include the 196-key Hilton Garden Inn New York Times Square North (for $115.5 million), the 320-key DoubleTree by Hilton New York Times Square South (for $99.7 million), the 239-key Fairfield Inn & Suites New York Midtown Manhattan (for $52.2 million) and the 374-key Motto by Hilton New York City Chelsea (for $222.1 million). JLL brokered the deal.
The Magna Hotel Fund VI, which closed in 2018 with $250 million, sold the properties to the undisclosed owners as well as a separate Magna fund (the company will maintain an undisclosed percentage of partial ownership on the four properties, but according to Crain’s New York Business, Magna parted with over 90% of its equity). Four lenders were also involved in the sale, but their involvement was also not disclosed.
According to Bisnow, the portfolio sale is the largest in New York City since the city council passed the controversial Safe Hotels Act last year.
According to Crain’s, Magna still owns multiple hotels in New York City, including a Hilton near Times Square that it acquired from Sam Chang in 2023 for approximately $160 million, and an Embassy Suites on 37th Street, which it purchased in 2020 for around $115 million.
The Crain’s story also reported that the scale of the deal is a good sign for the city’s hotel industry, according to Vijay Dandapani, president and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City, who cautioned that deals in the city are still way below what they have been in the past.
I Was an Airport Gate Agent and I Promise These 5 Mistakes Will Ruin Your Trip
https://www.fodors.com/news/photos/common-airport-mistakes-travelers-make-and-how-to-avoid-them
MemoryMan/Shutterstock
Avoid these common pitfalls for the smoothest travel experience.
After seven years as a gate agent for a major airline, I’ve seen passengers make the same errors time and time again. Air travel is notoriously anxiety-inducing for some, but it doesn’t have to be. While there will always be situations that are out of your control, there are so many things you can do (or not do) to have the best, stress-free experience possible. These are travelers’ top five airport mistakes, and the industry-insider advice on why and how to avoid them.
PHOTO: Joni Hanebutt/Dreamstime
1 of 5
Not Having a Buffer Day
Even if you’re a gambler, planning something soon after your flight is scheduled to land is generally not a safe bet. In the airline industry, delays are unfortunately quite common. If a two-hour maintenance issue is going to ruin your whole trip, you need to plan a buffer day. It stinks to miss a concert or a baseball game, but it really hurts to miss your uncle’s funeral. One of my passengers was excited to be a groomsman in his best friend’s wedding. A thunderstorm rolled in, and he couldn’t make his connection. The ceremony was that evening! I wish I could’ve eavesdropped on the bride getting that phone call hours before her big day. While I recommend giving yourself a 24-hour buffer, I understand that most people have a finite number of days off. It may not be possible to leave a full day early. My pro tip is to book the earliest available option.
PHOTO: Rob Whitcomb/iStock
2 OF 5
Booking on a Third-Party Site
Booking your flights on a third-party website comes with a multitude of issues. The saddest outcome I’ve had to deal with was a kind older man who got scammed out of hundreds of dollars because it wasn’t a legitimate company. Most of the time, the problems aren’t so extreme. You may pay for a particular seat, only to find out during check-in that it wasn’t guaranteed. What happens if you need to change the date of your flight? The airline can’t help you, and good luck getting a hold of the website’s customer service, which tends to be buried. If and when you do get a real, live human on the line, support is often limited or frustrating compared to booking direct.
Oftentimes, these sites are not clear about how restrictive the ticket is, either. You’ll show up at the airport and have to check your carry-on based on the type of ticket purchased. When your trip includes multiple flights, third-party websites can book with different airlines that don’t have partnerships with each other, and if you’re not paying close attention, you might miss this hassle-inducing detail. You can’t make a one-hour connection if you have to leave security, pick up your suitcase at baggage claim, wait in line at the ticket counter, re-tag your bag, and go back through TSA. Just typing that exhausted me. No thanks, I’ll be sipping a Chardonnay at the bar instead.
I always hear the excuse “Flights are cheaper on those websites,” but that is not true. These sites can be helpful solely as tools to search for flights. The amount they show you is the current price on the airline’s website. Find the flight you want, then immediately go to the official site and book it there.
PHOTO: JNemchinova/iStock
3 OF 5
Not Reading the Fine Print
Remember how those pesky third-party websites aren’t always forthcoming about which fare you’re purchasing? The devil is in the details. Multiple times a day, angry passengers will approach me with some type of issue that could have been avoided had they read the fine print. While these sites can be confusing, similar problems also crop up for travelers who book directly on an airline’s website.
For example, when choosing United Airlines’ Basic Economy fare on their website, you must agree to the terms and conditions six times before you even enter your credit card information. Airlines make money by betting that customers are too busy or lazy to understand what they are buying. You can’t change your flight, parties aren’t guaranteed to sit together, no carry-on bag allowed, nonrefundable–all of these and more are the risks you’re taking by blindly hitting “purchase.” Taking two minutes to read the paragraph above the “I agree” button seems worth it to me. As a general rule of thumb, if there’s a box to check, read what you’re agreeing to!
4 OF 5
Running Late
Most airports have at least a 45-minute bag drop cut-off and a 30-minute check-in policy. Many have even stricter guidelines. Double check on your airline’s website to see which of their locations have exceptions. Don’t tell me you’re late because there was bad traffic on the interstate en route to your 9 a.m. flight. Of course there was! You should have left your house earlier. I recommend showing up to the airport two hours before the posted departure time, seriously.
For passengers with an international flight, lap infant, animal, firearm, or other special circumstance, I advise arriving three hours before your flight. Huge airports that act as hubs may require more time to navigate. Even in the smallest stations, security can get backed up. TSA PreCheck is great, but you can’t rely solely on that to get you to your flight on time. REAL ID is now being enforced in the United States. If you don’t have compliant identification, expect delays getting through the checkpoint.
PHOTO: Shutterstock / Mirko Kuzmanovic
5 OF 5
Being Rude to Airline Employees
I feel like “be nice” should be a given, but after years in this industry, unfortunately, I know that it’s not. Being rude, demanding, or entitled when asking an employee for a favor is not going to get you very far. Why would I go above and beyond to help you when you’re screaming at me condescendingly? I can’t tell you how many times a passenger has come up to me in a bad mood from the start then been surprised that I won’t override the heavy bag fee.
Whatever little power we do have as gate agents will not be used to get you a better seat when you’re yelling that you’re obviously too tall for the last row. In fact, being rude is a surefire way to ensure you stay firmly put between that cranky baby and the smelly lavatory. On the other hand, it never hurts to ask. Approach with a smile and a “How’s your day?” and I might just find that extra legroom for you.
Vegetarian Passenger Dies on Flight After Being Served Meat Dish, Says Lawsuit
Jessica Spengler | Flickr | 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
https://www.fodors.com/news/news/vegetarian-passenger-dies-on-flight-after-being-served-meat-dish-says-lawsuit
The suit alleges the airline crew asked the passenger to eat around the meat.
A California man died on a Qatar Airways flight after allegedly being denied his requested vegetarian meal and offered a meat dish. He choked mid-flight, and his family has filed a lawsuit against the airline for wrongful death.
This tragic chain of events in 2023 involves 85-year-old Asoka Jayaweera, a cardiologist from Southern California. Jayaweera was flying from Los Angeles to Doha. As a strict vegetarian, he had preordered his meal. Two-and-a-half hours into the 15-hour flight, the crew allegedly served him a meat-based meal despite his request and told him to eat around the meat.
Qatar Airways lists 20 special meals, including several options for vegetarians such as a vegetarian meal, raw vegetarian meal, Asian vegetarian meal, and vegetarian Jain meal.
Jayaweera’s son, Surya, who has filed the lawsuit, said in the complaint that his father choked while eating. “While attempting to ‘eat around’ the meat in the meal that he was provided, Asoka Jayaweera began choking shortly thereafter.”
The crew attempted to help and asked for medical advice from MedAire, a company that offers remote medical support to flight attendants. They also administered oxygen, but the passenger lost consciousness, and his oxygen saturation levels remained critical. When the plane landed in Scotland, the passenger had been unconscious for three-and-a-half hours. He was taken to the hospital, where he was declared dead due to aspiration pneumonia, a lung infection caused by inhaling food or drink.
The complaint also claims that the crew informed the passenger’s unidentified companion that the plane could not be diverted because it was flying over the Arctic Circle; however, the suit alleges the flight was actually over Wisconsin and could have landed for emergency assistance.
The complainant is seeking damages for wrongful death under the Montreal Convention at a statutory minimum of $128,000 plus legal fees. The Montreal Convention does not propose a financial limit to death claims, and an airline cannot contest claims for damages up to approximately $183,000.
Although not common, such tragedies do occur onboard. In 2020, a passenger flying Emirates from Melbourne to Manchester choked on her beef dinner. Susan Pugh put her hand on her throat and lost consciousness, and an onboard doctor could not resuscitate the 75-year-old.
A decade ago, in 2011, a 31-year-old choked on his in-flight meal and died onboard. Robert Rippengale was traveling with his girlfriend Vanessa Preechakul from Singapore to New Zealand with Jetstar. He suffocated on his beef dish while watching a movie, and despite the crew’s efforts to perform CPR, they were unable to save his life.
If someone is choking, they may have one or both hands on their throat—an international sign of distress. According to the Red Cross, signs of choking also include a weak cough or no cough, a panicked or confused expression, inability to speak or cough, and skin that may turn blue. If you notice someone having a medical emergency onboard, quickly notify the crew, who are trained to act in these situations. They can also call for help on the ground and alert the pilot, who may divert the plane.
In the event of a fatality, the crew ensures that the deceased is treated with dignity if they pass away onboard. The passenger may be moved to another seat without people around and covered with a blanket, or other passengers may be relocated to other seats.
Taylor Swift Lyric Sends Interest in Italian Town Soaring
Stefano Politi Markovina/Shutterstock
https://www.fodors.com/world/europe/italy/experiences/news/taylor-swift-lyric-sparks-271-surge-in-portofino-travel
“That view of Portofino was on my mind when you called me at the Plaza Athénée.”
Internet searches for the Italian town of Portofino soared by 271% within days of the release of the Taylor Swift album The Life of a Showgirl.
In the song “Elizabeth Taylor,” Swift opens with the lyric, “That view of Portofino was on my mind when you called me at the Plaza Athénée.”
Booking.com noted the increase in searches on their site for travel from U.S. locations to Portofino spiking between October 3 and October 6 compared to the same dates in 2024, coinciding with the release of the album. Portofino is a small fishing village on the Ligurian coast in northern Italy, near Genoa, that was a resort for the jet-set in the 1960s after entering Hollywood consciousness in the 1954 romantic drama The Barefoot Contessa, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner.
The mention of Portofino in a song entitled “Elizabeth Taylor” is more than just hyperbole—Portofino was where Richard Burton reportedly proposed to Elizabeth Taylor in 1964. He had just finished filming Night of the Iguana in Puerto Vallarta, where Taylor had accompanied him to ensure his fidelity (although they were both still married to other people at the time). The couple later lived in the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, and the hotel remained a favorite of Taylor’s for the rest of her life.
Belmond Splendido Mare, a boutique luxury hotel located right in the diminutive piazza of the town, was a bit more circumspect, with no mention of the lyric on their Instagram feed, although the hotel does offer one of the most direct views of Portofino, along with it’s hillside sister property Belmond Hotel Splendido.
Luxury hotels notwithstanding, Portofino has grappled with overtourism in recent years, with boats carrying cruise ship shore excursionists and other day trippers into the small piazza to burn a few leisure hours in the middle of the day.
Although perhaps not quite as picturesque, travelers wanting to peep into Portofino to soak in the aura of Swift’s lyric can take a few side quests, to nearby Santa Margherita to hunt out the best café for gelato (they’re innumerable in the town center), or check out the sleepy waterfront focaccerias in the fishing village of Camogli, just on the other side of the peninsula from Portofino.
The Ligurian coast is noted for its cuisine, in particular, focaccia, an olive oil-infused flatbread, pesto, and farinata, cake made from chickpea flour and olive oil. Cooking in the region is typified by fresh herbs from the surrounding mountains, and a mix of fresh seafood, game, and, of course, freshly made trofie or trenette pasta.
Another popular tourist spot in Liguria is Cinque Terre National Park and Marine Protected Area, where local officials are putting restrictions in place to help ease overtourism, including a ticketed entry and monitoring of visitors for adequate footwear for hiking on the region’s narrow, steep trails.
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