I stopped counting at bag N° 25. The RTW, I never started counting. I’m an intentional shopaholic. I like what I like, and I’m a fan of anything that helps me get more of what I love.

Which is exactly how I ended up saving $2,481 on a single Chanel bag.

Arbitrage N°1

The first Chanel bag I ever gifted myself was a black medium classic flap from the iconic Chanel flagship on Rue Cambon in Paris.

The price tag read €8,800.

This was 2022, and for a brief window, the euro fell below the dollar for the first time in 20 years. One euro was trading at roughly $0.96 to $1.00 USD. So my €8,800 bag converted to approximately $8,450, already cheaper than the US boutique sticker price. Immediately, yes.

But it gets better. France charges a 20% VAT on luxury goods, and that tax is already included in the European price tag. As a tourist, I was able to claim ~12% of the purchase price back, knocking another ~€1,056 off.

When I did the final math, I paid roughly $7,100 for a bag that would have cost me $8,800 plus ~9% sales tax back home in NYC. $2,481 in savings, to be precise. For the same, brand-new bag, direct from the Chanel boutique. Plus, I even got it in the exclusive, flagship white box.

How the Arbitrage Works

Whenever I’m shopping in Europe, there are three things I’m paying attention to. Sometimes, if you’re lucky (and if you know me, you know I’m always lucky), you’ll get all three working in your favor. But even one can make the purchase worth it.

Price Advantage. European luxury brands set their home-market prices lower than their US prices. Without import duties, transatlantic shipping costs, and middleman markups, the European retail price is often considerably lower. In the US, those additional costs get baked in, causing a meaningful gap between the euro and USD price for the same item, even before exchange rates are factored in.

Tax Advantage. European countries charge a value-added tax on goods (20% in France, 22% in Italy), but non-EU tourists can claim a portion of that tax back when they leave the country. The effective refund is typically 12-15% of the purchase price. On a $5,000 bag, you’ll get $600-750 back at the airport.

Currency Advantage. This one is an inconsistent wildcard. When the dollar is strong against the euro (like when I purchased my 2022 Chanel, praise the Lord), you get a double discount. When the euro is stronger (like right now, at about $1.16 per euro), the exchange rate works against you. But even with the euro stronger than the dollar, the base price gap and the VAT refund can still make buying in Europe the smarter move. The exchange rate is one of three potential advantages, not the only one.

Brands Worth Watching

Of course, this would be too good if it worked on everything, everywhere. The size of the gap between US and Europe pricing varies significantly by brand.

Some brands, like Celine, Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Fendi, consistently price their products meaningfully lower in Europe than in the US. These are the brands where the arbitrage is strongest, and where buying in Europe can save you 20-35% compared to buying the same item stateside.

I bought a Fendi First bag in Paris (an exotic! white with snakeskin. sickening!). The US price at the time was around $4,200. The euro advantages allowed me to secure the bag for ~€2,500. I basically would have lost money if I didn’t get it! (I’ll admit, it was a trendy purchase and I haven’t worn it as much as I’d like. I should have gone for something more timeless. But at that price, I still think it was worth it.)

Last January, I picked up a Celine Medium Nino in Italy. US retail price was $3,950. The Rome price was €3,000. Between the near-parity exchange rate and the Italian VAT refund, my investment was only ~$2,600. 33% off on a bag I was going to buy either way.

Other brands have aggressively closed the gap. Chanel has been on a global price harmonization campaign since around 2015, systematically raising European prices to match US prices. The 2022 window I caught was a rare exception driven by the historic exchange rate, not by Chanel pricing much lower in Europe. Today, the Chanel medium classic flap retails for $11,700 in the US and approximately €10,800 in Europe. After you factor in the current exchange rate, the savings are minimal compared to what they used to be. Bottega Veneta is similar.

As for jewelry, don’t expect to find a deal on Cartier or Van Cleef & Arpels in Europe. Jewelry prices adjust quickly with the price of gold and precious metals, so these brands tend to maintain tight global pricing. The arbitrage play works best on leather goods, RTW, and shoes.

Home Field Advantage

Within Europe, the euro price on a Lady Dior is the same whether you’re in Paris or Milan. These brands tend to set one price across the EU.

You will find better selection and occasionally better pricing when you shop a brand in its home country. French brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton, Celine, and Saint Laurent tend to have their deepest inventory and most complete collections in France. Italian brands like Fendi, Prada, and Gianvito Rossi (my favorite shoe brand!!) offer the same in Italy. You’ll have the most robust and unique experience shopping in the home country.

VAT rates vary slightly between countries. Typically only a couple %, but worth noting if you’re visiting multiple countries on your trip.

Steal My Homework

My Euro summer starts next week and my shopping list is already curated. I know which boutiques I’m visiting, and what I’m planning to leave with.

I built the full shopping database, full of bags and shoes with the price comparisons and post-VAT savings. It also includes a tactical guide on the VAT refund process and customs declarations, because you didn’t come this far to miss your refund. If you’re planning your Euro summer shopping, steal my homework. Find the full list here (dropping May 31 - subscribe to get notified!).

Here’s to bigger and better.

Abundantly yours,

Alexandra 🛍️

Let’s fix that.

I manage product development teams for one of the biggest streaming platforms in the world, and I am fully on the AI adoption train. I use AI to help me organize my thoughts and polish my writing, and I spend a lot of time building custom skills that train AI to do exactly what I need it to do.

But here’s something that I feel gets lost in the AI conversations: even when you are doing your own writing, you now have to be careful. AI tools have become so widespread that perfectly human writing can get flagged as AI-generated if you’re not paying attention. You risk losing credibility even if AI never touched your writing.

Wikipedia released a guide called “The Signs of AI Writing” that catalogs every tell their editors have spotted across thousands of AI-generated submissions. I’ve also been compiling AI writing tells and built them into a skill that I use every day at work. Today I am walking you through the tells that matter most, whether you are using AI to assist your writing or not. At the end of this article, I will share the exact skill so you can plug it into your LLM to help AI organize and illustrate your thoughts, voice, and tone instead of turning out weird AI slop.

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13 Signs of AI Writing

1. The Em Dash (RIP)

This one hurts the most because I was an em dash overuser pre-ChatGPT — even my admissions essay to Harvard Business School had six of them. (see how perfectly it works there!) Now I feel like I can never use them or I risk my real writing sounding like AI slop. AI uses em dashes so aggressively, often multiple times per paragraph, that they have become the single most recognized marker of AI writing. RIP.

2. The Rule of Threes

AI loves triplets. “Innovative, transformative, and groundbreaking.” The lists always default to three. Three adjectives. Three benefits. Three pillars. Three takeaways. Real writing doesn’t round to three every time. Sometimes the answer is two, others it’s five. AI can’t help itself.

3. The AI Thesaurus

AI leans on a small rotation of words that sound impressive but really say nothing. After ChatGPT launched, researchers at the Max Planck Institute found that words like delve, robust, pivotal, and transformative spiked by over 50% in published writing. Some of the common offenders include: underscore, tapestry, foster, testament, landscape (used figuratively), intricate, nuanced, vibrant, multifaceted, holistic, seamless, comprehensive, cutting-edge, groundbreaking.

I find this a bit frustrating — sometimes these words are the best for what you’re trying to say (clock my em dash use, ughh. It’s me, not AI!!). A word or two from this list won’t make you sound robotic. But be careful if your writing is flooded with these terms.

4. The Fake Insight

“It’s not just X. It’s Y.”

“This isn’t about X. It’s about Y.”

“Not only X, but Y.”

These sound like revelations. They are not. They are just restating the same idea with different words. AI uses this structure constantly because it sounds like a point is being made when nothing new is actually being said. (Did you notice the fake insight in this paragraph?)

5. The Rhetorical Question

“So what does this mean? It means...”

“Why does this matter? Because...”

“What’s the takeaway here? Simple.”

AI asks itself questions and then answers them in the very next line, simulating a conversation no one is having. Just make the point. One of these for emphasis may be appropriate. Too many is clearly AI slop.

6. The Signpost

“Let’s dive in.”

“Let’s explore.”

“Now let’s turn to...”

AI tells you what it is about to say before it says it. Just say it. Your ideas should connect because they connect, not because a signpost told the reader they would.

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7. The Hedging

“It’s important to note that...”

“However, it should be noted...”

“While results may vary...”

AI tends to hedge claims because it is trained to avoid being wrong. (See the hedge?) This results in writing where you cannot figure out what the writer actually thinks. Say what you mean. If something needs a caveat, give it one. Otherwise, not every sentence needs a safety net.

8. The Inflated Importance

Every topic is “crucial.” Every development is “significant.” Every framework is “essential.” AI often makes everything sound urgent. The result? It reads as hollow. If everything is crucial, nothing is.

📝Pop quiz: There are 3 other tells in this section. Did you clock them? Answer in the comments!

9. The Warm-Up

“In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape...”

“It’s worth noting that...”

“One of the most significant aspects of...”

“When it comes to...”

AI likes to warm up before it makes a point, like stretching before a jog you won’t actually go on. Quick fix: delete the first phrase/sentence of any AI output. Nine times out of ten, the second sentence is where the substance actually starts.

10. The Uniform Rhythm

AI writes in uniform blocks with the same paragraph length, sentence structures, and rhythms over and over.

Real writing is uneven. It breathes. Long sentences build momentum. Short ones punch. Paragraphs vary because ideas vary. AI output feels manufactured because every unit comes out the same size, like pasta from a machine.

11. The Formatting Tell

This might be the most recognizable AI pattern:

Bold term: Explanation sentence.

Another bold term: Another explanation sentence.

A third bold term: Enough already.

AI has weird formatting standards. It also overuses bullet points, adds headers to sections that do not need them, and numbers lists that are not sequential. Formatting should serve the reader. AI uses it as a crutch for organization and feels templatized.

12. The Missing Person

AI can explain anything, but it cannot give the specificity and texture of someone who was actually there. It will give you an amazing summary. It will never give you the feeling of the moment. Your details, opinions, and observations (yikes that’s a triple, sorry) are what add color to your writing. This is the one tell that no skill can fix. YOU have to actually write your stories.

13. The Compulsive Summary

AI likes to end by restating what it just said. “In conclusion...” “To summarize...” Kind of like a 3rd grade five-paragraph essay structure (introduction, 3 body paragraphs, + conclusion). It looks backward instead of forward. Good writing ends on a new thought, not a recap. So I will take my own advice and not summarize this article for you.

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Something to remember: AI was trained on real, human writing. A lot of these tells are not new problems that AI invented. Rather, they are bad writing habits that already existed in human writing that AI has made more prevalent and obvious. Don’t think of this list as a set of rules to never break. It’s a set of patterns to be mindful of because most of them are not good writing practices to begin with, and now they can also make your perfectly real writing look like AI slop.

I’m fully on board with using AI to help you write. It can help you organize your thoughts, structure your arguments, clean up your drafts, and generally move faster. In order for that to work, you need AI to maintain your voice while it helps you edit. So I built a skill for exactly that.

An extra bit of abundance for my subscribers 🔧

I built a skill that encodes every tell from this article into a single prompt you can plug into your LLM of choice. Find the skill + detailed installation instructions here:

Here’s to bigger and better.

Abundantly yours,

Alexandra 👩🏽‍💻

If you just came from my article, I Miss the Em Dash, that includes the 13 most prevalent signs of AI writing, you already know what patterns can hurt your credibility as a writer.

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I built a skill that encodes every tell from that article that you can use in your LLM of choice. Instead of writing with AI and manually editing, this skill helps to organize your thoughts, details, and writing into polished outputs. It preserves the authenticity of your voice, which means less editing and writing that actually sounds like you.

If you haven’t read the full breakdown of the 13 signs yet, start there:

What’s a Skill?

A skill is just a set of instructions that you give Claude (or your LLM of choice) that tells it how to behave. It sounds super fancy, but it’s actually just a simple text file with instructions. Unlike a prompt, once a skill is installed, it’s always there. You invoke it by name.

The skill below is called Preserve My Voice, but when you install it, you can rename it to whatever you like (more on installation below). Once it’s installed, you can simply write “preserve my voice” or “use the preserve my voice skill” in any conversation, and Claude will follow the rules of the skill.

What This Skill Does

This skill (1) catches and (2) prevents all 13 AI writing tells from the original article. It also covers a few bonus patterns I didn’t include in the article: copula avoidance (writing “serves as” instead of “is”), false ranges (”from X to Y, from A to B”), synonym cycling, and superficial -ing analyses.

It also includes a voice calibration feature. If you give it a sample of your own writing, it will match your style before producing anything. If you’re like me and use Wispr Flow to talk to Claude as opposed to typing directly, this is gold because it can take your raw, unfiltered speech and polish it as you would.

Installing the Skill

Installation is simple. For Claude, go to Settings, then Capabilities, then Skills. Click the plus button, “Create skill,” and then “Write skill instructions.” Name the skill. Copy the code block below and paste in the instructions area. Click create. And that’s it. You’re all set.

If you’re having trouble, simply paste the code block into a new Claude chat with the following prompt:

Use the pasted input to create a new skill called ‘preserve my voice'

Claude can then help you with the setup.

For ChatGPT: Go to Settings, then Personalization, then Custom Instructions. Paste the skill content into the “How would you like ChatGPT to respond?” field. ChatGPT doesn’t have a formal skill system yet, but custom instructions work the same way globally.

Remember, skills are just text instructions. Feel free to edit the skill to fit your personal preferences. Just change the text. I promise it’s that simple.

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know Michael Jackson and Prince had a well-documented rivalry. Even as the best-selling artist of all time, at the absolute peak of his career, Michael understood something that most people never do. That urgency is not optional. You don’t get to wait until you’re ready. Inspiration has somewhere else to be.

He knew the cost of waiting. He’s even quoted saying the one time he slept instead of acting on an idea from God, Prince went and wrote Purple Rain. 🙊

I think about that a lot.

The Perfectionism Trap

I am a perfectionist. Perfectionism, if you let it, will dress itself up as diligence while quietly doing the exact same thing as procrastination. You don’t think you’re being lazy. You think you’re being thorough.

Perfectionism never wants you to see that it really isn’t about quality. It’s about safety. Waiting until something is perfect means never having to find out what happens when it isn’t. The work stays ideal because the work stays private.

It feels like having high standards. It’s actually just fear with better branding.

Progress is the result of imperfect action. The key word is action. Notice I didn’t say “perfect” action or “polished” action. Just action. Movement. A willingness to put something in the world before you feel ready, because feeling ready is a feeling that for most of us never quite arrives. Your hesitation isn’t protecting you. It’s silencing you and keeping you from progress.

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Season 1 vs. Season 10

Years ago I watched Makeup Shayla on YouTube when she first talked about Season 1 vs. Season 10. On Season 1 of any Real Housewives franchise, the women look chopped. The hair, styling, and overall aesthetic just doesn’t hit. By Season 10, though, they find their groove. They are polished, thriving. Their clothes fit better (most get work done, but still). They’ve built empires. They didn’t arrive that way. They developed. They got their reps in on camera, in public, imperfectly. Season 10 was the result.

If you look at your favorite creator or influencer’s first post, you’d probably notice that the lighting is bad, the audio is rough, and the branding just isn’t there. And yet they posted it anyway. Then they posted again. And again. The quality didn’t come first. The action did. Polish came as a result of a series of actions.

I’m two weeks into this publication. In the first 48 hours, over 700 of you subscribed. That would not have happened if I had waited. Even I spent three weeks going from idea to launch: building content pillars, creating a logo, trying to get everything into place. Three weeks is not a long time, but if I’m being honest, I feel like I could have done it in half that. I didn’t have everything perfect on launch day. I still don’t. But I’m here, getting my reps in, and building toward my Season 10.

What if I had sat on the idea for three months instead? There would have been plenty of other people starting Substacks in that window, getting educated, figuring out what works, building their audiences. By the time I finally launched, they would have been three months more experienced than me. Not because they were smarter or more qualified. Simply because they had the audacity to move first.

The Person Winning Is Not Better Than You

The uncomfortable truth is that the person who steps into the space you were waiting to claim is not necessarily better than you. They might not have your experience, your taste, your vision, or your credentials. But they moved. They raised their hand before they felt ready. They showed up before they felt qualified. Now they are in the room you were still deciding whether to enter.

You are not competing against people who are better than you. You are competing against people who are less afraid of being imperfect than you are. In that competition, talent is almost beside the point.

Every time you procrastinate, someone less qualified than you takes your place. This isn’t meant to sound like a Pinterest motivational quote. It’s just the fact of what happens.

The idea you have been sitting on. The thing you keep saying you will start when you have more time, more resources, a better plan. Someone is out there executing a worse version of it right now. If they stay consistent while you stay stuck, their worse version will eventually be better than your perfect version that never existed.

God gave Michael Jackson the idea. Michael Jackson acted on it.

Don’t make God give it to Prince.

Here’s to bigger & better.

Abundantly yours,

Alexandra 🪩

The night before my birthday trip to Riviera Maya, I had everything packed, except probably the most important thing: my beach read.

I don’t consider myself a fast reader. I’m a very average speed reader, but I love reading. A few years ago I committed to reading 52 books that year, one book every single week. While I’m no longer hustle-culturing my reading, I do still love a nice vacation read. It’s probably the part of a beach vacation that I look forward to the most.

The problem is that I’m picky. I don’t have the patience for a book that’s just fine. If I’m giving my limited leisure time to a novel, it needs to earn it. I have read too many books that started strong and fizzled by chapter eight, or that everyone on TikTok swore by and I finished feeling nothing. Life is too short. Vacation days are too few. And I’m too slow of a reader to spend them on a 3-star read.

So like a true engineer, I optimized. I asked Claude to pick my next 5-star read.

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I use Fable to track my reading and ratings. I fed data about all the books I’ve read in the last year to Claude. Everything from 5-star obsessions to 3-star letdowns, with my reviews of each one. I told Claude where I was going, what type of trip it was, and asked it to predict a 5-star read for me that would fit the beach read vibe.

Claude could see that The Housemaid and The Housemaid’s Secret were my latest 5-star obsessions. It also clocked that Seven Days in June (4.75 stars) and Such a Fun Age (4.25 stars) were two books I loved and read very quickly. It also saw the lackluster 3-star ratings, which helped illuminate what doesn’t work for me.

Claude came back with a list of recommendations. The number one was a book that I already owned but had not been eager to read. I decided to give it a try.

400 Pages in 2 Days

My first morning at the Waldorf, I started reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Once I picked it up, I genuinely could not put that book down. My boyfriend and I sat in silence at the pool while I was immersed in the world of Evelyn Hugo. Halfway through our second pool day, I had finished the entire thing. All 400 pages (as a slow reader, mind you!!).

My first 5-star read of 2026. Claude nailed it.

But now I had a new problem. I was two days into a six-day trip, and I had burned through my only book by day two.

Book Two (Unplanned)

Fortunately, the Waldorf Astoria has a small library for guests. I snapped a photo of the shelves, sent it to Claude, and asked for another 5-star prediction.

Its top recommendation was a title I recognized: The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand. It was on my TBR, but I had never actually purchased it. I decided I would give it a go and headed back to the pool.

Because I didn’t want to ignore my boyfriend for the entire vacation, I tempered my reading speed for this book. But by the last morning of the trip, I had about 40 pages left. Our driver was pulling up to take us to the airport, and I was sitting in the lobby turning pages as fast as I could. He waited patiently while I finished the book so I could return it to the library before we left.

My second 5-star read of 2026.

Claude: The Personal Book Sommelier

Claude went 2 for 2. Not lukewarm recommendations. Two wildly different books that I genuinely loved and never would have picked up on my own.

I was giving it my taste as data and letting it find patterns I couldn’t see myself. The 5-star ratings told Claude what I love. The 3-star ratings told it what to avoid. Together, they painted a picture of me as a reader that was specific enough to generate recommendations I actually trusted.

This is what using AI well looks like. Not asking it to think for you. Asking it to take what you already know about yourself and find something you would have missed.

I stopped guessing about what to read on vacation. I found real page turners that I actually loved, and my first two 5-star reads of the year. Worth every drop of water it took to generate.

If you’re packing for Memorial Day weekend or a summer trip, try this before you default to whatever is trending on BookTok.

An extra bit of abundance for my subscribers 🪄: below is a bigger, better version of the prompt I used to find my 5-star reads. It generates a beautiful artifact with your own personal AI-curated book list. Try it before you pick your next read.

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I have this thing with parking lots.

No matter where I’m going, whether it’s a packed Costco on a Saturday or a downtown street with no spots in sight, I don’t stress about finding a parking space. I say the same thing out loud: Thank you, Lord, that there is already a parking space allocated for me. I just believe that there is a good, close parking spot available to me, and that in due time it will make itself available. I speak about that parking spot like it’s already mine. Without fail, I find one. A good one.

This is not a “once in a while” thing. This is an “all the time” thing.

I believe that things are always working out for me. What’s for me won’t miss me. I’m a winner. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

Before you roll your eyes, stay with me, because a psychologist spent ten years proving that I might not be delusional.

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Luck Finds the Lucky

Dr. Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, spent a decade studying what makes some people consistently lucky and others consistently unlucky. He recruited 400 people from all walks of life, half who described themselves as lucky and half who described themselves as unlucky, and ran a series of experiments.

In his flagship experiment, he handed each person a newspaper and asked them to count the photographs inside. The unlucky group took about two minutes, carefully flipping through every page. The lucky group got it in seconds.

Why? On the second page, in enormous bold print, was a half-page message that read: “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” The lucky people saw it immediately. The unlucky people flipped right past it. Wiseman even placed a second message halfway through the paper offering $250 to anyone who noticed it. Same result. The lucky people spotted it. The unlucky people were too busy counting.

The difference wasn’t intelligence, talent, or resources. Personality tests showed that the unlucky people were significantly more anxious, and that anxiety narrowed their focus so tightly that they could only see what they were looking for. The lucky people were relaxed and open. They saw what was actually there.

I like this study a lot because it confirms something I have always believed: I can choose to be favored, and it will be so. This is not a wish or a posture. Rather, it’s the way I move through the world. I believe I’m a winner, so I win. I walk through seasons of my life, big and small, expecting that God has already placed something there for me. Because I believe it, I see it every time.

Choose Lucky

Here is why this matters to you. Not only did Wiseman study luck, but he also taught it in something called “Luck School.” He trained self-described unlucky people to think and behave like lucky ones. The results showed that 80 percent of participants reported feeling happier, more satisfied, and luckier afterwards.

Luck is not something that happens to you. It is a thing you practice. It is a choice you make. It starts with what you say to yourself when the opportunity looks closed, when the timing looks wrong, or when the parking lot looks full.

Start by saying it. Give yourself a self-fulfilling prophecy, a declaration that fuels you until the evidence starts piling up. Things always work out for me. Whatever I want wants me more. Good things happen to me unexpectedly. Expect things to work out, and they will.

I am the luckiest girl in the world. I don’t think that’s an accident.

Here’s to your bigger, better, luckier life.

An extra bit of abundance for my subscribers 🔮: I’ve included some of the exact affirmations I use daily to speak luck, abundance, and blessings over my life. As you enter your lucky girl era, incorporate these and let me know how they work for you. Save it, screenshot it, make it your phone background, and repeat them daily. I love this for you.

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Hi, I’m Alexandra, and I’m a Points Hoarder

Let me be transparent about the scale of my problem. It’s not just Hyatt. I have millions of Amex points. Over a million Delta SkyMiles. Hundreds of thousands each at Marriott and Hilton that I won’t even get into. I am basically Ariel in her cave, whozits and whatzits galore, except instead of forks and thingamabobs, it’s loyalty currencies I refuse to use.

In college, my parents covered most of my expenses, so I saved my travel points for when I was finally on my own. When I was finally on my own, I knew I’d be heading to business school soon, so I figured I should save points to prepare for two years of not working and traveling excessively. Then I got to HBS and took over 150 flights in less than two years. 84 in the first year alone. I expected to burn through my points, but I still wasn’t spending my own money, ✨✨. So the balance just kept growing.

Since graduating, I thought about finally starting to use them. But a new excuse showed up: optimization paralysis. You don’t just want to use your points. You want to use them well. You want at least 2 cents per point in value. You want to compare cash rates to points rates, check off-peak pricing, run the transfer math. Honestly, I value my time too much to sit and play the points game for hours trying to find the perfect redemption. So I just pay cash, tell myself I’ll figure it out “next time,” and the balance keeps climbing. Next time never comes.

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The Math That Made Me Move

In February 2026, Hyatt announced the biggest overhaul to its award chart in five years. Starting May 20, the program is expanding from three pricing tiers to five. In plain English, that simply means your points are about to buy you significantly less hotel room.

A Category 7 property like the Park Hyatt St. Kitts ($1,500+/night), which currently peaks at 35,000 points a night, will cost up to 55,000 after the May 20 devaluation. That’s a 57% increase. At Category 8 property like the Park Hyatt Cabo Del Sol ($1,000+/night), the ceiling jumps from 45,000 to 75,000 points per night. A 67% increase.

When I saw the news, something clicked. Points are not a savings account. They are a depreciating asset (look at me, using my MBA words 💁🏽‍♀️). Every day you hold them, they are worth a little less than the day before. On May 20, they’re about to be worth a lot less.

Cashin’ Out

I brought the idea to my boyfriend. Let’s just use all the Hyatt points. Book something incredible before the devaluation hits.

We have a packed travel schedule over the next few months, so we knew the trip would land in winter, which would be a welcome escape from the cold in NYC. We wanted a relatively short flight from New York to somewhere neither of us had been. We looked at the Park Hyatt Cabo (gorgeous, but we’ve both been plenty of times, plus the flight from New York is a bit long) and ultimately, the Park Hyatt St. Kitts won.

Three nights. King Bed Oceanview. (they don’t have oceanfront rooms, which if you read my inaugural piece for this publication, you’ll appreciate the irony.) Two nights at 35,000 points and one night at 30,000. Total: 100,000 points.

The cash rate for the same room on our dates? $1,869 per night before taxes. That’s over $5,600 for three nights, not including resort fees, which Hyatt waives on award stays. My 100,000 points just bought me a $5,600 vacation. Under the new award chart, the same stay would cost 165,000 points.

I won’t pretend I felt nothing when I saw the balance drop. There was a brief, irrational flash of panic. What if I need to stay at a Hyatt? As if I don’t have a credit card. As if I don’t have millions of points across four other programs. The panic lasted about thirty seconds before it was replaced with excitement. The points were no longer a number on a screen. Instead, they were a trip, with a date on the calendar and a confirmation number in my email.

Your Points Aren’t Getting Any Younger

If you are always saving for someday, someday will never come. There will always be a reason to wait. Meanwhile, the programs keep devaluing. Hyatt is doing it in May. Who knows who’s next. Your points are worth the most they will ever be worth right now.

I’m not saying drain every loyalty account to zero tomorrow. But if you have six figures of points in a single program and you haven’t redeemed in years, you’re not saving. You’re hoarding. Hoarding is just fear dressed up as strategy. (I'm talking about points right now, but at some point I should probably apply this logic to my closet as well.)

I spent 100,000 points on three nights at a Park Hyatt in the Caribbean, saved my boyfriend over $5,600, and beat a devaluation that would have made the same booking impossible with my balance. My only regret is not doing it sooner.

Your points aren’t going to spend themselves, and they aren’t getting any younger.

An extra bit of abundance for my subscribers 🔮: I’ve put together a list of my favorite iconic Hyatt properties with incredible value for you to book before the May 20 devaluation. It’s complete with current and future points pricing for each, what makes me love the property, and why you should book now. Check it out below and let me know what you book!

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And then last month, I was scrolling the Sephora spring sale and saw it promoted on the homepage carousel. Twenty percent off.

So here we are. This is me, officially breaking the seal. You are welcome.

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It was a rainy day in 2023 in Amsterdam when I stumbled into the Fugazzi flagship store on Gasthuismolensteeg, a narrow street tucked into the Nine Streets neighborhood along the canals. I had heard about the brand in my niche fragrance communities, but they were not widely available in the United States at the time. You could maybe find them at a handful of niche luxury perfume retailers, but they were nowhere near mass-market. The store was small, chic, and a little bit scientific: clear bottles with sleek cylindrical tops lined the shelves like something out of a very cool chemistry lab. I went through everything they had.

One fragrance was the undeniable winner.

The fragrance is Angel Dust, and it smells exactly like the name suggests. What you would expect the dust of an angel to smell like. I know that sounds ridiculous, but once you smell it, you will understand. It is encapsulating and quietly powerful. There is a pepperiness to it, a warmth. It is not offensive, but it is striking and completely unlike anything else I have ever worn. The closest comparison I can offer is that it lives in the same universe as Mojave Ghost by Byredo, that fresh, clean, skin-scent family, but even that is not quite right. Angel Dust is really in a category of its own. Built around a note called Cashmeran, which the brand calls the “polite molecule” for its intimacy and closeness to the skin, it layers Calabrian bergamot, black pepper, cashmere wood, and white amber crystals into something that feels like wrapping yourself in a Lola blanket: buttery soft, impossibly warm, and something you never want to take off.

I bought it on the spot. Brought it home. And it became my go-to fragrance for everything. Subtle enough for the office. Spicy enough for date nights. Crisp enough for Euro summers. Warm enough for ski trips. Because it was not widely available in the U.S. and nobody could identify it, it stayed mine.

And then everything changed.

I was scrolling the Sephora spring sale last month, and there it was. Fugazzi. Promoted on the homepage. Featured in the carousel. Angel Dust, my Angel Dust, sitting on the Sephora website at twenty percent off for the whole world to see.

Here is why I panicked. I love Baccarat Rouge 540. It is a gorgeous fragrance. But you know who else loves it? Everyone. You can smell it in every elevator, every restaurant, every Uber. And there are so many dupes at every price point that you cannot even tell if someone is wearing the real thing anymore. It is not mysterious. It is not special. The luxury appeal disappears when a scent becomes that ubiquitous. When I saw Angel Dust on that Sephora carousel, my mind went straight there. This fragrance is so good that I cannot imagine it not becoming a mass hit.

But here is my concession: the jig is up. If Angel Dust is sitting on the Sephora homepage, there is no point in pretending it is still a secret. It is too good and too accessible now to gatekeep. So consider this my official act of service.

What to buy. Angel Dust Eau de Parfum (starting at $120 at Sephora) is the everyday version. Versatile, office-appropriate, year-round. If you want more punch for evenings, the Extrait dials up the white amber and swaps black pepper for pink peppercorn. Both are excellent. And one silver lining of Fugazzi hitting Sephora: their new Mango Magic, previously only available in Europe, is now accessible in the U.S. for the first time. So while I mourn the exclusivity, I am excited to explore something new from a brand I trust.

I know ball when it comes to fragrance. Angel Dust is still in my rotation and it will stay there. But I am already on the hunt for my next niche holy grail. I have my eyes, my ears, and my nose open.

In the meantime, go get Angel Dust. You will thank me later.

Abundantly yours,

Alexandra

Before you roll your eyes, hear me out.

An ocean view room means you walk to the corner of the balcony, crane your neck to the left, and catch a sliver of blue between two buildings. That is a room where the ocean is technically present but functionally nonexistent. An oceanfront room is better. But if I am being honest, and I am always being honest, even oceanfront has levels. I do not want the room where the bed faces the wall and the ocean is beside me while I sleep. I want the room where I open my eyes in the morning and the first thing I see, before anything, is water and sun. No craning. No peeking. Just the whole, wide, ridiculous ocean, right there.

My boyfriend gets it. He booked that room. But when I talked about this with my friend, she laughed and said, “You are so over the top.”

And I thought: no. I am just specific. I know exactly what I want, and I do not apologize for the fact that what I want is the best version of the thing, not the version that is good enough.

That is the entire philosophy behind this publication, distilled into a hotel room.

True to This

I have had a personal housekeeper since I was nineteen. Not because I did not know how to clean, but because I decided early that my time was worth more than my Saturday mornings. I have a self-care appointment every single day, because taking care of myself is not a reward for finishing my to-do list, it is a line item on it. My second bedroom in my New York apartment is not a guest room. It is a closet and a glam room, because I wanted one and I made it happen.

I grew up with high standards. Quality was not foreign to me. But I did not coast on what I was given. I pushed. I never settled when good was already achieved. I left jobs that were working to chase roles that were better. I made investments that made people nervous and decisions that made people curious. It was true in the big moments, and it is true in the small daily decisions that make the day a little brighter. Every single time I am presented with a choice, I reach for the room with the better view.

Why Now

I built Bigger & Better because I got tired of being one thing at a time.

The career content out there is sterile. The lifestyle content is shallow. The luxury content floats in a fantasy world disconnected from the work it actually takes to build the life. And none of it talks to the woman I actually am: someone who negotiates a compensation package with the same intensity she brings to planning a dinner party. Someone who talks about AI adoption at work and then uses AI to run her personal life like a machine. Someone who cares about her quarterly review AND the right restaurant AND whether her skincare is working AND the tool that just saved her three hours.

That woman is not one-dimensional. Neither is this publication.

Every issue falls into one of four lanes. The Upgrade is where we talk career, ambition, and the moves that actually get you ahead. The Lifestyle is how I actually live day to day: the travel, the hosting, the restaurants, the routines that make a life feel designed and not defaulted. The Edit is style, beauty, and the luxury pieces worth investing in. And The Brief is the one no one else is giving you: tactical tools, AI upgrades, systems, and shortcuts that create an unfair advantage.

Straight to your inbox. Documented and repeatable, not theoretical.

I have spent enough years in rooms where I was the only person who looked like me, sounded like me, or carried herself like me to know that discomfort is not my problem to manage. Beauty and brilliance are not mutually exclusive. They are a power combo. That is not a tagline. That is my lived experience.

And this publication is my proof.

Welcome to Bigger & Better

You are reading the first issue of something I have been building toward my entire life. Not because I always planned to start a publication, but because everything I have done, every company I have worked at, every stage I have stood on, every negotiation I have won, every room I have walked into overdressed and overqualified, has led me to this belief:

Just good enough was never good enough. And it should never be yours either.

So here is what I am offering you. A front-row seat to a life that refuses to plateau. A community of people who want more and are not ashamed to say it. A blueprint, not a fantasy. The real stories, the real numbers, the real decisions behind a life that some call extraordinary but that I just call mine.

Come build with me.

Here’s to your bigger, better life.

Abundantly yours,

Alexandra