Archive for the ‘Miscellany’ Category

The weak, plasticky and unsatisfactory in-room coffee experience

As you may have read in previous issues, The TICKET has partnered with Starbucks to get the word out about VIA, its new line of instant coffee, among frequent travelers like YOU!

Starbucks VIA is perfect for those times you find yourself deprived of good coffee on the road. You know what I mean…like when your only option is that weak tea-like brew you find on hotel breakfast bars. Or worse, when you don’t have time (or money!) for room service and the stuff produced by the “coffee” maker in your hotel room is your only option. Ick! Then there are also those times when the coffee urn runs dry at that all-morning meeting…

With Starbucks VIA, just keep a pack in your briefcase or carry-on bag to ensure a really good cup of coffee no matter where you are. All you have to do is add hot or cold water. The taste is amazing—I honestly have a tough time telling the difference between VIA and the real thing. (>>>Click on the ad to the right for more info about VIA>>>)

How would you like to give Starbucks VIA a try for a month, for free?

Here’s all you have to do:

Leave a comment below or send me an email describing a travel situation where you WISHED you had a pack of Starbucks VIA to get your day off to a good start with a REAL cup of coffee. THAT’S IT!

Just two or three lines are all I’m looking for. But if you are feeling especially creative, send it along as a poem…or haiku*…or a photo. If you are already a fan of VIA, tell us why.

I’ll pick what I feel are the top three entries, and those folks will get a one-month supply of Starbucks VIA and a nice new mug sent to them. Easy!

I look forward to hearing from you!

*HAIKU: a 3 line, one stanza poem with a syllable count of 5, 7, 5.

I’m still a little bit star struck.

Last week, on the first leg of my journey home from my summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., I traveled with one of my all-time favorite singers and songwriters, Carly Simon.

Here’s what happened: As we were walking along the pier to enter the queue for the ferry back to the mainland, a woman in a billowy white dress, a big handbag, blonde hair and a very familiar face walked up behind us in line.

Carly Simon looking and sounding great at 65 on the ferry between Martha's Vineyard and Woods Hole, Mass. (and me!)

I looked at her and smiled, then looked away, and then a little bell went off in my head. I turned and looked again, and she smiled back at me, and I stuttered something like, “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like. . . um wait a minute. . . are you Carly Simon?” As a long-time fan, I knew that she lived on Martha’s Vineyard, so the possibility was not completely far fetched.

She smiled and said, “Yes, I am,” and seemed eager for a friendly chat, so I engaged. Read the rest of this entry »

CREDIT CARD ACT NOW IN EFFECT. The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act took effect on Feb 22, will force more consumer-friendly practices on card issuers. But it will also increase competition among banks for lucrative affluent customers with good credit ratings (i.e. TICKET readers!) according to an interesting article in Business Week.  Customers with credit ratings of 750+ should expect to receive more bonus rewards, solicitations and promotional offers. Speaking of affluent customers, here’s a nugget of info from the article that we did not know: “American Express dominates the market for affluent users, with individual card purchases averaging $9,342 in 2008 compared with $2,672 for Visa and $2,300 for MasterCard. Its cardholders have average credit scores of 754 compared with 722 for the rest of the industry.” (Disclosure: Travel Skills Group, the publisher of this blog, engages in occasional consulting work for American Express.)

CAR RENTAL SURPRISES CONTINUE. We keep hearing similar stories from TICKET readers about rapacious car rental rates. Here’s another…”I’m an Avis Preferred First Member.  Last night I tried to make a reservation in Boston in April (not Easter weekend).  The airlines are having a great sale ($128 RT midweek) so I decided to see about visiting kids and grandkids.  The airfare for 2 was about $320 with taxes, etc. but the car (economy) was $375!!!! Fully one third of that was taxes and garbage.  I am aware of this imbalance and realize it’s been going on for a while, but in this economy, it seems bizarre.  I realize, or at least I’ve heard, that the car companies have cut back the number of cars available in order to keep the price high. To get the best deal, I booked it at Orbitz for $100 less.  Here’s the problem or challenge: Avis won’t let me use my Avis Preferred First status with the rental. I really don’t care about the mileage but I was annoyed to think that I’ll be forced to check-in at the counter. No manner of questioning from either Orbitz or Avis produced any answer.  Customer service??  Not!  Anyway, keep up the good work!”–JL

VEGAS WILL BE PACKED. All indications are showing that this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (Jan 7-10) is going to be full to overflowing. Why? Pent up demand. This time last year we were all in economic shock. Attendees for CES and many other conventions were forced to cancel their plans. With things looking up this year, everyone wants to go back. So expect FULL flights between ATL and Vegas, full hotels, and the necessity of restaurant reservations. The city is expecting in excess of 100,000 visitors for this, the city’s largest event of the year.

HILTON HHONORS. Hilton is increasing the number of HHonors points required for award redemptions starting on January 14. Most reward categories will require an additional 5000 points for a free night stay. Stays at Hilton’s poshest brand, the Waldorf=Astoria Collection, are now pretty much standardized at 50,000 per night in the low season and 60,000 in high season. (TIP: Redeem points before Jan 14 on the old schedule and you’ll save.)

http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/landing/RewardFAQ/index.do

MISCELLANY

DEAD WEEKS. (SEE VIDEO) If you’ve got some flexibility in your travel schedule, don’t forget that the first three weeks of January are considered “dead weeks” in the travel industry. This is when travel demand plummets and you’ll find some of the very lowest prices of the year if you can take off at the last minute. It’s a great time to troll for bargains on last minute sites like Hotwire or name your own price sites like priceline.com. You can also find tons of last minute deals on cruises departing Florida and Gulf Coast ports. You’ll also find incredible weekend deals at luxury hotels located in downtown areas. And this year, with AirTran launching service to Jamaica, Aruba and the Bahamas, (and Puerto Rico) you will find lots of last minute bargains to warm weather destinations. Also, all those nice new hotel rooms in Las Vegas are a steal (except Jan 6-10 when the Consumer Electronics show is in town.)

PER MILE RATE CHANGE. The IRS recently announced that, starting January 1, 2010 it would lower the standard mileage rate to 50 cents per mile, down from the current 55-cent rate (and a high of 58.5 cents in 2008) The IRS standard mileage rate is the maximum amount you can deduct from your taxes for business use of a personal vehicle. It’s also used as a guideline for companies reimbursing employees who use their personal vehicles on company business.

Don’t Forget! BOOK ALL YOUR ONLINE TRAVEL VIA LINKS FROM THE TICKET!

airtran.com | delta.com |  Hotwire

TIME TO SKI: Have you seen the snow in Colorado? That photo was taken in Crested Butte last week! Most slopes don’t open ’til the end of November, but Delta’s reduced fares on its nonstop B737 flight between ATL and Steamboat Springs/Hayden, Colo., for this winter. If you travel off peak in January, you can fly for just $258 round trip. That’s a remarkable deal for a flight that does NOT require a stop in Denver and then a drive up to the mountains. You land, get off the plane and you are there. (Compare that to ATL-Vail nonstops currently going for $350 roundtrip. Even Salt Lake is pricey in Jan…when we checked fares were close to $400 roundtrip. Denver’s running about $284 round trip.)

DELTA-AMEX CREDIT CARD NEWS: American Express is removing the 60,000-mile earnings cap on its regular Delta SkyMiles card, and the 100,000 Gold Skymiles card cap effective in February. (Platinums never had a limit.) That’s good news for those who are frequent flyers AND frequent spenders with accounts that could easily exceed 60,000 or 100,000 miles in a year. Speaking of Amex, have you heard about its new Premier Rewards Gold card? This is a great card for folks who spread their biz among several airlines (probably best stick with Delta SkyMiles card if you are Delta heavy). Anyway, the Premier Rewards card offers triple Membership Rewards points for every dollar spent on airlines, double points for gas and groceries, one point for everything else. Plus, you get a 15,000 point bonus for the first $1000 spend, and then another 15,000 bonus if you spend $30,000 in a calendar year. You can then turn around and convert those points into miles with Delta or 16 other airlines. Or, you can “pay with points” for a ticket on ANY airline, any time with no blackouts. Fee is $175, but waived for first year. Not bad! (Disclosure: We are engaged in a consulting project with American Express.)

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BEFUDDLED BY THE BLACKBERRY? While your TICKET editor has moved along from a long string of Blackberries to the new T-Mobile MyTouch (the “Google phone”), I recall how good it felt to learn a new Blackberry trick, like clicking the N button to go to the next email, or preventing pocket-dialing with standby mode…Anyway, USA Today put together a really helpful article offering up some smart shortcuts. Be sure to see the tips offered up by readers in the article’s comments box. (Thanks to my travel blogger buddy JohnnyJet for sending this my way!)

SO LONG FSB. We’ve long enjoyed reading FSB-Fortune Small Business magazine (and actually did some freelance writing for it for many years) and were saddened to learn that Time Inc decided to shut it down last week. FSB was distributed for free to American Express Small Business cardholders and not sold in newsstands or by subscription.

<<<PLEASE ANSWER THIS MONTHS TICKET POLL! LOOK LEFT!<<<<<

CALL ME! This week Expedia eliminated the $25 fee it charged to speak to a human travel agent. All major airlines charge a $25 fee when you call, speak to a human, and this human actually books your trip. This means that if you’d like to call in your travel reservations instead of doing it online, it makes more sense to call Expedia (1-800-EXPEDIA) than to call the airlines. Go figure.

THEFT OF CHECKED BAGS. Now that airlines are charging us up to $100 round trip for the honor of checking out bags with them….this happens: Last week authorities in Phoenix busted a husband and wife team who would drive to the airport with a horse trailer, spend the day stealing bags off the luggage carousels and storing them on the trailer, then taking the hocked bags back to their house and selling the contents at weekend garage sales! Remember when airlines used to have guards stationed at baggage claim who matched bags with tags? That service was eliminated in airline cost cutting measures nearly a decade ago. Now that airlines are making tidy profits from their bag fees, they need to bring back the tag matchers…do you agree?

TINY NEW AIRLINE. Did you know that there’s a new airline flying between ATL, Macon and Athens? Each leg is just $39. Check out the Georgia Skies website here: .

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STOCKHOLM. Delta will eliminate nonstops between ATL and Stockholm in March, but will still offer one-stop flights via JFK

MORE FREE WI-FI. This is getting crazy! Here’s yet another way to get free in-flight internet this winter: Now through Dec 31, all AirTran passengers that buy one in-flight Wi-Fi session will get their second Wi-Fi session free.

GO GREYHOUND. The bus is learning from the plane….did you know that Greyhound now offers bus passengers the option of paying a $5 fee to board the bus first and not have to wait in line with others? And on some routes in the Northeast, it’s offering free onboard wi-fi.

Don’t Forget! BOOK ALL YOUR ONLINE TRAVEL VIA LINKS FROM THE TICKET!

airtran.com | delta.com |  Hotwire

Spain's Smoldering Antonio Banderas

Where do you want to go on your next business trip or vacation? This might help:

A recent poll of 15,000 women revealed that the world’s best lovers can be found in Spain, Brazil and Italy. The worst? In descending order: Germany (too smelly), England (too lazy) and Sweden (too quick). The Dutch were fourth worst (too dominating) and Americans came in fifth worst (too rough).

The poll was conducted by a global research firm www.onepoll.com asking women from 20 countries to rate countries based on the sexual experiences they’ve had with nationals of each. It first appeared in the London Telegraph and has made the rounds ever since. Read on for the full best/worst list:

Read the rest of this entry »

BUSINESS MEALS AND ENTERTAINMENT DEDUCTION TO INCREASE? Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) introduced a bill that would increase the deductible portion of business meal and entertainment expenses, currently set at 50 percent. The proposed legislation would up that percentage to 75 percent for 2009 and 80 percent thereafter. Not a bad idea! We think this would definitely help the beleaguered restaurant biz. According to National Restaurant Association research, raising the deduction to 80 percent would boost business meal sales by $6 billion and create an $18 billion increase to the overall economy.

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