2010 › November › 22

Do Thanksgiving deals make hotels more appealing than staying at home?

by Amy Chen on

I’m going home for Thanksgiving for the first time since moving from the San Francisco Bay Area to New York City. And rather than agreeing to sleep on the futon, I’m springing for a hotel room. Does choosing to stay in a hotel make me a bad person since the whole point of the holiday is to be with family?

As much as I love my family, I’m not too crazy about the idea of my 9-year-old niece and 5-year-old nephew rousing me out of bed at 6 a.m. every day. And though my sister tries her best to keep them occupied until I’ve woken up, the guilt — and their adorable pleading (“Will you play with me?”, “Are you still sleeping?”) — inevitably drives me to get up with the rest of the family.

To be honest, I didn’t plan to stay at a hotel over Thanksgiving. But as a Kimpton InTouch loyalty member, I received an e-mail blast several weeks ago for weekend deals. When I discovered that the deal wasn’t blacked out over Thanksgiving weekend, I ended up booking three nights at the Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco’s Union Square for $109 per night. Is the extra sleep worth that much money? In my case, yes.
For my last night, I found a last-minute deal at Sonoma‘s Farmhouse Inn: $177 (regularly $295-$375). Unfortunately, the online deal required a minimum two-night stay. Since I had already prepaid my Sir Francis Drake hotel reservation, I decided to call up the inn to see if there were any other deals. It turns out that if I was willing to take a smaller room, I could book the $177 rate for just one night. Done. Looks like I’ll get my turkey and a little wine tasting, too.

So you see, I didn’t intend to stay at a hotel over Thanksgiving. But at these low rates, how could I resist all these Thanksgiving deals?

Though staying in a hotel will be a lot more comfortable than sleeping on the futon, maybe I will miss the chaos of staying at home (and the convenience of opening the fridge to pick at the leftover turkey).

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[Photo by Amy Chen]

Review: Technocel Battery Boost

by Scott Carmichael on

In our neverending quest for the best way to keep your gadgets powered, we came across the Technocel Battery Boost. This compact battery pack can hook on to your key chain, and includes a 600mAh battery pack, a retracting USB plug and a MicroUSB card reader.

The charger cord is MicroUSB – which means it’ll work on almost every recent mobile device with the exception of anything from Apple.

Obviously, 600mAh is not a huge amount of power, but it is enough to provide an hour or two of talk time on most phones, or several hours of music.

The charger plug is on a flexible cable, and stores neatly inside the unit itself. To charge the Battery Boost, you simply plug it into any USB power source or one of the USB ports on your computer. Its card reader slot is the perfect place to store important files, or as a place to keep a backup of photos you made on a trip.

The Technocel Battery Boost is one of the most innovative power products I’ve seen all year – and at just $29.99 it is also one of the cheapest. Better yet, Sprint is currently selling it for just $23.99! At this price, you’ll have a great stocking stuffer for anyone that travels with their smartphone.

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Five ways to protect your wallet on Cyber Monday

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Cyber Monday is around the corner, and the travel business is getting ready to hit you up with some great deals. If all goes as planned for them, you’ll rush to pry open your wallet and book your next trip at a fantastic discount. Ready? Well, not so fast …

There are a lot of other people who want access to your credit card, too. But, they don’t want to give you anything in return. The scammers will be out in full force, and it’s incumbent upon you to protect yourself.

Jeff Horne, threat research director at web security company Webroot, has a few ideas for how you can keep your cash safe on Cyber Monday – and all the time, frankly. Let’s take a look at five recommendations from a guy who’s in the business of knowing what the online bad guys are up to:
Horne recommends the following actions:1. Horse’s mouth: don’t click a link to make a purchase. Instead, go straight to the site. This will protect you from the risks associated with malicious links. If an airline, hotel or online travel agent offers up a deal, just go straight to the company to buy it.

2. Password discipline: don’t use your mom’s maiden name on every site where you have an account. Mix it up a bit to add some protection for your online shopping activity.

3. Pay attention: Horne suggests looking for the “signs of security,” such as “https” in the address bar. Make sure that the travel company is putting some security measures in place to protect you. In addition to keeping the thieves at bay, it also shows that a company is interested in taking care of you, making it worthy of your purchase and your loyalty.

4. Choose carefully: use a credit card instead of a debit card to stop payments immediately if something goes awry. Also, your risk will be limited to available credit, rather than the entirety of your bank account. PayPal users: monitor the account from which PayPal draws to make sure it isn’t compromised.

5. ‘Tis the season: if you get a “confirmation” email that doesn’t have a tracking number, delete it. If you aren’t sure about whether a purchase has been confirmed, go back to the travel site where you made it and view your order history.

[Via Insurance Information Institute, photo by TheTruthAbout via Flickr]

SkyMall Monday: Top ten things to stuff in the Turkey Cake Pan

by Mike Barish on

It’s Thanksgiving time once again in the good ol’ US of A. That wonderful time of year when we slow down, take a break and acknowledge the people and things for which we are most thankful. Most people focus on the thanks. I like to focus on the ful(l). Here at SkyMall Monday headquarters, we love to stuff our faces on Thanksgiving. From stuffing to green bean casserole to, of course, turkey, Thanksgiving is a gut-bustingly wonderful holiday. Inspired by the impending feast, I searched for “turkey” on the SkyMall website. After wading through the various Turkish wraps, I found the delightful Turkey Cake Pan that you see demonstrated on the right. It’s breathtaking. It allows you to bake turkey-shaped cakes. But why stop there? What else could you stuff into that Turkey Cake Pan? Imagine molding your favorite foods to look like wild game. Are you imagining it? Well, let me help you. This week, we’re listing the top ten things to stuff in the Turkey Cake Pan.

10. Clay

Kids get bored at family get-togethers. The meals last too long, the strange relatives make bad jokes and all of their good toys are left at home. This year, let your kids paint a decorative clay turkey. Pop the mold into the oven on the self-cleaning cycle (it gets up to 900˚ in there) and the clay should set. Let the kids paint their turkeys and use them as centerpieces. What could go wrong?

9. Jell-O

Why have cranberry sauce when your side dish could be jiggling? Bonus points if you have giblet-shaped fruit floating inside the mold.

8. Stuffing

Let’s get one thing straight: Stuffing is far and away the best part of the Thanksgiving meal. It’s a scene-stealing side dish. Turkey gets all the attention though. Give stuffing the starring role it deserves by making it look like the headliner.

7. Ice cream

I mean, it’s ice cream. Do I really need to make the case for ice cream?

6. Butter

People are going to want butter for their mashed potatoes. People are going to want butter for their dinner rolls. People are going to want a giant butter turkey.

5. Fudge

Really pack it in.

4. Ice

Why should fancy gala events be the only places you see ice sculptures? Blow your guests’ minds with a turkey-shaped block of frozen holiday cheer on each and every table.

3. Chicken & Duck Cake Pans

Have you ever had turducken? Well, it’s amazing. Now imagine turkey-shaped cake stuffed with duck-shaped cake stuffed with chicken-shaped cake. Don’t forget to have mutliple flavors of icing in between each layer.

2. Whiskey

Ladle out some heaping servings of SkyMall Monday’s favorite medicine. It will make your family seem a whole lot more tolerable during those extended dinners.

1. Turkey

Let’s get meta. Stuff some ground turkey in there and make a turkey-shaped meatloaf. Throw some turkey meat in a blender and liquify it. Pour that protein shake in the Turkey Cake Pan and bake it until it reconstitutes into solid turkey. Even that sounds better than Tofurkey.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving. Here at SkyMall Monday headquarters, we’re thankful for all of you great readers with a sense of humor, our fantastic colleagues and editors at Gadling and, of course, SkyMall.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

Hyatt introduces Facebook travel experts; ready to answer holiday travel questions

by Melanie Nayer on

As the craziness that is the holiday season approaches, Hyatt has teamed up with Gadling to help guests answer their travel questions. On their Facebook page, guests can ask anything they want – from tips on how to score great last minute deals, to helping them with their packing list.

Taking this to Facebook is just another way the hotel chain is expanding its regular customer outreach. In the past, the hotel chain used Facebook to promote its resorts.

Questions can be submitted between now and Wednesday November 24 at 6PM, and all questions will be answered on a first-come, first serve basis. So – got some burning holiday travel questions you’d like get answers to?

Head on over to the Hyatt Gold Passport Facebook page and submit your question.