Flight To Comet Sold Out But There Are Other Options

by Chris Owen on

Astronomers are calling 2013 “the year of the comet” as the first of two comets set to swing by Earth comes within view of the naked eye. Some avid sky watchers may be viewing with binoculars. Others may get an even closer view, thanks to a German travel agency.

On March 16, Eclipse Travel of Bonn, Germany, will have Air Berlin’s flight 1000 full of stargazers, giving them two hours closer to the comet than anyone else on the planet.

The company will fill just 88 of the 144 seats on board the Boeing 737-700, allowing everyone to have a window view at an average ticket price of $500 per person, reports TravelMole.

Wish you had booked a seat? Is astronomy your passion? You have options.

Closer to home, Spears Travel of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has a Sky & Telescope’s Iceland Aurora Adventure set for April 7. Currently, the event is also sold out, but they are accepting names for a waiting list. The seven-night astronomy adventure to view the northern lights in Iceland sold for $2995 per person.Eclipse Tours of Houston, Texas, has more options, planning trips through 2015. Providing guided expeditions of astronomical events throughout the world, Eclipse Tours is the home of Ring of Fire Expeditions (ROFE), the longest consecutive astronomical tour organization in the United States.

This year, Eclipse will visit the island of Tarawa, Kiribati, for its 41st Annular Solar Eclipse Tour in May and space is still available. Another tour heads to Guadalcanal in the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands for a post-eclipse tour.

Even more exotic, Melitatrips, a Travel + Leisure world’s best-award winner, takes the road less traveled for stargazing excursions from Argentina to Zimbabwe. This year, Melitatrips has a Kenya Total Solar Eclipse Safari promising unrivaled views “from the place where man was born,” according to its website. An English Astronomers Tour returns to where the greatest scientific researchers once lived and worked, with stops in London and surrounding towns of Bath, Cambridge and Oxford, with a special visit to Greenwich Observatory and the Maritime Museum.

Sound interesting but not in the budget?

Northern hemisphere stargazers who look to the west as the sun sets should note that just to the left of the horizon they should be able to see the comet Pan-STARRS over the next few days.

“Comets visible to the naked eye are a rare delicacy in the celestial smorgasbord of objects in the nighttime sky,” says NASA on its Asteroid and Comet watch page that offers viewing tips and more information about asteroids and other near-Earth objects.

Another option? Google Sky.



[Photo credit – Flickr user ϟStormLoverSwin93ϟ]

FlightCar Makes Peer-To-Peer Rentals More Convenient

by Megan Fernandez on

If you can get comfortable with the idea of a stranger driving your car – or if you have the capacity to not think about it while the vehicle is out of your sight – it might make sense to rent your wheels while you’re out of town.

But the leading peer-to-peer rental agencies leave a lot of the logistics to the car owner. List your car with a service like Relay Rides, Getaround or Jolly Wheels (available in several major cities), and if you get a taker, you have to arrange to meet the renter somewhere to hand over your keys. That’s inconvenient if you’re heading to the airport. It’s one more thing to do before leaving town and when you return.

FlightCar, a new service in San Francisco, tailors the peer-to-peer thing to air travelers by meeting both listers and renters at the airport. Drive to its lot at the Millbrae BART station, leave your car and a rep will give you a free lift to the terminal (and back, upon your return). The same goes for renters.

Since launching on February 5, some 200 travelers have offered up their chariots to rent, and 80 percent have been rented, according to co-founder Shri Ganeshram. The average rental period is five days. FlightCar, like the other peer-to-peer companies, provides $1 million in free insurance and checks each renter’s driving record.

But is FlightCar’s compensation to car owners worth the worry and the wear and tear?FlightCar pays car owners in gas cards, and only if it rents the vehicle. It also washes every vehicle, whether it rents or not. Compensation ranges from $10 for the entire duration of the rental (for the oldest cars) to $10 per day of rental (for the nicer, newer rides, a rate that Ganeshram says might go up to $20 soon). If the car doesn’t rent, well, you don’t get a gas card, but you’ve scored free parking and a car wash while away. Long-term parking at SFO costs $18 per day, while independent park-and-fly services can save you a few dollars. So at most, you can come away $28 per day to the good.

Owners need to remember that the compensation isn’t all profit because wear and tear on the vehicle carries a cost. Renters can drive the car 90 miles per day. Ganeshram says rental-car companies value wear and tear as high as 15 cents per mile (“I got that number from a rental lease for a 2012 BMW X5”), in which case 90 driven miles would amount to $13.50. Subtract such cost from the value of the gas cards and parking you’d expect to receive each day. (In fairness, Ganeshram points out that many renters don’t reach the 90-mile max, and if they exceed it, FlightCar pays car owners 35 cents per extra mile.)

Ganeshram, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, provided an example to show that the value of the wear and tear doesn’t eat up all of the owner’s profit. It’s too complicated to repeat, but he arrived at the conclusion that the owner of a new $40,000 car should value mileage at 27 cents per mile. (Cheaper and/or older cars would have a lower per-mile valuation.) Say said owner makes the car available for a week and it rents for five days. That person would gain seven days of free parking, valued at $126; $50 in gas; and let’s say $20 for the value of the valet service and the car wash. That comes to $196. If the car is driven 80 miles per day at a wear-and-tear value of 27 cents per mile, that’s $108. Difference: $88.

Enough to hand over your keys?

[Photo credit: bottom, Flickr user Stig Nygaard]

Spring Breakers: Mammoth Mountain Has 16 Feet Of Snow On The Ground

by Kraig Becker on

Spring break is nearly upon us and while many travelers are looking forward to a relaxing escape in warmer climes, some of us prefer to hit the slopes for some late season skiing or snowboarding instead. It has been a banner year for many resorts across the western U.S., where heavy snows have fallen for much of the season, but if you’re looking for the absolute deepest powder in the country there is only one place to go – Mammoth Mountain.

Mammoth has had an absolutely terrific winter so far with a tremendous amount of snow falling across the region. As a result, the resort currently has a base of between 7 and 16 feet depending on where you are at on the mountain. On top of that, the Sierra Nevada range was hit with new snow storms just this week adding an additional 2 feet of fresh powder over the past couple of days alone. All of this precipitation has earned Mammoth the distinction of having the most snow of any resort in all of North America this year.

If you’re still looking for a great ski destination for the upcoming spring break, it really is tough to top Mammoth. The resort features 118 trails spread out across 3500 skiable acres, which means even on a busy day there is still plenty of room to move. Sixty-five percent of that terrain is aimed specifically at the beginner or intermediate skier, which makes the resort a great place for those who are still looking to build their skills. Add in some great lodges, restaurants and bars, and you’ll have everything you need for a memorable time both on and off the slopes.

Money-Saving Strategies From Other Places That Work For Airports Too

by Chris Owen on

As much as we might not want to admit it, many of us enjoy the whole process of flying. Maybe it’s the thrill of the hunt when exploring a complex matrix of flights, airlines and prices. Perhaps exercising the survival skills that find power for electronic devices we bring along satisfies a primitive need. Whatever the reason, we like to fly. Some travelers like to fly so much that we spend more than we need to. A good battle plan combined with budgetary prowess learned from other activities can go a long way.

Eat before arriving
Frugal grocery store shoppers know that arriving hungry can lead to impulse buying, and most don’t even eat what they select until later. Arriving at the airport famished, maybe a bit earlier than normal to make up for sequester-induced lines, has trouble written all over it. Airport food courts are grounds for impulse buys. Forty pounds ago, I used that as an excuse to overdose on food I would have had serious guilt issues with if consumed elsewhere. A decent airport app like FlySmart can offer healthy suggestions.Bring an empty water bottle
Heading out on a hike, camping or just the drive to work, eco- and budget-friendly travelers bring a reusable water bottle. Head to the airport and many forget or don’t know that the same reusable bottle will indeed make it through the security screening process. In most cases, the $4 bottle of water at the conveniently located kiosk by the boarding gate costs more than a whole bunch of reusable water bottles. Concerned about the taste of that tap water found after screening? Go crazy and buy a self-filtering water bottle.

Let an expert help
This could be the “insert name of travel agent here” part of the story and, for many, that might be a good idea. Those comfortable with using an attorney for legal matters, an accountant for taxes or even a good mechanic for auto repairs could easily buy into that notion. For air travel, many of the sources we feature here like AirFareWatchdog, Kayak and others can go a long way to maximizing savings on airline fares – obviously a big ticket item in the whole scheme of things. Better yet, ask a local travel blogger based out of your hometown airport. Odds are they have it down to a science.

Leave time for the satellite lot
When going to a concert, major sporting event or local convention center, penny-wise drivers park remotely, realizing that convenience equals higher prices. Parking close to the terminal at almost any airport will cost dearly compared to the price of a secure, remote lot. AirportParking boasts savings of up to 70% off the price of terminal parking, and allows reservations and payment in advance. In Orlando, for example, terminal parking is $10 per day; remote parking from a number of lots is less than half the price.

The whole idea of applying money-saving strategies learned from other activities to air travel comes with a bonus too. We’re already comfortable with the process so applying does not require learning a new skill or forging a new path where no one has gone before.

Looking for some other money-saving ideas to use when at the airport? Check this video:


[Photo credit – Flickr user Grant Wickes]

Speed Through Airport Security Checkpoints, One Way Or Another

by Chris Owen on

As airport security checkpoints get more crowded and lines get longer, travelers are arriving earlier than ever to make that flight on time. Arrive late; miss the flight. Once at the gate, passengers may wait longer than normal as airlines juggle the start of boarding with actual anticipated takeoff time. Keeping passengers in the aircraft or on the ground too long may result in a hefty fine. While the aircraft may be ready and the flight crew willing, passengers may face delays beyond their control caused by budget cutbacks.

Frequently flying out of Orlando International Airport (MCO), I see crowds on most days at just about any time as vacationers come in town to visit Walt Disney World, Universal Studios or any one of a number of central Florida attractions. Frankly, the thought of the process being slowed down by budget cuts is terrifying to those who work out of that airport.

How terrifying? Enough to make frequent fliers re-think their game plans and look for new ways to expedite the boarding process.

Take The Express Lane
I recently re-joined CLEAR, the biometric fast pass through security at MCO. I had been a member in 2005 when the service had over 200,000 members. But shortly after a laptop with the names and detailed information of 33,000 CLEAR customers was reported stolen in 2008, the service shut down. Starting back up in 2010, I had thought about joining again but was a bit apprehensive about the whole program and lines seemed to move along pretty well at MCO anyway.

Then came talk of sequestering, budget cuts and TSA downsizing, which quickly reminded me just how much I hate lines, slow people and inefficiency. Example: On a rolling sidewalk at the Minneapolis/St Paul airport, clearly marked stand to the right, walk to the left, I made a point of educating our children that “there is no ‘mosey’ lane kids.”

Primed to take the bait of a LivingSocial CLEAR trial offer ($18 for three months, spouse included), we stopped by the CLEAR kiosk not long ago to complete registration. I answered a variety of security questions and gave prints of fingers and thumbs, along with a retina scan and a copy of my passport and driver’s license. The process took about five minutes. From what I could see, that was far longer than those observed going through the CLEAR security checkpoint.

Stopping briefly to verify their identity then right on through the normal x-ray scan without any wait has the potential to save passengers time. One TSA officer told me, without hesitation, that amount of time could be “hours if staffing is reduced.”

The main drawback with CLEAR is that it is only offered in a few airports. Besides Orlando International Airport (MCO), CLEAR service is available at Denver International Airport (DEN), San Francisco International Airport (SFO), Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Westchester NY Airport (HPN).

Will I keep CLEAR after the three-month trial? Hard to say; at an annual rate of $179 per person, frequent fliers working out of a CLEAR-enabled airport will probably have no trouble justifying the price. As reports of actual government cutbacks cause longer lines, even less-than-frequent fliers could suddenly become interested, as I was.

For travelers not based by a CLEAR-enabled airport, there are other options though. To get there, we need to start by thinking outside of the United States.

Global Entry Program
International arrivals can speed up the process of entering the United States by using automated kiosks at most major U.S. airports via the Global Entry Program. I signed up for this one too because I have several international flights coming up in the next few months. The $100 fee is good for five years.

One of several Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler Programs, including SENTRI (expedites crossing between the U.S. and Mexico), and NEXUS (expedites processing between the U.S. and Canada), Global Entry requires a fairly detailed online application to begin.

You’ll need your valid passport, driver’s license and a clean criminal record to get conditionally approved. A face-to-face appointment at an airport processing center completes the application.

TSA Pre✓
The TSA Pre✓ program allows some frequent fliers, invited by their participating host airline (Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines or US Airways), along with those enrolled in a Trusted Traveler Program, to speed through the airport screening process for domestic flights.

Odds are that if you qualify for the program through an airline, you already know about it. Those who don’t make it via airline invitation can back up to the Global Entry Program, pay the $100 for five years and enjoy the benefits.

Once enrolled in one of CBP’s eligible Trusted Traveler Programs, like the Global Entry Program mentioned above, air travelers are automatically qualified to participate in TSA Pre✓ when flying a participating airline at a participating airport.

To make that work, once signed up for a Trusted Traveler Program, travelers provide their Trusted Traveler account number in the “Known Traveler Number” field when booking travel.

That number, along with reservation information goes into TSA’s Secure Flight system and enables access to the TSA Pre✓ line at participating airports by embedding a secret code in boarding passes.

In addition to a faster lane, TSA Pre✓-approved travelers can leave their shoes, light outerwear and belts on and keep their 311 liquids packed away. Laptops and small electronics no longer have to be removed either. The program is no guarantee of expedited processing, as TSA will continue random checks, but it sure can’t hurt.

Orlando International Airport where I am trying the CLEAR membership is one of those airports.
Observing both the CLEAR line and the TSA Pre ✓ line, CLEAR seems to be the winner for speed. We’ll find out as we test both over the next few months.

[Photo Credits- Flickr user alist – tsa.gov – Chris Owen]