Become a Facebook fan of JetBlue and win free travel

by Katie Hammel on

Remember those amazing All-You-Can-Jet passes offered by JetBlue last year? Well here’s your chance to win one.

All you have to do to enter is become a fan of JetBlue on Facebook. That will get you one entry into their grand prize drawing. If you want to increase your odds of winning, you can also do one bonus entry every day and sign up for the team prize drawing. One pair of round-trip tickets will be awarded each week along with one team prize – a 5 day, 4 night vacation package for 4 people – and the grand prize, the mother of all All-You-Can-Jet passes, which will be good for an entire year of unlimited travel on JetBlue.

The contest ends January 31 and you must be 18 years of age or older and a resident of the US to enter.

Cute dogs on airplanes

by Annie Scott on


You may remember Jamie Rhein’s story last month about Virgin America’s chihuahua rescue mission (Chihuahuas by the dozens on planes). Basically, the trendy but fickle Californians overloaded their local shelters with chihuahuas (about 4,700 of them). Conversely, on the east coast, there’s still a high demand for small dogs. Virgin America and Project Flying Chihuahua, along with American Airlines and Kinder4Rescue, a non-profit started by actress Katherine Heigl, joined forces to get the dogs to loving homes, saving thousands of them from possible euthanization.

You might have thought that, after that heart-warming tale, we were done with this story. Au contraire. Virgin America just sent us a bunch of pictures of cute dogs on planes. At first we thought “no, no, this is way too fluffy for Gadling,” but … well, we looked at the pictures and … chihuahuas … oh gosh … they broke us down. Puppies flying from California to New Hampshire and New York is, in fact, worthy of two articles after all.

Enjoy.
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Ship, don’t check – Airline tip

by Gadling Staff on

Planning on shopping ’til you drop on your vacation? Consider shipping your purchases home via UPS, FedEx, or USPS.

With most airlines charging fees for checked bags and overweight luggage, in many cases shipping your goods home is cheaper than paying the airline’s fees.

Pay special attention to USPS, which offers several sizes of Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes — anything that fits in the box can be shipped anywhere in the United States for one flat rate.

Galley Gossip: Interview with musician Josh Wilson (The Hey, Jude Newark Airport guy)

by Heather Poole on

On January 3rd, 2010, there was a security breach at Newark Liberty International Airport. As a result, all passengers in the secure area were required to clear the concourse and pass through security checkpoints a second time. This process took almost six hours. While most travelers were annoyed and frustrated, one imaginative traveler, musician Josh Wilson, decided to lighten the mood. This is his story.

Name: Josh Wilson

Occupation: Singer/Songwriter signed to Sparrow Records (EMI’s Christian Label).

I’m always saying, “This is your life, enjoy it — even if you’re stuck at an airport!” It looks like you know how to do just that based on your popular video making the rounds. So where were you traveling to the day of the Newark Security Breach? I was headed to Mumbai, India with my wife and some others doing mission work

I saw the video after someone forwarded it to me. They actually found it on Alyssa Milano’s Twitter Feed. What inspired you to do the sing-along? Things had gotten really tense in the terminal. We were at about the six hour mark in terms of the delay. Some kids were crying near us and I wanted to cheer them up and maybe get everyone else to relax a little. Someone in our group said I should break out my guitar, and after a little convincing I did. But in that situation, it’s only safe to play the Beatles. Anything else would have led me to being pelted by luggage

Now that’s funny! Have you ever played for a crowd of passengers before? You know, as a musician at some point you feel you’ve played ever possible type of gig. But I do think it was my first airport performance.

Feel free to perform on one of my flights any time! How do you manage to stay so upbeat while traveling? Well, the truth is I don’t. This time it was easy, though. There was clearly nothing we could do – I could choose to be angry or choose to accept it. The best plan was to take a sad song and make it better.

Any advice for travelers stuck in a similar situation? Do you remember that reality show about Southwest Airlines a couple years ago? I used to watch that show and wonder if people had any idea how ridiculous they look when they make a scene over being delayed. I think if we all had more compassion for the people around us and were less consumed with our inconveniences the world would be a better place. And I could stand to follow that advice more often, too.

Amen to that! To where are you traveling next? The next bit of travel is actually on a tour bus, so I’ll be trading terminal delays for traffic delays.

Where can I see you perform? In January and February I’ll be in Florida a lot, but as the year progresses I pretty well make it everywhere. Check out MYSPACE.COM/JOSHWILSONMUSIC for tour dates.

WILL DO. THANKS FOR CHATTING WITH ME. HAPPY TRAVELS!


Photos courtesy of Josh Wilson



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Ryanair blasted for “childish” payment system

by Scott Carmichael on

Rarely does a week go by without some kind of news blasting Ryanair for something the low cost carrier did to annoy their customers.

This time, it all revolves around a silly payment method implemented by Ryanair. For years, the airline has been advertising its ultra low cost fares without mentioning additional fees or surcharges.

New regulations in the UK mean Ryanair has to include credit card payment fees in all its advertising materials – but sneaky Ryanair found a way around this rule.

By creating one free payment method, the airline can get away with advertising its tickets, without mentioning a GBP5 surcharge for each passenger that uses a credit card.

The “free” payment method is only available with a specific Mastercard prepaid card. All other payment methods are hit with the surcharge – for every single passenger, even if the tickets are all purchased on the same card.

The UK Office of Fair Trading investigated the matter, and called it “puerile and childish” – though I doubt Ryanair cares what anyone else thinks. The law is on their side, and they found a smart way around it. Sure, it may be a smart way that once again penalizes its customers, but at the end of the day, their fares are still substantially lower than any other European carrier.