Hawaii, Mexico and the Caribbean sale codes from American Airlines

by Grant Martin on

Our tireless friends over at Airfarewatchdog have found a couple of handy coupon codes today for reduced fare on American Airlines from the 48 into Hawaii, Mexico and the Caribbean.

DFALOHAGO should get you 15% off a ticket to The Aloha State while

DFDECMXCRPL should do for the latter bloc.

As usual, there are oddly juxtaposed terms and conditions that I could spend the next half hour breaking down and laying out for you, so I’ll give you the quick summary. You need to travel to Hawaii between December and March 6, in contrast to travel between now and December 20 for Mexico and the Caribbean. You also need to book pretty soon. If you want the full terms and conditions, check the AA website.

Be sure to bounce over to the airfarewatchblog as well; they have a team of staff and writers working full time finding us these codes and fares.

Most expensive flight in coach? You tell me

by Jerry Guo on

Grant just had some in-depth and helpful posts about the best times to buy airline tickets. That got me thinking about a couple recent near-purchases on my part. What’s confounded me when checking out ticket prices is how geographic distance often has little correlation with the cost of the flight. Yesterday I was checking on flights from Newark, USA to Port Moresby, Papa New Guinea. The cheapest economy ticket? $4,000.

Yet some other equally hard to get places are somehow cheaper. A while back, I was trying to book a ticket to Easter Island, which by the way is the place farthest away from another piece of land (2,000 miles). You would think tickets would be expensive, right? They were only $1,600! Flying to the Galapagos Islands, 500 miles off the coast of Ecuador, was even cheaper. Less than $1,000. And a Newark to Beijing flight for me in March was only $800.

What about you? Keeping other things constant, which means I’m not talking about booking a ticket for tomorrow, what is the most expensive place you’ve flown to in economy class?

More ‘Big Brother’ from your neighborhood TSA

by Jerry Guo on

News is just out that there’s plans from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to record and track more passenger information, including full names, birthdates, and gender for background checks. Almost everyone is against this, including the major airlines, travel agencies, and of course, the general public.

A 2004 law was passed that required transferring the control of passenger info from the airlines to TSA, so passage of this plan (or some variation) seems inevitable.

Now, why should you care? It does seem like every week we hear of another zany plan by the TSA to do more snooping. Well, first keep in mind the more records the TSA has its hands on, the more mistakes they’ll make. There’s already hundreds of horror stories of innocent civilians who are blocked from traveling, because they were mistakenly added to the national terrorism watchlist for instance. Then, there’s the security risk – of our private information being stolen. Again, many cases to cite on this.

What can we do? Go voice our opinions at the polls next November!

GADLING’S TAKE FIVE Week of 11-30

by Catherine Bodry on

Topics this week have run the gamut here at Gadling. In the news of the wild we’ve confronted a stuffed alligator on a flight, learned how we can rent a Spider Monkey in Japan, and found out what the heck tigers are doing in Africa. Here’s what else has been going on:

That’s the summary, but by no means the whole story! Have a look around, check out the archives, and tell us how you like our new comment feature.

Happy Friday!

Want to work until you’re 68 and see the world while you are working?

by Jamie Rhein on

Yesterday I wrote about Air Force One flight attendants. I’d say their job satisfaction, despite the hard work, is high. Here’s another person who has found flight attending a heck of a good time. Patti Smart has worked as an attendant from the time she was 18. Now she’s 68. Fifty years later, Smart is leaving behind her Aloha Airlines job.

Reading about her job in this AP article by Mark Niesse reminded me a little of a book I read years ago called Coffee, Tea or Me, a novel/memoir about flight attendants in the 1960s. I have a vague recollection of the story-line. I do remember that this was a job that sounded like a lot of fun.

According to Smart, the job was a bit more fun than it is now. Like most jobs, the time frame for getting tasks done has shortened. Instead of having the time to visit with passengers in between rolling beverage and food carts down the aisles, attendants barely have time to stop moving. Considering that job hopping is more the norm, it’s refreshing to read a story about someone who found a job that she loved from the beginning and stayed with it for so many years. Plus, it’s a job that treated her well. The pay wasn’t so shabby either.