Gadling Take FIVE: Week of Nov. 29-Dec. 5

by Jamie Rhein on

Because I’m writing this from a town outside of Copenhagen, Denmark, these posts caught my attention right away while I was browsing through this week’s bounty. They have to do with money.

  • In general, Denmark is not a place for bargains. According to Josh, however, London and Seoul are becoming less expensive.
  • If you’re feeling generous–and it doesn’t take much money to feel generous, check out Anna’s post on the fundraiser Passports with a Purpose. Four powerhouse female travel bloggers thought up a way to raise money for Heifer International using the network of world travelers to do it. Yes, that means you.
  • Karen wrote a post about how to find a cheaper way to go to Obama’s inauguration. That seems mighty generous of her since she’s looking for a bargain to head to D.C. herself.
  • For anyone looking to maximize the money spend on a digital camera, Aaron has handy tips for turning one into a personal assistant.
  • If a trip to Hawaii is in your future, check out Brenda’s post on the bike sharing program. It will be in place in Honolulu by early summer, and from Brenda’s description of how it will work, it sounds like it will be an inexpensive way to stay in shape and see different parts of the city.

The art of reticketing flights

by Grant Martin on

One of the world’s great mysteries is when exactly the best time is to buy airplane tickets. You want to wait just long enough so that the price hits its lowest point — but you can’t wait too long, or else it’ll skyrocket again. Is it four weeks out? Four months?

You can never know. Even with the help of tools like Farecast, Kayak and Farecompare, there is always the risk that two days after you purchase your family trip to Europe, the price of your itinerary is going to plummet.

What most people don’t know, however, is that many tickets can be repriced. In the same way that you can take a television back to Best Buy if you find out it went on sale the day after and get the difference, you can also exchange tickets weeks after you book them.

Airlines, of course, are a little more criminal stingy about the process. Almost all of them charge a rebooking fee that can vary between $50 – $150 dollars. But on a high priced ticket, that can be a fraction of a price fluctuation.

The key is to keep an eye on your ticket price, even after you purchase it. If you see your exact same itinerary drop significantly in cost, call the airline up and ask to refare or rebook the ticket. They’ll dig around to see if it’s worth your time after levying the rebook fee and if you’re lucky, they’ll issue a voucher for the difference in price.

Just last week, for example, I noticed that a huge fare sale to Salt Lake City affected the ticket price for a future itinerary that I have into Reno. Calling up Delta Airlines, I got them to issue me a $54 e-cert for use in future travel. Sure, it’s not cash in hand, but I can definitely use the voucher.

What this stragety is particularly good for is repricing business travel. Many travel agents will blindly book a ticket on a preferred airline at high cost. When you, the passenger, check back in and reprice the ticket later, however, the reward is yours.

That hotel room coffee maker has more uses than you think

by Grant Martin on


It’s so crazy, it JUST MIGHT WORK. Alton Brown from the Food Network’s Good Eats has a much better use for your hotel room’s coffee maker than for making weak, disgusting brew: use it to make oatmeal.

His recipe? Put two packets of oatmeal, honey and jam packets into the carafe, then put a tea bag in the filter. Run water through and you have a magic oatmeal concoction in no time!

Now, I’m not a big breakfast person nor a large fan of elaborate schemes to save $3, but this plan is too ingenious to ignore. I’m trying it on the road next week.

[via wikihow]

Bike sharing comes to Honolulu

by Brenda Yun on

If there isn’t enough to cheer about already, there will be plenty to cheer about in Hawaii come early summer 2009. Bike sharing, a venture that is quite popular in European cities like Barcelona, Paris, and Dusseldorf, will take shape along the south shore of Oahu! Even though I already own a bike, this makes me (a Honolulu resident) giddy as a schoolgirl because I can’t wait to people watch (in other words, check out the hot surfer dudes biking to and fro) and I am hoping this will make the horrendous traffic in town a little more bearable.
Designated bike racks will be placed in Waikiki, Ala Moana, Aloha Tower, and Downtown, and bikers pay on a sliding scale (there is a daily to yearly pass, as well as a usage fee up to $8 for two hours). The proposed bike sharing plan comes from Momentum Multisport Hawaii owner in Kaimuki who wanted to capitalize on the successes of similar programs on the mainland and abroad.

Transportation options are changing here in Honolulu with the Super Ferry to Maui, the Boat to Kapolei, the Rail in the works, and now Momentum B-Cycle ready to coast in the year. It’s no wonder that, according to the United Health Foundation, Hawaii consistently ranks among the top five healthiest states in the U.S. This year it jumped to number two behind Vermont.

Find out more about the Momentum B-Cycle sharing project and check out a map of proposed rack locations by clicking here.

More ways to earn miles: Hilton offers 6x mileage bonus

by Grant Martin on

Mileage promotions from Delta are coming in hot and heavy, and those on the ball with some of their most recent promotions are set to make quite the killing in a pretty short time.

Their latest promotion is in collaboration with Hilton‘s points program, HHonors. From now until the end of February, each time you spend more than two nights at a Hilton hotel they’ll give you six times the miles that you would normally earn.

Right now, HHonors is set up on a tiered program where you can earn any variety of airline miles based upon how much you spend at their hotel — but most members earn a fixed 500 miles per stay at a hotel. With this new promotion, you’ll now earn 3,000, or, just under 1/8 of a domestic round trip ticket.

You might not immediately think that’s very much, but combine that with the partner bonus promotion or any other of the generous offers that the airline is currently putting up and your miles can accumulate pretty quickly.

Sign up for the promotion at Hilton’s website here.