“The Hobbit” opens in theaters this winter, and Air New Zealand is taking full advantage of the event to jump on the publicity train. Or publicity airplane, rather, as the carrier just revealed its newest Hobbit-themed Boeing 777, replete with garish external artwork rivaled only by ANZ CEO Ryan Fyfe’s collar buttons.
It’s actually a pretty great looking airplane (so is your shirt Mr. Fyfe, I tease), though I wish that the cabins had also been upgraded. We could call economy “The Shire” moving forth while first class could go as, say, Mordor. “One does not simply walk into Mordor without a flight attendant barring the aisleway.”
There’s a lively discussion going on among feisty members of the MilesBuzz! forum on Flyertalk about a blogger’s role in the mileage and airfare deal community.
At issue is a group of bloggers who have been scouring the forums at sites such as theirs, identifying the best deals and then publishing the information in their blogs. Built for a wider audience, the blogs bring enormous traffic, often leading to a change in terms or cancellation of the deals.
Think of it like a trampoline. If two or three people discover the trampoline and take a jump, everyone has a good time. But if the entire town is invited, the trampoline breaks.
As an example, a recent loophole discovered by members of the forum found that prepaid spending cards could be loaded for no fee with a credit card, meaning one could charge two thousand dollars to a prepaid card, earn reward points and then pay off everything with no fee. The result was a way to effectively earn points for free, something that any budget traveler would swoon for.
Once the blog community caught wind of the deal, however, the financial companies got wise and changed their terms. Members of Flyertalk were enraged.
Further inflaming the situation is the income that many of the bloggers are earning from their sites. A blogger can poach a deal from Flyertalk, several community members pointed out, earn thousands of hits to their site and then burden the reader with dozens of potentially profitable credit card ads. Each credit card application processed from a referral link could score the blogger up to $200. Need an example? Count the credit card ads here. With a popup blocker enabled, I still count 20. Another bloggermeticulously shows that with credit card offers he can make about $4000/month in extra income.
On the other side of the coin, bloggers point out that they do a service to the masses by distilling complex info into a simple, easy to read format. But are they putting their pocket books in front of the community?
It’s a grey area. On one hand it seems that the credit card companies have so much influence over the bloggers that they’ll post anything that they think will drive traffic. But on the other hand, public data is public data, and if they want to do the work to build the articles then traffic should dictate success. Whether they can do it with class is up to each blogger respectively. My guess is that when the axe man (ie FTC) comes calling all dues will be paid.
Airline travel would seem pretty straightforward at first glance. We know we need a ticket from point A to point B, when we can fly, what airlines we prefer, what we would like that ticket to cost and when we are prepared to pay for it. The challenge comes from matching what we want to what is available. As airlines continue to cut available seating worldwide, choices are more limited than ever, making that perfect match more difficult. Adding in seemingly secret factors that consumers rarely come in contact have savvy buyers considering using the services of a travel agent again.
When it comes to finding anything even close to resembling a budget airline ticket for travel to holiday events, knowing when to buy, when to fly and what discounts and special offers are available is key.
“Many airlines compete with each other to have the lowest prices for their flights. Knowing when those ticket prices are the cheapest is a great way to save money,” says Mathias Friess, CEO of webjet.com in a Wall Street Journal report, “10 Tips for Saving on Holiday Travel Right Now.”
Common tips for booking airline tickets for holiday travel usually start with not waiting too long to buy. Know that prices commonly rise as holidays approach, so book as far in advance as possible. Looking for website codes and discounts is a good idea and not relying on just one website is better.
That is if we go it on our own to buy air.
A growing number of travelers are using a travel agent for airline tickets. Not just any travel agent, but one that specializes in airfare. Expect to pay a fee of $20 to $50 per ticket on top of the ticket price, a charge that can be easily worth every penny if a problem comes up en-route.
But before you begin to develop what will hopefully be a lifelong business relationship with a travel agent or agency, ask one very important question:
“If there is a problem with my flight before travel begins or when travel is in progress, will you make alternate arrangements for me?“
The answer needs to be “yes.”
Rather than stand in line at the customer service counter of any given airline along with 200 other people off the flight that was just canceled, your travel agent may be the go-to person to take care of that while you relax in a lounge area.
Next flight out not until the next day? That same travel agent can arrange a hotel room for you as well as information on getting there and back to the airport, even where to have dinner.
Some other situations that beg us to use a qualified travel agent include international travel (especially for the first time), flying on an unfamiliar airline and traveling with special needs flyers like the handicapped, children or the elderly. Simply a busy personal schedule that does not allow hours surfing around for fares is also a common reason to use a travel agent.
Surely, using a travel agent is not for everyone. Travelers flying common routes to major destinations, those with flexible travel plans or passengers flying direct without connections will naturally fare better than others. Still, having a travel agent in your back pocket when things go wrong can be well worth the time it takes to find one.
Gogo’s jet-propelled test lab took flight yesterday with several reporters and one very important fin added to the underbelly of the plane.
On the quick flight across western Illinois, CTO Anand Chari showed off the significant speed increases and signal stability of their new ATG-4 (Air To Ground – 4) wireless system. Initially using the current ATG wireless, pages loaded slowly or timed out completely when a crowded plane was simulated. Switching to the new technology showed speeds reaching closer to the estimated max of 9.7 Mbps. When an additional 15 users were simulated on the plane, loading of pages slowed, but never stalled.
“This is a significant tech advancement,” said CEO Michael Small. “We can serve considerable larger number of passengers – over half the plane [before degradation of the service]. The sky is going to keep growing. We’re on a path to getting full service to a full plane of users.”
Streaming services like Hulu and Netflix are still too big of a burden for in-flight connectivity, but the company’s recent release of Gogo Vision offers a nice compromise – 100+ titles to watch streaming on your wireless device for $4.99 a movie or 99 cents a show.
Over 40 planes are already equipped with the ATG-4 technology, with Virgin, Delta and US Airways on board (launches for service on American Airlines and United are expected next year). The company plans to have over 500 planes equipped by the end of 2013.
How do you tell if your plane is equipped with the latest tech? If possible, look under the first third of the plane, near the door – if you can see two fins, the smaller will be the old ATG modem, and the larger will be the ATG-4. In addition, two directional antennae and a second modem will provide another clever bonus – by checking for signal in several directions, the plane will choose the strongest one to use, while the other keeps searching for the next best signal.
TourWrist has one of the world’s largest collections of geo-located virtual tours, acquired from consumers and panoramic photographers. Different than two-dimensional photos and static-shot video, TourWrist real world panoramic images can greatly enhance travel-planning efforts by offering a different, more detailed view of places we might visit.
A free service, TourWrist delivers a 360-degree view of places we might travel with over 30,000 panoramic images. Using the TourWrist smartphone app to view, shoot, publish and share panoramas is easy too. TourWrist comes loaded with panoramic photography tools, back-end infrastructure and tour viewers.
“If you’ve ever played with Google Earth, you zoom in and get this sensation of being able to go anywhere – but eventually you stop going back because it doesn’t let you do anything,” explained on CoDesign. Tour Wrist CEO Charles Armstrong. “Our goal is to give you the opportunity to actually explore these places.”
Visiting the TourWrist website, we can choose to see the best/everything in categories such as hotels and resorts; arts and entertainment; dining and more. A panorama of a luxury yacht caught our attention and provides a good example of just what TourWrist is capable of. Clicking our way around the yacht took us from one panorama to another, giving about as complete of a tour as possible without really being there.
In that yacht tour, we were able to view in different directions and move forward and backward into the scene, much like Google Street View, something we would not have been able to do not long ago. “Our interface is always in a constant state of improvement,” says Armstrong.