Hilton hands out weekend passes to January stays

by Melanie Nayer on

Hotel deals come and go, but some are worthy of packing your bags. Case in point: Hilton’s weekend pass sale. Book a weekend at any Hilton in North or South America through the end of December and get 33 percent off select weekend rates; travel to Asia, Europe, Middle East or Africa and get 50 percent off the weekend rates.

Here’s the deal:

The weekend pass sale is available at participating Hilton hotels within the Hilton Worldwide network in Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the United States, including Puerto Rico. You must book your travel by Jan. 31, 2010, but you can stay on weekends through Dec. 26, 2010.

The full payment will be required when you book and the discounts vary based on hotel:

Hilton and Doubletree hotels: 33 percent off best available Bed & Breakfast rate
Hilton Grand Vacations Hotels: 30 percent off best available Bed & Breakfast rate
Hilton Garden Inn: 20 percent off best available rate
Hampton Inn & Suites/Homewood Suites: 30 percent off best available rate
Embassy Suites: 15 percent off best available rate

Choose from over 200 Hiltons in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia and get 50 percent off weekends through Dec. 2010. Book your rooms, pack your bags, and get traveling! At these rates, you’ll have plenty of spare cash to buy yourself a little memento from the trip.


Five art exhibitions you must see this year

by Sean McLachlan on

Art lovers, take note, 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for exhibitions. Here are five of the best, but there are plenty more than these!

Tokyo
It’s hard to beat Japanese art for sheer naturalistic beauty, and the Tokyo National Museum has an extensive collection of the best. See the work of one of the great Japanese masters in Hasegawa Tohaku: 400th Memorial Retrospective. This painter, who died in 1610, specialized in nature and Buddhist subjects, and you can see an example of his work in this post. The delicacy and ethereal quality of Japanese landscapes always gives me goosebumps. The exhibition runs from February 23 to March 22.

Madrid
Spain’s famous Museo Nacional del Prado is hosting The Art of Power: Arms, Armour and Paintings from the Spanish Court. This is a collection of weapons and armor from Spain’s Golden Age, along with paintings by important Spanish artists emphasizing Spain’s military might at a time when the country ruled most of the New World. Many of the suits or armor were the personal property of important kings such as Philip II. The show will be on from March 8 to May 16.

London
From March 4-June 6 the British Museum will have Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa. Ife was an important kingdom from the 12th to the 15th centuries in what is now Nigeria. Its artists specialized in creating human sculptures in brass, terracotta, and stone. I caught this when it was in Madrid last year and it was amazed at the level of artistic achievement in a civilization I’m ashamed to say I knew almost nothing about. The thing that most impressed me was how lifelike the sculptures were. I felt like I was staring into the faces of priests and kings who have been dead for five hundred years. My kid preferred the statue of the crocodile god.Paris
For something a bit more grim, go to the Musée d’Orsay between March 15 and June 27 for Crime and Punishment: 1791-1981. The dates refer to the year of the first call in France to abolish the death penalty and the year it was actually abolished. The exhibition is a series of paintings with crime as their theme, by famous artists such as Picasso, Goya, and Magritte. There are also paintings of capital punishment, showing that crime does not pay, at least some of the time. This show is disturbing enough that it comes with a warning label, a bit like the Eros exhibit of ancient erotic art in Athens, which you can still catch until April 5.

New York City
If you want to see something right now, The Museum of Modern Art is showcasing the work of director Tim Burton until April 26. It’s a collection of more than seven hundred drawings, storyboards, puppets, and other items from his films. There’s also a large collection of his personal artwork that even most of his fans have never seen. They’re showing his movies too!

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.

United Airlines pilot pleads guilty to intoxication

by Scott Carmichael on

Back in November, Tom wrote about a United Airlines pilot who was pulled from his flight minutes before take-off when his fellow crew members suspected he was drunk.

The pilot, Erwin Washington was scheduled to fly from London Heathrow to Chicago when the authorities asked him to take a breathalyzer test. He recorded 31mg/100, which is more than three times over the legal limit.

Because no replacement pilot was available, all 124 passengers had to be rebooked on other flights.

In a London court, Mr. Washington pleaded guilty to the incident, and will be sentenced next month. In similar cases, pilots are usually handed a fine or suspended sentence.

United Airlines has removed the pilot from service pending the investigation, but the guilty plea may spell the end of his career.

DMZ water coming to a Korean grocery store near you

by Tom Johansmeyer on

With all the bottled water you’ll find on grocery store shelves these days, any new player absolutely has to have a gimmick. There are just too many brands on the market. So, a company really does need to go the extra mile to stand out. That’s probably why “DMZ 2km” is getting some media love.

DMZ 2km is drawn from a plant in the southern half of the Korean peninsula’s Demilitarized Zone, the 4 km border area that has split North Korea from South Korea for more than 50 years. On land, there is razor wire – and plenty of landmines. Soldiers walk patrols, and there’s sometimes gunfire. Underneath all this is a spring that ultimately feeds the plastic bottles that consumers can buy for 600 won (50 cents) a pop.

The water bottle is adorned with a bird, which is representative of the wildlife that now lives in the DMZ, which hasn’t had much human activity in half a century. More than 2,900 different plant species are estimated to live there, along with 70 mammals and 320 bird types.

Lee Sang-hyo, spokesman for Lotte Chilsung Beverage, tells Reuters, “We decided on water from the DMZ because it’s different, and the environment there is untouched, so many people thinks it’s clean.” Fortunately, he continues, “Getting the water is not dangerous at all. We worked it all out with the military.”

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[Photo by Constantin B. via Flickr]