New travel sale site Sniqueaway: a first look

by McLean Robbins on

The team behind TripAdvisor has joined the online flash sale market with SniqueAway, launching September 20. The sample sale site is the latest to join the the ranks of Jetsetter.com, Vacationist, Voyage Prive and auction-based site Off & Away in the market to offer limited time discounts on luxury properties around the globe for a limited members-only audience.

“We’ve watched and learned and now we’re ready to party with the players who have proven the private sale model to be a winner,” said Massimo De Nadai, general manager for Smarter Travel Media, the parent company of both TripAdvisor and SniqueAway.

The site will offer both four and five-star properties like The Greenbrier in West Virginia and The Crane in Barbados on its inaugural lineup. To qualify, resorts must have a minimum four star rating, with limited exceptions for small and very new properties that have not yet developed a following on TripAdvisor.com.

Like other sale sites, SniqueAway will utilize both its existing member base within TripAdvisor and the “refer a friend” functionality to promote the site, which promises a $25 credit to the referrer when a new member purchases their first trip.

On SniqueAway, TripAdvisor hotel reviews are shown alongside limited-time, members-only offers, providing trusted traveler opinions of the hotels, making it easy to book a room before they sell out.

To gain early access to the site, use the link www.sniqueaway.com/invite/gadlingdotcom to secure membership and stay tuned for a full comparison review in the coming weeks.

Comcast High-Speed 2go offers Internet at home and on the go – now with MiFi

by Scott Carmichael on

If you use Comcast as your home Internet/TV/phone provider and are regularly on the road, you may want to read up on their High-Speed 2go product lineup. Essentially, High-Speed 2go provides cable broadband Internet at home, and 3G or 4G mobile broadband when you are traveling. The best part is that the 3G subscription is included in your cable bill and that in some cases, the combo is cheaper than most providers charge for the 3G alone. In the example above, you’ll get the Comcast Powerboost cable service, and a 2GB mobile broadband subscription for $54.99.

An unlimited 4G combo is also $54.99. A 3G bundle with 4GB of data is $64.99 and a cable/3G/4G combo is $69.99. These prices are all promotional rates and go up in two-tiers, becoming just over $80 in two years. Of course, as with many Comcast promotions, you may be able to negotiate a lower rate when the promo ends.

As of today, Comcast is also offering the Novatel Wireless MiFi intelligent hotspot as an option for their 3G packages. The MiFi costs $125 (one time fee) and lets you access your 3G subscription over WiFi.

To learn more about these Comcast packages, head on over to their High-Speed 2go promotion page.

Wanderfly.com beta invites for Gadling readers

by Meg Nesterov on


We hate to break it to you, but there’s only a week left in summer. Why not get a jump on planning your fall and winter travel? Wanderfly, the new travel-planning and booking site we reviewed earlier this month has just unveiled a spiffy new beta site and is offering free invites to check it out to the first 500 Gadling readers to sign up.

What’s new and improved on the beta site?

– The search functions have improved: you can search by airport, and within specific countries. You can also modify your preferences as you browse results should you decide you want to add the great outdoors to your beach and culture vacation or want to move your trip forward a month.
-Results are better too, with more accurate recommendations and enhanced destination info, including new photos and Google Maps integration.
– Better communication and sharing with Facebook Connect to see where your friends are and ability to save and email itineraries to friends or to yourself.

Want to start searching for your next trip destination? Sign up for access here with code gadling and let us know what you find in the comments!

New online tool, AvidTrips, offers adventure travel options

by Kraig Becker on

AvidTrips, a newly launched website, is giving adventure travelers a new option for finding unique places to explore and connecting them with tour operators that can help them do it. The site is currently in beta form, and still lacking a lot of travel options at the moment, but the interface shows a great deal of potential, which bodes well for the future.

Upon visiting AvidTrips for the first time, you’ll notice that it has a nice clean design that is approachable and simple to use. The site offers the ability to search by location and activity, with such options as cycling, climbing, fishing, and more. However, for even greater control over your search, you’ll want to use the advanced features of the “Trip Finder”, which allows you to filter by a variety of criteria including the dates you would like to travel, duration of trip, difficulty level, price you want to pay, and so on. Scrolling further down the page, you’ll also find AvidTrips’ top rated options for the week, as well as new additions to the site and special discounted offers.

Selecting a destination brings up a brief, but well done, overview about the country that includes climate information, currency type, time zone, and more. The destination page also allows you to see the various activities that are available there as well. For instance, visitors to Nepal can choose from trekking, climbing, safari, and world culture options. Clicking on any one of those activities will display a list of tour operators that offer those adventures in the particular destination you are browsing.

The main drawback at the moment is that the database for destinations is still a bit lacking. For instance, when you click on Africa, the only two options are Kenya and Tanzania, despite the fact that there are at least a dozen other great adventure destinations on the continent. Similarly, South America only offers Argentina and Chile, while North America doesn’t list any options at all. Given some time however, this can easily be rectified. After all, it takes time to build such an extensive database, and this project is still listed as being in beta after all.

The potential is there however, and perhaps given some time to mature, this will grow into a very useful site for adventure travelers. Once more options are available, it may even be useful for finding destinations that are a bit more under the radar, but for now, it is mostly offering up the places you would expect, albeit still some of the top adventure destinations on the planet.

Rover by Clear offers unlimited 4G broadband for just $5/day

by Scott Carmichael on

Well, now we know for sure that the U.S. prepaid mobile broadband market is finally taking off. A mere 4 days after our Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go review, a new product from 4G company Clear is offering another prepaid / no contract broadband solution.

Their product is called Rover, and offers 4G service on a USB stick ($99.99) or a WiFi router ($149.99). Best of all – service is offered on these devices starting at just $5. The three price points are simple – $5 for a day, $20 for a week and $50 for a month.

Coverage is still relatively limited, but in the places where I’ve been able to experience the Clear 4G network, it has been very, very fast. In Vegas last month, I was regularly downloading around 6mbit/s, which is about four times faster than any of the 3G operators.

So, if you know in advance that you’ll be in a Clear 4G coverage area, you now have another affordable way to get online. Hopefully we’ll have a full review of Rover up on Gadling as soon as we can. The Rover product page is here, which is where you’ll be able to order the Rover Stick or Puck.