Earn 1000 bonus miles when you use mobile check-in this Holiday season on United Airlines

by Scott Carmichael on

United Airlines is taking a bit of stress off the Holiday travel season with a pretty generous 1000 mile bonus for passengers who use their mobile check-in service.

Mobile check-in is available on all United and United Express operated flights within the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The promotion does have one minor caveat – you need to register at united.com/mobilebonus before your account is eligible to receive the bonus. At that link, simply enter your Mileage Plus number, and the next time you use the United Mobile check-in option at mobile.united.com, you’ll receive 1000 miles (after 6 to 8 weeks).

You can only earn the bonus miles once, and the promotion last until December 31, 2010.

With the United Mobile site, you can check-in, have a mobile boarding pass emailed to your phone, check flight status, view your upcoming flight reservations, check your Mileage Plus account summary and sign up for flight notifications. Their mobile site also lists Red Carpet Club locations and lists Airline contact information.

Cool shop alert: Eurostyle Your Life, Seattle

by Alex Robertson Textor on

There is an ongoing lifestyle shift at play in the US and beyond. This shift is all about favoring clothes and household objects from sources that rely on sustainable practices, recycled materials, and small production batches. I wrote back in September about a number of shops in Sydney that have followed this general impulse along quite divergent aesthetic lines.

Seattle’s Eurostyle Your Life is part of this global trend, with an eclectic product base focused somewhat on European small-scale designers. Eurostyle Your Life’s inventory includes clothes, bags, jewelry, children’s toys, greetings cards, and various decorative objects for the home.

One tried-and-true favorite at Eurostyle Your Life is its selection of remarkably elegant shoulder bags crafted out of inner tubes by Amsterdam-based designer Doreen Westphal. Another beautiful standby is a set of notebooks by Andrea Kohler, a Swiss bookbinder resident in Seattle.

Newer objects of note include jewelry made out of recycled silver and pewter by Potluck Paris, washable Pappelina rugs (made out of discarded plastic) from Sweden, Tyvek coats by New York’s Mau, leather bags by an Argentine designer named Guadalupe Martiarena, and “Frizzle Sizzles,” wildly colorful and very attractive children’s miniature play stove tops made out of reclaimed tins by the dynamic Switzerland-based rafinesse & tristesse.

The shop’s current location opened in summer 2009; from that point through this past summer, Eurostyle Your Life operated at two locations. The prior venue, in Seattle’s Fremont district, opened its doors in April 2008. The current location benefits from the next-door wood workshop, which is actually owned by the store’s proprietors, Leslie Conti and Urs Berger. The workshop churns out a steady stream of high-quality children’s wooden toys for the store.

The resulting product base is a mash-up of craftsy wooden objects and very modern, very sustainable reclaimed and recrafted goods. The latter impulse is nicely summed up by the tagline of Mau, one of EYL’s suppliers: “post industrial folk wear.”

Eurostyle Your Life is located at 2008 Westlake Avenue in Seattle’s evolving Denny Triangle neighborhood.

Group buying site LivingSocial launches curated travel deals section

by McLean Robbins on

Today group buying giant LivingSocial has launched LivingSocial Escapes, a new travel site offering sweet savings on one-of-a-kind day trips, packaged “nearcations”, quick escapes that don’t require air-travel and weekend excursions.

“LivingSocial is not just about deals, it’s about creating experiences and memories at a value. People really cherish their vacations – whether it’s an overnight trip to a local Bed & Breakfast or a tropical beach getaway – traveling is special, and LivingSocial Escapes is the best place to find one-of-a-kind travel packages to places you love, have been dying to try, or ones that will surprise you,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and Co-founder of LivingSocial Escapes.
“We want to make it as easy for people to discover new things, so each travel experience offered through LivingSocial Escapes is authentic, accessible and requires minimal planning.”

LivingSocial Escapes packages are available for one week – not just for 24 hours like the daily deals – and are accessible to anyone who clicks on them. To enhance the social experience, LivingSocial’s referral model allows users to get their experience for free if they refer three friends who also participate in the deal.

We’re super excited to see how this new service works – LivingSocial has long been one of our favorite group buying sites for our hometown marketplace. Now expanded into more than 100 areas, this new vertical for the company should provide even budget-aware travelers the chance to get out on the road and explore.

If you are not already a LivingSocial member and would like to join, sign up here.

Historic town fights federal government and lead poisoning

by Sean McLachlan on

You may never have heard of Caledonia, Missouri, but it’s one of the most historic spots in the state. While the town has fewer than two hundred residents, its tiny downtown is filled with old homes and shops. It boasts 33 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and a steady stream of visitors who take up the town’s invitation to “step back in time”.

Sadly, that all might be in danger. The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to designate 175 square miles of Washington County as a Superfund Site in order to clean up dangerously high lead levels in the soil and ground water. The little town of Caledonia is right in the middle of this area and stands to lose a lot of business if it’s slapped with the label of being dangerous. People may not want to eat at the local diner or attend the annual Pumpkin Festival if they think they’re going to get lead poisoning.

Caledonia is in southwest Missouri in what used to be known as the “lead belt” thanks to its large lead mining operations from the 18th to late 20th century. Lead from the mines has made it into the soil and ground water across much of this region. There are already three Superfund Sites in Washington County that have dangerously high lead levels.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a gallery dedicated to Caledonia. The town is protesting the EPA’s move, but there seems little it can do about it.

Carnival Splendor in nightmare engine fire incident – Navy airlifts supplies

by Scott Carmichael on

What was supposed to be a week long Mexican Riviera cruise on board the Carnival Splendor, has turned into a nightmare for the passengers. Three days ago, a massive engine fire knocked out almost all the facilities on this 3300 passenger vessel.

Propulsion systems, electricity, climate control, water and entertainment were all disabled, and the ship was been stuck 200 miles off the coast of San Diego. The situation was so bad, that the U.S. Navy had to be called in to supply food for the stranded passengers. The USS Ronald Reagan used its helicopters to drop thousands of pounds of supplies and Navy sailors were airlifted to the Splendor to assist with unloading.

The 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew members have cold water and toilet usage back, but most other services are still disabled. A tug boat reached the ship yesterday, and she is expected to arrive in San Diego tomorrow.

Carnival has made hotel and flight arrangements for the passengers, and everyone is being offered a full refund and a complimentary future cruise on Carnival.

Sadly, the ship has already has its fair share of bad luck – and despite being less than two years old, some are already asking whether the vessel is cursed. For more coverage on the Carnival Splendor fire, head on over to our friends at AOL Travel News.

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[Image: US Navy / Getty / AP]