Think you can’t afford Aspen? Think again. Two of the most elite hotels in town are offering can’t-miss winter season packages that include free ski passes.
Did I stutter? Nope. It’s part of a “ski free” promotion designed to draw visitors back to the Rockies after last year’s notoriously dry winter. Happily, this year looks good, as I can attest from an Aspen visit earlier in the week, and the town is buzzing with holiday festivities.
Local favorite The Little Nell is offering two separate packages for skiers. “Ski Free” gives guests who stay three nights or longer up to two free lift tickets (by comparison, a two-day, seven-day advance purchase adult pass will run you $202, high season) per day. The “Ultimate Ski Free” package: Stay four nights, and ski gratis at all four mountains of Aspen/Snowmass (Aspen, Aspen Highlands, Snowmass, and Buttermilk), on top-of-the-line demo equipment. A full-day private lesson is also included.
The newly revamped, groovilicious Limelight Hotel is doing its own “Ski Free” special, in addition to offering complimentary snowshoes to all guests. The ski package includes up to two free lift tickets per day (good at all four mountains), with a three-night minimum stay, based upon availability; some blackout dates apply.
We all know that holiday travel can be a nightmare, with everyone and their mother flying home for the holidays. This holiday season will be particularly difficult, with both Christmas and New Year’s falling just after a weekend, meaning that many travelers will opt to maximize holiday vacation with multiple trips.
But where are most people headed? It seems like warm weather is a major draw. Orlando beat out New York and Chicago for the most searched holiday destination, according to KAYAK, and Florida is the number-one trending destination overall.
Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Orlando flight searches increased between 14% – 26% from last year. Unfortunately for those heading to the Sunshine State, data also shows the average airfare to Orlando this holiday season jumped just over 13% from last year. Phoenix is also showing a fairly large rise in airfare, 10.3% on average higher than it was at this time last year.
What about New Year’s Eve? It looks like the Times Square crowd wins, with New York capturing the top slot, with Las Vegas a close second and Orlando a third-place winner. But if you’re looking to fly, avoid Orlando, which, along with Seattle has a 9% YOY increase in price. Other destinations to pass on? Honolulu (16% gain) and Cancun (10% gain).
Will you be traveling to any of these places? Did you get a good deal?
A cruise vacation has a lot of value already built in. Sailing from one popular port of call to another on board your floating hotel, transportation costs are locked in, as are all meals. Still, there are some additional factors to consider, such as fare codes that can add up to real savings at the time of booking or later, when lower prices come along.
Consider Restricted Fares
Give the cruise line what it wants and savings can add up fast. Locking in a cruise with no way to change or cancel without paying stiff penalties can lead to perks for customers as cruise lines give low pricing and generous upgrades. This is a great option for those who have travel plans set in stone. But those with possible changes in the future should avoid this option.
Don’t Care Where You Sleep
Another way to save is by booking a stateroom category that does not get a cabin assignment at the time of booking. For those that do not care where they sleep, booking an unassigned (AKA “guaranteed”) stateroom can bring great pricing benefits.
Special Discounts
Cruise lines offer special discounts for seniors, residents of certain states or geographic areas, active or retired military members and others who fit into specific groups. Buying far in advance, these fares may not be available as they are often added later in the booking cycle to encourage new reservations.Keep Looking After Booking
New promotions coming up down the line, after booking, may be applicable to your existing reservation. Watch for cruise line sales around the holidays. Check your email or mailbox between booking and sailing too, as special offers may apply to you and your already-booked sailing.
Holland America Line, for example, has its Sail & Save sale, an annual promotion period that started December 10 and features special savings on multiple cruises and destinations.
“Our Sail & Save promotions make this the perfect time to start planning a 2013 vacation,” said Richard Meadows, executive vice president, marketing, sales and guest programs in ETurboNews. “These offers make it possible for more travelers to take a family cruise, an extended holiday or that once-in-a-lifetime trip at a good value.”
Use A Travel Agent For Their Intended Purpose
Travelers can easily click-to-book a cruise on most cruise lines. But should they? Travel agents have first-hand, I-work-with-this-everyday knowledge consumers don’t. Cruise lines commonly court travel agencies for their cruise business with special agency-only offers not available online.
Another way to save? Win a free cruise.
Celebrating the arrival of Disney Wonder in Miami on December 23, 100 lucky families won their own five-night Disney cruise vacation, as we see in this video:
When it comes to gifts for travelers, there are a lot of choices. Leisure travelers, those who commonly associate travel with fun, vacation time and new places have their needs. Business travelers are a different story, often looking at their frequent trips to the same place as work and a hotel room their office. Adventure travelers and others have their own priorities as well. Each has different needs. Knowing what they put a high value on can help us pick the perfect gift. To find out, we checked a number of published packing lists for a variety of travelers.
Universally common and high-priority advice includes packing a passport, travel documents like visa’s, hotel and flight confirmations, boarding passes and a list of critical phone numbers. Basics like appropriate clothing, personal care products, smartphone apps and money round out the list. Nothing really shocking there but that’s the point of a packing list, to jog our memory so we don’t forget something critical.
All of the above considered, a document organizer might be a good idea for a less-than-organized traveler on your gift list. Victorinox, the Swiss army people, has a Travel Organizer that features: a large stash pocket and full-length zippered pocket to store tickets, a passport and most sizes of currency; a zippered pocket for coins; dedicated card slots; and a micromesh ID slot ($32).
But say your traveler already has something like that or is the type of person that you know will not use it. If they have not traveled in a while, they may not know about the current trend to travel light. OneBag, a website dedicated to “the art and science of traveling light” has some ideas.”There’s no question: over-packing tops the list of biggest travel mistakes,” says OneBag on its website, which promises, “going pretty much anywhere, for business or leisure, for an indefinite length of time, with no more than a single carry-on-sized bag.”
Benefits of traveling light include increased personal security with just one bag; that’s less to lose due to theft, damage or misrouting. Traveling light means no checked bags and a more stress- and hassle-free way to go.
So maybe “things” are not what we should focus on for the traveler on our list. That leaves gift cards, arranging for an appropriate gift to be waiting for them at their destination and well wishes.
Just in time for the holidays, Carnival Cruise Lines has launched its first-ever gift card program, a pre-paid card that can be used as payment toward a “Fun Ship” vacation or a variety of shipboard purchases. Celebrity Cruises (with a double your gift card offer) and other cruise lines have a similar program, as do airlines, car rental companies and major hotel chains like Marriott, Best Western and others.
A gift card from TravelSmith or REI Adventure products would take the pressure off of gifting, allowing the traveler to pick what they want or need. A better gift card would be for places your traveler might visit on a planned itinerary or serve as incentive to book that trip-of-a-lifetime.
Someone traveling to Disney World in Florida, for example, might appreciate a McDonalds gift card. That may sound like a dumb gift but just outside the gates of Disney World where dining can be expensive, is a McDonalds and the largest McDonalds in the world is not far. Oh, all of the sudden “dumb” is “thoughtful” and absolutely used, rather than set aside with other well-intentioned gifts.
Need some other gift ideas? Check this video from US Airways:
OneBag offers some other guidelines that can steer us in the right direction too, focusing on three areas that can lead to some great gift suggestions:
Packing List Usage, abandoning the folly of lugging around too much stuff;
Weight Reduction, finding travel-friendly versions of the stuff you do carry; and
Bag Optimization, understanding what to look for in efficient & effective luggage.
When I first heard of Airbnb it sounded like Couchsurfing but without the creepiness.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love the concept of couchsurfing, but for some people the idea of crashing on someone’s couch/bed/floor/kitchen for completely free sounds a little too good to be true. There must be a catch, right? (For the record, there often isn’t. It’s just nice people who want to meet travelers, including the Bedouin guy in Jordan who lets people couch surf in his cave).
Which is why when Airbnb came along it seemed a bit more, how shall we say, legitimate.
Sure, you’re still sleeping in a stranger’s house, but since they’re charging you money all the psychological weirdness about the situation goes right out the window. It’s kind of like a hotel, but in someone’s house, and thereby it’s much more acceptable. Right?
Well, according to a recent article by the New York Times, in many cases that’s exactly the problem.
In this trying economy it would only make sense that people rent out an extra room in their house as a means of supplementing their income, but according to the New York Times article, many local laws aren’t exactly accepting of this win/win form of subletting.
The article cites a man in New York City who hosted guests in his East Village apartment, only to see his landlord slapped with $40,000 in fines for violating local laws. Out in Maui, where I live, anyone caught operating a “transient vacation rental” without a permit can be subjected to fines of $1,000/day if caught by the local authorities, so the issue is one, which spans both sides of the country.The sticking point, of course, is if you get caught. Enforcement on this sort of thing is lax at best, so you pretty much need a neighbor or community member to rat you out in order to be discovered. Still, it’s skating on thin ice.
So is it illegal to host someone on Airbnb? Apparently that depends on where you live, and the website makes this apparent in their terms and conditions. For some Airbnb hosts who are in hot water, however, these terms aren’t made clear enough by the company and leave many users taking risks they are unaware of.
While Airbnb will likely remain a popular service, if you plan on renting out a room or serving as a host, be sure you’re aware of the local laws, lest you receive a knock on the door that isn’t from a paying guest.