Travel Alert! Virgin sale to from LA – Sydney — for $480!

by Grant Martin on

Alert! Virgin just put Sydney on sale from Los Angeles! Their front page says $1600, but if you get in and tinker with the dates, the price will drop to about 250$ one way. Combined trip: less than $500.

Here’ s how I got my fare.

  1. Go to Virgin’s homepage first.
  2. Make sure you’re on the America site, if you aren’t change it.
  3. Click Departure from Los Angeles and Arrival to Sydney
  4. Select dates after March 1
  5. On your search, if you don’t see the fares you like, click back and forth on the “Arrivals” box. Sooner or later a fare will come up around $250.
  6. Then click back and forth on the departures.
  7. You may have to mess around with the dates to find something that works.
  8. Good luck!

Mind you, Virgin had to push back launch a bit from December from the strike that’s currently rocking Boeing. So there is a chance that things could get jiggered a bit.

You also might recall that a few people had problems with the initial sale that Virgin offered last year.

But if you’re willing to take the risk (for <500$) and are confident that you’ll get a refund if things turn south, give it a go.

See you in OZ!

Watch a quick Bose video for 150 free American Airlines miles

by Grant Martin on

A few miles short on that dream vacation to Djbouti that you’ve been planning for the last 5 years? Afraid that your mileage account is going to expire due to inactivity? Force yourself to watch a video about the Bose QuietComfort headphones and they’ll give you 150 miles American Airlines just for your time.

I’ll bet you can even turn the video on, alt+tab over to failblog and return in a few minutes to get your reward.

If you’re really interested in milking the system, you can also go to the Bose store to check out the headphones in person, try them on and collect a voucher for an additional 350 miles. Once you get that you can return to the website, drop in your code and collect your miles in a few weeks.

You might laugh at the prospect of jumping through hoops to earn a paltry 150 or 350 miles (you would have to do a silly 150 point excursion 167 times before you earned enough for a ticket) but many of us have been saving for years and are just at the cusp of an award redemption. This bump could put you over the top.

You’ve got until the end of the month to sign up for the promotion and it’ll take 6-8 weeks for the miles to show up. Pull the trigger now, forget about it and you’ll get a surprise just in time for Thanksgiving.

Amtrak celebrates Auto Train’s 25th birthday, has (very limited) fare sale

by David Breisch on

Ever heard of the Auto Train? Yeah, I didn’t think so – it’s not too well-known outside of railroad and frequent-Amtrak-passenger circles. The Auto Train is actually Amtrak’s most unique long-distance route. For one thing, it doesn’t make any stops between its terminals in Lorton, VA (suburb of Washington, D.C.) and Sanford, FL (suburb of Orlando). It’s solely an overnight trip, meaning that you board in the evening and, if it’s on time, you arrive at your destination in the morning. Both dinner and continental breakfast in the recently-revamped Dining Car are included, no matter what class of service you travel in. And, oh yeah, there’s the small matter of bringing your car with you. That’s right, you get to store your automobile in a special car-carrier rail car and bring it with you, so you can use it on the other end.

It normally runs about $100 per person in off-peak season for coach tickets – plus the $200 vehicle charge. But, to celebrate 25 years of Auto Train service, Amtrak is selling 25% off tickets. Not too bad, eh? Oh yeah… the catches. First of all, your travel must begin on a Tuesday or Wednesday in February 2009. Additionally, you must purchase your tickets on October 25. (That’s on October 25, not “around” or “by” October 25.) And, the sale is on the ($100 per person) rail fare, not the $200 vehicle charge. So you really save about $25 per person. Which isn’t chump change, I’ll admit… if you’re already planning on traveling on a weekday in February and you are going to finalize your travel plans by Saturday.

Ah, well, maybe we’ll just have to wait for the 100-year anniversary and snatch up the discounted tickets then.

Chicago’s CTA to launch new transit fare card – ride the rails and… rent a car?

by David Breisch on

The board of the Chicago Transit Authority last week approved a new partnership with I-GO, ironically enough – it’s a Chicago-based non-profit company that rents short-term, fuel-efficient cars by the hour to people who don’t own a car, but may need one temporarily. The idea is to create a combo fare card that allows you to use your pre-loaded fare money to also rent cars from I-GO.

Actually, it seems like a pretty good idea, in theory – it gives urban-dwellers an additional way to live without actually owning and driving their own car everywhere. According to the I-GO website, once you sign up, you can reserve a car by phone or online. There’s even a nifty Google Maps mashup of all the vehicle locations. To actually pick it up, just take your smart card, swipe it over a reader on the actual car, and then grab the keys out of the glove box. And then you are billed by the hour. Seems pretty simple.

Live in Chicago? Maybe you should consider ditching your car. Ride the CTA around, and if you really need a set of wheels, rent one for a few hours. It apparently takes 3-5 business days to register as a member – so I suppose it would take a bit more planning – but with some tweaking it sounds like the system would work quite well with the leisure traveler as well. Not a bad idea…

(Via Chicago Tribune)

New York: Fly on US Helicopter for cheap this fall

by Grant Martin on

If you’ve been itching to get onto one of those nifty US Helicopter shuttles between Manhattan and the airport, you’re in luck: fall fares are on sale and they’re putting prices dangerously close to affordable.

From the usual $120-150 range that the tickets normally reside in, US Helicopter is running a special where you can get a one way ticket between Newark or JFK into Manhattan for only $100. Sure the taxi from JFK is only $40 and the PATH NJ Transit train from Jersey is much less, but those connections can take take over an hour and hey, if you’re late for a meeting you have to get into the city.

I am nearly tempted to jump on a US Helicopter flight this afternoon from Newark into the city — but for now am holding onto my pocketbook. Maybe once I land in Jersey and get my drinking pants on I’ll change my mind.