Plan your Great American Beer Festival experience online

by Katie Hammel on

The Great American Beer Festival, one of the largest beer fests in the US, is just six days away. The three-day event known as the Olympics of beer is sold out, but if you are one of the lucky 50,000 or so who will be in attendance when it takes place in Denver next week, now is the time to plan your perfect GABF experience.

The GABF is more than just an excuse to drink beer (lots and lots of beer – nearly 2,000 beers will be available for sampling), it’s a chance to learn more about beer than you ever thought possible, meet the brewers of your favorites, and try brews not available in your local area.

In addition to the basic beer tasting, there are several special events going on at the festival. At the Beer and Food Pavilion, local chefs will be working with brewers to pair beer with food. Attendees can learn how to pair the two at home and taste samples. At the You Be the Judge booth, drinkers can learn the secrets of judging beer and taste several brews alongside an official judge. There’s also a Great American Beer Fest bookstore, lectures from the brewers, and a Designated Driver Lounge where DDs can sample craft-brewed root beers and soda and receive a free massage.

With so much going on, coming up with a strategy to make the most of each four-hour session can be daunting. The Great American Beer Festival website is here to help though. They’ve created an interactive networking website where attendees can talk about their favorite beers, arrange for beer trades, and discuss the best ways to plan their GABF experience. Veterans of the event offer advice to newbies like: eat beforehand (the high altitude can increase the effects of the beer), make a “pretzel necklace” to munch on as you taste so you don’t have to waste time waiting in the food line, costumes are not uncommon, and whatever you do, don’t drop your tasting glass.

The website also hosts a map of each brewery’s location so you can plan your route through the convention hall. Some GABF experts recommend you not try to do too much – chose your top 10-15 breweries and plan a strategy to visit them in the order of importance. Others suggest choosing the beers you want to taste according to style, maybe concentrating on IPAs or porters, or by geographical location of the brewery. And some attendees prefer to just bounce from booth to booth, sneaking in for a sample at whichever one has the shortest line. You can pick a plan of attack based on your preferences, but if you’re serious about tasting beer, you’ll need some kind of strategy to make the most of your limited time.

If you weren’t lucky enough to snag tickets this year, mark your calendar for June 2010. That’s when tickets for next year’s GABF, to be held September 16-18, go on sale.

Are you paying for an airstrip of convenience?

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Taxpayers are paying to subsidize several airports around the country. Many don’t service commercial passengers and do very little to add to the communities in which they reside. Take Williamsburg-Whitley County Airport in Kentucky. It was built with $11 million in cash from the U.S. government and usually sees only a handful of flights a day take off or touch down – some days, the runway is empty.

The source of this largesse? A federal program that few know about. To understand what’s going on, you’ll need to think back to the last airline ticket you bought.

You know the drill, there’s the price on the screen … and then there’s the price you pay. In addition to the fare, you realize quickly that fees and taxes can mount to seemingly absurd proportions, but you have little choice in the matter. The taxes alone can hit 15 percent of what you pay for a flight. Have you ever wondered where that money goes?

(Well, now you know that a piece of it goes to Williamsburg-Whitley County Airport.)

Some of the tax money from air travel transactions is used to build new airports and maintain others – a network of 2,834 in total in the United States – that do not service passenger flights. These “general-aviation” airports are separate from the 139 commercial airports in the country that take care of almost all passenger flights.

USA Today, which deserves a hell of a lot of credit for digging into this, reviewed the first full examination of the 28-year-old Airport Improvement Program and found that $15 billion was sent to general-aviation airports. That’s a considerable amount of cash to give recreational fliers a place to land.

In all fairness, there is probably some truth to the notion that these airports can attract commercial and residential development and provide some important services around medical transport via air, as some members of Congress insist. But, is it enough to justify the expense?

To Congressmen, perhaps.

USA Today reports that that “[m]embers of Congress took 2,154 trips on corporate-owned jets from 2001 to 2006,” per a 2006 study by independent research group PoliticalMoneyLine. Again, in fairness, some of these airports actually provide access to their constituents. But, should a taxpayer in San Francisco finance an airport in North Andover, Massachusetts?

However you quantify the utility, it seems as though the cost is a lot higher than the benefit.

Jonathan Ornstein, CEO of Mesa Air Group (a regional), tells USA Today, “Congressmen are spending millions building runways at these little airports. That is just a complete waste of money.” This is especially the case, he says, when “there is a huge requirement to overhaul infrastructure at major airports.”

Click here to read the entire investigation and analysis; it’s worth it.

Air France knows how to treat customers right: Tips for other airlines

by Jamie Rhein on

There’s plenty to kvetch about when it comes to flying. Every time I book a flight, I continue to look at the arrival and departure times as merely suggestions–a rough idea. I plan to be late. I plan for problems. In generally, I am pleasantly surprised and achieve a warm glowing feeling when flights land on time. In all the times I’ve flown, I’ve never lost baggage. Baggage has never been my gripe.

In general, my horror tales of flights that have gone awry are few. The ones I do have remind me about how I like to be treated. This summer’s trip on Air France from Venice to Detroit via Paris reminded me of what an airline should do to keep passengers pleased and coming back when problems occur. If what I experienced is any indication of how Air France usually treats customers, I’d say the airline’s customer service is one area where the airline works well–even when the airplanes have issues.

If other airlines consistently followed these tips I noted, flying would be more pleasant for everyone, including the staff.

Tip 1: Go above and beyond whenever possible: Although, the customer service person for Air France was not able to switch my 16-year-old daughter’s flight from KLM to Air France so that she could be on the same flight with my 7-year-old-son and me, the agent offered to check my daughter in on the KLM flight as she helped me navigate Air France’s check-in system.

The agent’s extra effort helped make all of us feel less anxious about my daughter’s first foray into flying by herself, particularly since her connecting flight was through Amsterdam. Because of the agent’s extra effort, my daughter, son and I were able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, a smooth transition through security, and time to find my daughter’s gate before my son and I took off. Good for you, Air France.

Tip 2: Tell passengers right away if there is a problem with the plane and what will happen next: As our flight was to board, a mechanical problem with the plane was discovered. Air France announced over the Charles de Gaulle International Airport’s speaker system that boarding was being halted due to an aircraft issue and that we would find out more details as possible. In the meantime, we would be taken care of. We were also told that seat assignments would stay the same and that we would probably be changing gates. We were to stay at the gate where we were because that is where information would be given to us.

This set the tone that even though we would be delayed, the problem would be rectified as quickly as possible. It also gave us a job to do. Stay tuned for more information and stay where we are.

Tip 3: When there’s a problem, make amends with food. Once it was determined we’d be at the airport longer than expected, Air France gave all passengers a choice of one of three or four types of sandwiches and a choice of a can of soda or a bottle of water. The food was brought to us.

Tip 4: Give out phone cards if needed. One of the Air France agents gave me a phone card so I could call my husband so he could call my daughter when she landed in Detroit to tell her not wait for us. We were to meet up in Detroit to fly to Columbus on the same Delta flight. Originally, my son and I would have arrived in Detroit before her and had planned to wait for her at her gate. I was concerned that my daughter wouldn’t know what to do next and miss the Delta flight herself.

Because my concern was taken seriously, I was able to relax for the rest of the trip.

Tip 5: If the passenger is having problems using the phone card, help. Gladly. When using a phone in France, the recorded messages are in French. The phone call I tried to make to my husband wouldn’t go through. Because I couldn’t understand the message, I had no idea why not. An agent stepped from behind the desk, went to the pay phone with me, tried to use the card, found out what the message said and helped me rectify the problem which required finding out another access number. It’s complicated. The point is, the agent offered help and didn’t let me become more frustrated. Eventually, I was able to make the call I needed.

Tip 6: When the in-flight entertainment stops working properly mid-flight, apologize and do your best: The in-flight entertainment stopped working when I was in the middle of watching “I Love You Man.” There was an announcement that the crew was aware that the in-flight entertainment system had stopped working and that they were trying to fix it. In the meantime, we should please be patient. Part of the extensive system was fixed in a few minutes. The entire system was fixed in about 20.

Tip 7: Offer food that’s more than just palatable. The meals were terrific. There’s not much else to say about this tip. We all know good food when we see it and taste it. Rich Moffit who snapped the food picture echoed my sentiment with his photo labeled: “This is why you fly Air France.”

Tip 8: At the end of the flight, thank passengers for the flight and again apologize for the problems along the way: When we landed, the pilot again apologized for the delay and thanked us for our understanding. The smiling flight attendants did the same.

I smiled back and said, “Thank you for your efforts to get us here safely and for making the flight pleasant.”

**My daughter’s solo flight went swimmingly well. She did receive the phone call from her dad and knew just what to do. Thanks, Air France.

Geography lessons: Can you draw a map of the U.S. as well as Al Franken?

by Jamie Rhein on

Watching Minnesota senator Al Franken draw a map of the United States reminded me of 7th grade. Back then at Olympia Jr. High in Columbia, South Carolina, I had one of those social studies teachers who handed out blank pieces of paper and had us draw a map with every new unit. Perhaps you, Gadling reader, learned geography in a similar fashion.

For example, if we were going to study Europe, we would open our books to the map of Europe and replicate it as best we could. Countries were to be drawn to scale, colored a different color than the ones they bordered, and include major mountain chains and bodies of water. By the end of the year, the world had become a grand kaleidoscope that I could picture with my eyes closed.

Even though I’ve traveled to many of the places I’ve drawn, I couldn’t replicate those maps from scratch–not without looking at a picture at the same time. Can you? Al Franken can.

Senator Franken can draw the United States like nobody’s business. He showed off this talent at the Minnesota State Fair this summer. I wonder who his social studies teacher was? I’m impressed. Watch to see what I mean. . .

Galley Gossip: Oahu, Hawaii – Ko Olina Beach Club timeshare vacation deal

by Heather Poole on

We were in Hawaii at the Ko Olina Beach Club in Oahu when the woman standing in front of the black board asked, “Do you honestly think you travel differently than everyone else? That what you’re looking for in a vacation is not what everyone else here wants.”

As I glanced at the others staying at the resort, most of whom were either families vacationing with children under the age of five, like myself, or senior citizens enjoying the fruits of their labor, I nodded my head. I do truly believe I travel differently than most people. I’m a flight attendant! And that’s what I told her.

Like most flight attendants, when I go on vacation I don’t want to stay anywhere that even remotely feels like a layover, which means I’m not a big fan of resort like properties with hundreds of rooms and thousands of guests milling about the pool. Regardless of how pretty that pool may be.

For the record, the pool at the the Ko Olina Beach Club is wonderful. My three year-old couldn’t stay out of it. The beach, a man made lagoon, is beautiful, so very relaxing at night under the stars. And the rooms, particularly the villas, are more than comfortable with their sunken tubs, full size kitchens, and a washer and dryer to boot. But that’s another story. This story is about how I’m a flight attendant and how flight attendants, not unlike most frequent fliers, do not want to spend their vacations in the same hotel-type room year after year. Even though this was our third year in a row at the resort. It was also the first time we’d agreed to partake in one those vacation club package deals.

Don’t ask.

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“Travel, for me, is an escape,” I said to the woman holding the chalk after she asked me what, exactly, I wanted to get out of my vacations. “When I go on vacation I just want to relax, eat good food, and let the vacation come to me.”

“So you’re telling me that you appreciate a quality hotel? That you want to know you’re getting the best you can get for your dollar when you’re on vacation? she asked.

“Umm…no…that’s not exactly what I said,” I said, and as I said that she drew two big columns on the board with a piece of chalk, the words RENT and OWN scribbled above each one.

“There’s no need to go there,” I said, watching her make a list of reasons to own, not rent. “Because when I go on vacation I really do like spending hours online searching for the perfect place to stay. I like the excitement of not knowing what to expect and the thrill of sliding the key card into the door and SURPRISE! Seeing what’s on the other side – whether it’s good or bad. Because sometimes you get the Calla Lily Inn in Palm Springs and other times you get the Villa Rosa in Positano. You see, that’s the fun part for me.”

“Are you telling me you don’t mind throwing money away?”

“I’m telling you that I’m a flight attendant and my husband travels more than I do,” I said, motioning to my husband who was just seconds from shoving an Ipod in his ear. “So when we travel it’s last minute travel. We can’t plan our vacations a year in advance. We can’t be bothered with trading our weeks. And we like change and diversity. No offense, but timeshares are just not for us.”

But the timeshare pool, on the other hand, was for us. Because that’s where we spent a good portion of our getaway discussing the pros and cons of owning a timeshare with a few of the owners in our complex. While none of these owners knew each other, they all had one thing in common, love for the timeshare. One woman told me that if I was really interested in purchasing one, not to bother with the sales people at the resort because there were some pretty amazing deals to be found on Ebay. That’s where she’d not only been snatching up quite a few timeshares, but had actually bought one for just $500! Not including the maintenance fees.

I actually tweeted that bit about timeshares being sold on ebay and two seconds later someone sent me a link to 10 Reasons Timeshares Are A Bad Deal. Of course I shared the 10 reasons with my husband over a magnificent sunset dinner in Waikiki. A woman sitting alone at a neighboring table who just so happened to be eavesdropping in on our conversation told us about redweek.com, the largest online marketplace for renting, buying, and selling timeshares. I told her I’d check it out.

As for renting a timeshare, sure, why not, great deals are out there and redweek.com is one of the best places to find one. When it comes to buying, I don’t think so. The best part about traveling, for me, is doing something different and getting outside the comfort zone, not making a second home. As far as selling a timeshare goes, good luck with that in this terrible economy. Because in order to sell, one must be willing to buy – regardless of what the really nice timeshare sales lady whose company stands to make a 40% commision on the resell says.

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