Virgin America announces nonstop flights to Los Cabos and Cancun from $129

by Melanie Nayer on

Viva, Mexico!

Get your margaritas ready and toast to Virgin America’s new flight announcements. The airline announced today it will serve San Jose del Cabo International Airport (SJD) and Cancun International Airport (CUN) with nonstop flights from California starting this December.

The fights from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Los Cabos start Dec. 16, 2010, and flights from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Cancun will start Jan. 19, 2011. If you’re in San Francisco and want to go to Cancun, your nonstops will start Jan. 20, 2011. And lest you think you’ll have to spend your holiday money on flights, think again: the low-cost carrier is celebrating the new routes a three-day fare sale.

Put down the tequila and grab your credit card – flights start at just $109!

But there’s more…

If you’re in-the-social-media-know, and in desperate need of some time on the beaches of Mexico, you can score a two-for-one ticket offer by checking in on Loopt Star at SFO or LAX. (To be eligible, one must check-in using the Loopt Star iPhone app, which is available at the Apple iTunes store or at loopt.com /looptstar.)

Can’t get to the airport? No problem. You’ll get hungry at some point today so those of you in San Francisco and Los Angeles can head to select Virgin America taco trucks from 11:00am-3:00pm PT today. Proceeds from every taco purchased will benefit the City of San Francisco’s Animal Care and Control Chihuahua rescue efforts.

Here’s the breakdown of costs:

  • From $129 in Main Cabin for SFO-SJD, SFO-CUN and LAX-CUN
  • From $39 on LAX-SFO, SFO-Las Vegas (LAS) and SFO-San Diego (SAN) flights (so you can get to Mexico)
  • From $109 for LAX-Washington Dulles (IAD) and SFO-Fort Lauderdale (FLL)

Tickets are on sale today on Virgin America’s Web site (www.virginamerica.com)

For taco lovers in Los Angeles, Virgin America’s in-flight teammates can be found in uniform at the Border Grill taco truck at 7060 Hollywood Boulevard. Those in San Francisco can find their Virgin America representatives at Los Compadres, at 100 Folsom Street.

Choice Hotels offers music downloads to support charity and new artists

by Melanie Nayer on

It feels good to give back, and when hotels get in on the giving we make a point to salute them.

Choice Hotels International, Inc. announced the launch of Choice Hotels Music – a new music initiative that brings new artists in front of millions of consumers and helps drive donations to non-profit organizations. Here’s how it works:

Choice Hotels will produce the original music and offer consumers the chance to download these songs for a limited time for free at ChoiceHotels.com. The artists retain ownership of their works. With each download, a financial donation will be made to a featured cause or charity. Choice Hotels Music has already begun producing 10 songs that will be matched to appropriate charities. Case in point: on August 28, Holly Montgomery performed her song “”My Brother’s Keeper” live at a special block party concert in New Orleans. This event culminates the efforts of Choice Hotels and Rebuilding Together’s Fifty for Five initiative to rehabilitate 50 homes in New Orleans on the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Have a song you want the world to hear? Artists interested in creating great music to support great causes can visit choicehotels.com for updates on the initiative.

For those who don’t have a musical note about them, just download “My Brother’s Keeper” for free from August 25 through September 24 and help support Rebuilding Together’s efforts in the Gulf Coast.

Trump SoHo NYC goes green

by Melanie Nayer on

The Trump family of hotels is working on a greener lifestyle in New York.

Green Mountain Energy Company announced that Trump SoHo™ New York, the newest Trump hotel and condominium complex at 246 Spring Street in New York City, has committed to purchasing renewable energy from Green Mountain for 100 percent of the hotel’s electricity usage. Green Mountain is one of the nation’s largest providers of cleaner energy and carbon offset solutions.

Trump SoHo has signed on to purchase more than 5.5 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of wind energy annually from Green Mountain over two years, according to the agreement. The renewable energy will offset 100 percent of the hotel condominium’s annual electricity usage, which generates an estimated 4.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, according to Green Mountain.

As for Trump and his guests? The savings represents the equivalent of 1.3 million houses turning off all their lights for a day.

New York City restaurant grades: would you eat at a place with mice?

by Amy Chen on

I was in the East Village last night and encountered my first sighting of New York’s new restaurant grading system.

Starting last month, every New York City restaurant is now required to post a letter grade that corresponds to its health-inspection score. (Los Angeles has already successfully implemented the system.)

Based on the new system, a restaurant is awarded an A for scores between 0-13, a B for 14-27, and a C for 28 and higher. (Each health-code violation earns a certain number of points, so lower scores equal fewer violations.) Though all signs must be posted in a place that’s visible to people walking by, I found that the Department of Health also has a handy online tool that lets you look up restaurants by name.

So I started inputting a few of my favorite restaurants, and my stomach started turning when I saw the history of violations, including “evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.” Surprisingly, some of the affordable restaurants that I searched for did better than the fine-dining type of places. Though many of the restaurant inspections in my search were completed as recently as in May, most of the corresponding letter grades haven’t yet been posted so you can only see recent health-code violations.

Perhaps it’s better not to think about it, but I have the feeling that I’ll be periodically checking up on my favorite places as the final letter grades are awarded and publicly posted. Otherwise, I’m going to have to finally learn how to cook.

Of course, this makes me wonder if health-code violations will just become relative: If I really love a restaurant but it only gets a B, does that mean that I should find a new favorite? Or will B become the new standard?

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[Photo by Amy Chen]

Mother of all relay races takes place today

by Kraig Becker on

The 29th annual Hood to Coast Relay will take place today when more than 12,000 runners will descend on Mt. Hood in Oregon to take part in the largest relay race in the world. The event gets underway with the first wave of runners setting out from Timberline Lodge, located at 6000 feet on the mountain, at 6:30 AM. After that, more teams will follow every 15 minutes until the final runners hit the course at 6:45 PM this evening. The race will end tomorrow when the final teams reach the town of Seaside on the Pacific Coast.

The Hood to Coast Relay more than lives up to its moniker as “the mother of all relays.” The race runs for 197 miles and is broken up into 36 different legs, each between 3.7 and 7.4 miles in length. The teams taking part in the race consist of 8 to 12 member, and each member must run at least three of the legs. The number of teams that can take part in the event is limited to 1000, and in a testament to how popular the relay is, the event has filled its capacity, on the first day that registration opens, for the past 12 years running.

While the Hood to Coast looks like it would be a lot of fun in and of itself, the entire event is also used to raise funds for their charity of choice, the American Cancer Society. Last year the event raised more than $360,000 for that charity, and fans of the race can contribute to that worthy cause on their donations page.

And when the race is finished tomorrow, organizers wrap up the weekend with the largest beach part on the west coast, which includes live music, dancing, and an awards ceremony, not to mention plenty of things to eat and drink.

Anyone want to organize a Gadling team for next year?

[Photo credit: Hood to Coast Relay]