Hyatt introduces Facebook travel experts; ready to answer holiday travel questions

by Melanie Nayer on

As the craziness that is the holiday season approaches, Hyatt has teamed up with Gadling to help guests answer their travel questions. On their Facebook page, guests can ask anything they want – from tips on how to score great last minute deals, to helping them with their packing list.

Taking this to Facebook is just another way the hotel chain is expanding its regular customer outreach. In the past, the hotel chain used Facebook to promote its resorts.

Questions can be submitted between now and Wednesday November 24 at 6PM, and all questions will be answered on a first-come, first serve basis. So – got some burning holiday travel questions you’d like get answers to?

Head on over to the Hyatt Gold Passport Facebook page and submit your question.

Hyatt hotels deal: 50% off on third night for holiday travel

by Melanie Nayer on

Now’s the time to start watching for the over-the-top holiday hotel deals. We’ll post what we think are the best holiday travel deals here, starting with this one: Hyatt Hotels & Resorts is offering the third night free for rooms booked during the holiday season.

Starting now, when guests book two nights for stays between November 19 and January 17 at participating Hyatt Place and Hyatt Summerfield Suites hotels, they will receive 50% off their third consecutive night. Rates at many hotels beginning at just $79, which is a steal if you’re visiting the family for the holidays and don’t want to sleep on the pullout sofa in the basement.

Hyatt Place has more than 150 hotels participating and more than 30 Summerfield Suites hotels located across the U.S. have jumped on board, which means your odds of finding a hotel in your destination are pretty good.

We did a quick check on HyattPlace.com and found the only blackout dates to be over New Year’s Eve. However, the promotion runs through mid-January so you can still get your discounts after the holidays are over.

Reservations may be made by visiting hyattplace.com or hyattsummerfieldsuites.com and you must use booking code *HOLID3 *when making reservations.

Five reasons Thanksgiving travel will be miserable (by the numbers)

by Tom Johansmeyer on

You may have gotten a break last year, but the 2010 Thanksgiving holiday will be a return for the norm. Fares are increasing, and traffic is following, as more passengers take to the skies thanks to a recovering economy. The Air Transport Association puts year-over-year Thanksgiving travel growth at 3.5 percent. This is enough to show the tide has turned, but it still doesn’t compensate for the ground lost to the recession.

With more people flying, you will probably find yourself fighting for the armrest, sitting next to someone in that middle seat (unless you’re the unlucky passenger) and struggling to cram your carry-on into the overhead bin.

Let’s take a look at five data points that point to an unpleasant Thanksgiving flying season, with information reported by Reuters:1. 24 million people will fly during the 12-day period around Thanksgiving (November 25, 2010)
2. Daily volumes will range from 1.3 million to 2.5 million
3. Planes will be running close to capacity, with load factors approaching 90 percent
4. Fares are headed up to 18 percent higher than last year (according to Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare)
5. There are fewer seats, with capacity down 10 percent from 2008 levels

Click here for six rules for air travel during the holiday season >>

[photo by Augapfel via Flickr]

Summer travel: how not to sizzle your skin

by Laurel Miller on

The good folks at CNN have released a helpful guide and accompanying photo gallery horror show of solar ray-blasted epidermis. In “5 ways to avoid getting deep-fried,” you’ll find dermatologist’s tips to protect your sun from UVA/UVB damage, skin cancer detection links, and entertaining anecdotes of CNN reporters’ worst sunburns/precursors to melanoma.

I love the sun as much as most holiday-makers, but years of basting myself in baby oil, combined with the onset of crow’s feet in my early twenties and my mother’s own ongoing struggle with basal and squamous cell carcinomas have turned me into the Queen of Sunscreen. While my friends still mock me, and a former farmers market employer once remarked, “I can always tell when you’ve been hugging my dog, because he smells like sunscreen!” I feel vindicated because at 41, I look a good ten years younger, and have yet to develop my first pre-cancerous lesion. I get an annual screening at my dermatologist, and religiously apply a minimum of SPF 30 UVA/UVB sunblock over all exposed body parts (please remember the back of your neck, hands, ears, and knees, and tops of your feet).

Gadling has a more detailed explanation of what the heck all this SPF stuff means, and a guide to choosing sunglasses that do more than just look hip. I also wear, and heartily endorse (unpaid, of course) the sun protective clothing by ExOfficio, and sun protective hats by Outdoor Research. Sounds wacky, but these items are constructed with UPF (ultraviolet protection factor) textiles that, while not a substitute for sunblock, provide a great dual-defense system. They’re also attractive, and incredibly versatile and travel-friendly. Don’t hide from the sun this holiday weekend; just take precautions, have fun, and think of all the money you’ll save by not requiring reconstructive surgery and Botox.

(Image credit: Flickr/Saspotato)

Holiday travel to fall 2.5 percent

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The airports may not be as crowded at Christmas this year. The Air Transport Association of America expects holiday flight traffic to fall 2.5 percent from 2008. The holiday period is measured as December 17, 2009 through January 6, 2010. The busiest days in the sky are most likely to be the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday after Christmas.

Don’t expect to have plenty of legroom, though. Part of the decline stems from the fact that airlines have cut flights, so fewer people may be jockeying for fewer seats, leaving you just as cramped as usual. Both the dip in the number of passengers and in the number of flights is a direct result of a recession that has had a magnified effect on the travel market this year.

Last week, Delta, American and United all came out and said that they’re seeing an increase in demand — and from those high-value corporate clients that keep the planes in the air.