USAirways has a fare of $107 (a bit over $200 with tax) from Seattle to Rome with a connection in Philadelphia. Naples and Florence price the same way (with a likely connection in Munich). Lots of availability as it’s a coach ticket booked in H inventory, one of the higher coach classes. You cannot depart after March 31st, there’s a six day minimum stay, you must travel on the weekend, and you cannot travel during the Christmas holidays I’m able to get this to come up on Expedia, Orbitz, AA.com, and United.com. Sometimes I can get it on USAirways.com, but their website is glitchy. Use a multi-city search and enter Seattle-Philadelphia, Philadelphia-Rome, Rome-Philadelpha, Philadelphia-Seattle. Since this has been available since yesterday, I wouldn’t expect it to be up for much longer.
Infone offer up on Free Handbag site
Nov
14
2004
The Infone offer is currently available with the free handbag offer. The free handbag requires you to create an account, complete a marketing offer, and get five referrals to complete a marketing offer. The great thing about Infone is that they don’t ever charge you anything unless you use the service more than five times. So a quick signup is all you need, no need even to cancel later and no cost. Plus the offer credits instantly. So sign up now while Infone is up. If you’ve already used Infone to complete another giveaway offer, no worries. It seems that as long as you use a different email address and perhaps name and phone number on the Infone site, you can site up again and still get credit. When you click on the Infone offer,…
Cheap Kitchen Supplies
Can’t vouch for the quality, but JCPenney has a 75 piece kitchen set for $39.99, marked down from $139.99.Free shipping this month with promo code NOV4WEL. Cookware is 1.2mm aluminum with non-stick interior. Bakeware is durable carbon steel, also with non-stick interior. Knife, gadget and cutlery sets are stainless steel. Dishwasher safe. Includes: 1- and 2-quart covered saucepans, 5-quart covered Dutch oven, 9-1/2″ frypan, 12″ pizza pan, roaster pan, cookie sheet, grater, peeler, pizza cutter, bottle opener, can opener, stainless steel knives (bread, chef, boning, utility, paring and 6 steak), sharpener, wood block, 6 nylon kitchen tools (slotted spoon, spoon, turner, skimmer, pasta server and soup ladle), 10-pc. measuring cup/spoon set, 12-pc. cutlery set (4 pieces each fork, knife, spoon), 6-pc. round storage set, 2 bag clips, plastic cutting board, 6-pc. cookie cutter set, salt…
Competition Enters the Market for Free Giveaways
Nov
13
2004
Gratis Networks, which offers free stuff like the photoiPod, has competition from a new site which lets you choose from several rewards like a portable DVD player or cash. The website looks alot like a Gratis Networks free site, but their FAQ tries to differentiate them — they don’t make you fill out surveys that have nothing to do with the free offers, and they promise to ship rewards quickly.
QuikBook Kicks Back an Amazon Gift Certificate
QuikBook, the hotel consolidator, is offering a $15 Amazon.com gift certificate when you book and stay by March 31 with promotion code AMMI (one per customer, gift certificate delivered by email within 30 days). QuikBook is a pretty useful tool, though with limited application. It sells only hotel rooms, and then only in some major cities. But its rates are often better than the other travel websites (other than Priceline, for instance, when PL has inventory). In many cases it is buying and reselling rooms, so even when hotels are more or less sold out QuikBook may still have inventory. When there were no rooms to be had in New York City at any price (other than the Howard Johnsons at Penn Station for $220 and similar), I managed to get the Holiday Inn Midtown…
Points Won’t Be Taxed in New Zealand
Nov
13
2004
New Zealand has decided not to tax Air New Zealand airports dollars. Apparently there was some concern over the issue, now that Air New Zealand is rewarding ‘dollars’ instead of points those dollars might have been taxed. That fear has apparently been put to rest.
Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid
Good Housekeeping should offer itself a seal of stupidity. It recommends best rewards credit cards and somehow manages to put the Capital One GoMiles card at the top of the list. Capital One’s “Go Miles” Visa lets you rack up miles without airline restrictions or blackout dates. For every dollar spent, you earn one mile, and for every 9,000 miles you earn $100 toward a plane ticket. This amounts to a 1.1% rebate, but unlike most rebate cards that pay you cash this rebate limits what you can do with the money. It’s a small award, 1.1%, and the award can only be used on airline tickets. And then you have to book the ticket through Capital One, complying with their rules and restrictions. David Spade may be a cool spokesman, but could there be…
The Basics of First Class Travel
Christina Valhouli offers a basic course in international first class travel — what it gives you, why people pay so much for it. On the whole it’s basic but good, though I can’t imagine how she ranks Lufthansa and Air France’s first class cabins as superior to Cathay Pacific and ANA’s. As for me, I’ll take ANA’s new first class (available only on certain routes like JFK-Narita) over anything else in the world. And I’m looking forward to trying Qantas and Air Tahiti Nui up front for the first time next year.
Airline Contortions
Nov
12
2004
Via USA Today‘s Today in the Sky are two stories that show airline executives making statements that just aren’t credible. Scratch that. The executives are doing verbal backflips and come off looking silly. USAirways is closing four airport lounges. Why? Because it’s “a key element of our Transformation Plan to offer our customers the full service associated with the Club network” … Since clubs are important, we’re closing them! Huh? The truthful answer is “clubs are important, they’re part of our plan to make money, but we can’t spend too much money on them or we’ll lose money.” But that would be too straightforward. Meanwhile, Delta is verbally contorting itself over service to Beijing. Since a new route to China is something to be doled out by the government, and the justification for a decision…
Summary of Free Stuff Offers
Nov
12
2004
A summary of all the Gratis Networks free offers I’m aware of: free photoiPod free handbag free iPod free desktop computer free flatscreen TV Please email me if you come across another Gratis Network offer that I haven’t found yet. The offers are pretty simple. Sign up for the sites. Just click on the links and create your account. It’s quick. With most of the sites you’ll be given a bunch of offers and asked to say “yes” or “no” to them. Just say no, because replying in the affirmative doesn’t get you anything – those offers don’t help you get free electronics. (They’re just an extra moneymaker for Gratis Internet.) Check out the offers that you’re able to complete. My favorite by far is Infone, but it seems to be only sporadically available. If…
