Half Price To Vegas On Southwest

Thanks for George Hobica of Airfarewatchdog.com for pointing out that Southwest Airlines is having a 50 percent off sale for flights to Las Vegas from anywhere.

That brings the fare down as low as $210 round trip, everything included, out of Bradley.

You have to buy the ticket today or tomorrow for travel between Jan.13 and March 11.

Not into Vegas? It’s also a handy entry point for a driving tour of lovely southern Arizona and Utah.

Cruise Passenger Went Overboard, But Did She ‘Fall’?

Every time I read about somebody falling off a cruise ship, I wince. Because it’s really not possible to just sort of trip and lurch over the side of the ship. The railings are too high.

There are only three ways I’ve ever heard of to go overboard on a cruise ship. You can jump off. You can get thrown off. Or you can, if you’re stupid or drunk enough, climb on the railing and lose your balance. I guess that afterward, in any case, you fall.

It’s not yet clear which one of these things happened to Jennifer Seitz, who went overboard from the Norwegian Pearl in the Gulf of Mexico on Christmas night. But NBC’s Today Show has a story describing some unusual behavior by Seitz and her husband during the cruise.

Rescuers are still looking for Seitz, who is the eighth person to go overboard from a cruise ship or ferry this year, according to the Cruise Junkie site.

[added 7:12 p.m.: looks like she jumped.]

Bad English Is Funny

I’ve struggled for years to become fluent in Spanish, so the last thing I want to do is make fun of anybody’s English. Unless it’s on a sign.

Like this one:

Read the rest of this entry »

Travel & Leisure Lists Great Hotels I Usually Can’t Afford

Travel & Leisure just came out with its 2009 list of The 500 Best Hotels in the World. I was pretty sure I’d never stayed in any of them because, well, I can’t afford them.

But I was wrong. I’ve stayed in three of them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Weighing In On Pets In Aircraft Cabins

The folks at airfarewatchdog.com did a Web survey on whether pets should be allowed in aircraft cabins, and 58 percent said yes.

I’m with the minority on that one. As I’ve opined before, I believe the suffering of allergic humans ought to be considered first. (This opinion did not, however, gain me many friends. And my cat snubbed me for weeks.)

George Hobica, the founder of airfarewatchdog, suggests that airlines are trying to discourage passengers from transporting pets on commercial aircraft. He notes that Frontier Airlines has banned pets from the cabin, Delta and American have raised the in-cabin pet fee from $200 to  $300 and United has raised it to $350.

Crash In Denver Caused By ‘Braking Problem?’

The Wall Street Journal reports that the data gathered so far suggests “braking problems” caused a Continental 737 to slide into a ravine after an aborted takeoff in Denver on Saturday.

The jet caught fire, but all 115 passengers and crew were evacuated. No life-threatening injuries were reported, but the captain reportedly suffered severe back injuries.

The Denver Post has the full story, and there’s a fascinating first-person account by a passenger on his Twitter account. Well, you knew that was inevitable, right?

Pilot Tells Truth, Passengers Stunned

Headline on the Web site of Britain’s Daily Mail:

‘This is your captain. Sorry… but I’m not qualified to land the plane,’ Flybe pilot tells stunned passengers.

Turns out the captain was new to the type of aircraft he was flying and was not yet certified to land in heavy fog. And there was heavy fog on the ground in Paris.

Simon Gill, an aviation consultant, told the Mail: “His only mistake was announcing his lack of qualification. If he had just said it was not safe to land because of adverse weather conditions, nobody would have minded.”

There’s a little insight into how things usually work on both sides of the Atlantic. Crews spin and bend the truth, giving passengers the most palatable explanation they can devise. They do it because passengers won’t accept a reasonable explanation – or because there isn’t one.

Greyhound Markets Priority Seating

In many places around the globe a bus ticket comes with a seat assignment — just like on an airplane. So why was I surprised that Greyhound has been selling early boarding passes at some stations?

Read the rest of this entry »

Frontier Airlines Creates Interesting Fare Structure

Frontier Airlines may have hit on a sensible combination of traditional all-inclusive fares and so-called “unbundled” pricing.

The Denver Post reports that Frontier’s passengers now get a choice among a traditional “classic” fare that includes an allowance for two checked bags and in-flight entertainment; a “classic-plus” fare that’s also refundable and allows flight changes; and a bare-bones economy fare that includes none of the above.

The classic fare starts at about $20 more than the economy fare, each way.

Frontier has more details on its Web site. Now, if we could just get it to resume its Hartford flight.

Cruise Deals Abound

Seven-night cruises for less than $400 per person? You read it here first. Unless you already read it in the Orlando Sentinel.

The recession is knocking the stuffing out of the cruise market, which is swollen with capacity by the addition of new mega-ships.

TravelZoo has aggregated a slew of bargains, including seven-night cruises as low as $399 and four-nighters as low as $239.

Cruise Critic has more bargains, ranging from seven-night luxury cruises marked down steeply to under $4,000 to a three-night Bahamas cruise for $99.