Switching Flights Can Cost You. Or Not.

When you have to change a flight time or date, what happens depends a lot on the airline and the circumstances, as I discovered lately.

Passengers with elite status, first-class seats or full-fare tickets usually get more flexibility from the airlines, but coach class passengers may have to pay fees and navigate complicated rules.

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More About The US Airways Splash Landing

Haven’t heard, read and seen enough about the heroic miracle “splash landing” of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River? Well, you’re in luck because there is definitely more:

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Tips On Finding Comfort In Coach

Travel + Leisure came up with a pretty good primer on how to fly coach in relative comfort. It seems to hit all the basics. The text is available from Yahoo! Travel. The Travel + Leisure site also has it in a slideshow format.

TripAdvisor Releases Travelers’ Choice Lists

TripAdvisor has released its 2009 Travelers’ Choice hotel awards, listing the Top 10 hotels everywhere, in every category.

Once again, The SeaCoast Inn in Hyannis, Mass., took the top spot for best bargains in the United States. It slipped from first to third, however, in the international rankings for best bargains, which are as follows:

1. Hotel Vecchio Asilo, San Gimignano, Italy
2. Arcadia Residence, Prague, Czech Republic
3. SeaCoast Inn, Hyannis, Massachusetts, U.S.
4. Riad Zolah, Marrakech, Morocco
5. Derwent House Boutique Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa
6. Can-y-Bae, Llandudno, Wales
7. Garni Hotel Berc, Bled, Slovenia
8. Pension Bellas Artes, San Sebastian-Donostia, Spain
9. Old Ranch Inn, Palm Springs, California, U.S.
10. Hotel Al Ponte, Mocenigo Venice, Italy

Looking through all the lists, I think I found one hotel I’ve stayed at and another where I snuck into the pool.

Spirit: The Hooters Of Airlines

Maybe I’m being unfair to Hooters. At least they serve hot food …

Spirit Airlines has dusted off its MILF (if you don’t know what it means, try Google) promotion and introduced some other tacky double-entendres in its advertising, over the objections of its flight attendants and pilots.

The ads are sophomoric and tedious, and pretty much par for the course for Spirit. I guess they attract the drunken frat boy customers Spirit deserves.

The rest of us can stay away, not because we’re outraged at political incorrectness but because we’re not that stupid.

Besides, there are better airlines out there.

On The Ordeal Of AeroMexico Flight 670

In the spirit of better late than never, I’d like to comment on the ordeal suffered by passengers aboard AeroMexico Flight 670 from Mexico City to Seattle on Jan. 20.

The flight was diverted to Portland because it was too foggy to land in Seattle. After the six-hour flight, the passengers and crew had to sit on the ground for four hours and then fly back to Mexico City because there were no customs agents available to process them in Portland.

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Stuck In The Ice? Time To Party!

I have to admire the passengers of a small cruise ship that was trapped in ice on the St. Lawrence River for more than a day.

Instead of griping about it, they partied and enjoyed the scenery until a Canadian Coast Guard ice breaker freed the ship. This is the philosophy of the enlightened traveler: if you can’t be at the place you want, enjoy the place you’re at.

Shoes And Moisturizer: Another Tip From Mom

I have a favorite pair of travel shoes — Ecco loafers so comfortable that I wear them everywhere. They’ve been all over, from the Hermitage to the rain forest.

It was the rain forest where they took their most recent beating, along a trail to the lovely Rio Celeste on the slopes of the volcano Tenorio in northern Costa Rica. It was worth the walk, but what to do about the muddy shoes, which needed to go out to dinner that very night, with no shoe polish around?

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A380 Is Really, Really Big

The thing about the Airbus A380 that Qantas flies into LAX is that it’s so freaking big, reports the Los Angeles Times, although not in those words, exactly.

Actually, in these words, among others:

Service roads, taxiways and runways must be closed to airfield trucks, cars and other commercial aircraft as the world’s largest passenger plane — with wings almost as long as a football field — arrives, departs and taxis with an official escort of operations vehicles.

It’s not all that disruptive right now because traffic at LAX has dropped a great deal, but

… air traffic controllers and LAX officials caution that as airlines put more A380s into service, they could hamper airport operations and delay other commercial flights if improvements to runways, taxiways and terminals are not made in the next few years.

Oh, go ahead and read the whole story. And check out the great photo of an A380 dwarfing a couple of Alaska Airlines 737s. 

My Favorite Places Via TripAdvisor

Here’s a fun widget from TripAdvisor that lets me map and list my favorite destinations, thus potentially offending the citizens and tourism agencies of everywhere else I’ve ever been:

1. Bijagua de Upala, Costa Rica
2. Hanalei, HI, USA
3. Santiago de Compostela, Spain
4. Goreme, Turkey
5. Tucson, AZ, USA
6. Playa Samara, Costa Rica
7. Montreal, Quebec, Canada
8. Pagosa Springs, CO, USA
9. Zion National Park, UT, USA
10. Austin, TX, USA

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• Travel Info at TripAdvisor