Villafranca del Bierzo, Spain

I took this photo from the window of my room at the Hotel Plaza in Villafranca del Bierzo, Spain.

The evening before, I drove with my father and sister to this pretty town to meet my mother and daughter, who are walking across northern Spain along the Camino de Santiago. We sat at a cafe in the Plaza Mayor and had a bottle of the local Bierzo wine, and a simple pilgrim dinner.

The photo was taken, as always, with my trusty little Canon PowerShot.

This one, in a photograph by my sister Maryanne Leblanc, is being unloaded at JFK simultaneously from two decks, using two jetways.

Here it is in all its glory in two more photos by Maryanne.

The feature works for Outlook, the Mac’s iCal and the Yahoo! and Gmail calendars.

I have to hand it to Delta, which has always been a leader in integrating its reservations system and its Web site.  A sweet little feature like that may not be enough to win my business on its own, but every little bit helps.

The discounts are substantial, but availability is limited. For example, flights from Boston to Washington-Dulles are $39 each way, which comes out to $99 round-trip with taxes and fees. Fares from JFK to Aruba are $129 each way, which comes out to $347 with taxes and fees.

One day means buy those tickets today, Aug. 24, 2010, or forget about it.

JetBlue will start flying out of Bradley on Nov. 17, after this sale has expired.

The fares are available from Boston for flights between Nov. 1 and  Dec. 10; New York , Nov. 15 to Dec 16 ; and Seattle,  Oct. 25 to Dec 16 .  Technically this is indeed a fall sale, but it seems more of a pre-winter sale to me.  Brrr.

The tickets must be booked by Aug. 26.  More details are available from airfarewatchdog.com and icelandair.com.

Joe Brancatelli dissects the problem neatly in his latest Portfolio column. And he mentions a tactic that I happen to have employed recently: I opened a Capital One money market account that does not charge the punishing currency exchange  fees imposed on most bank accounts for foreign ATM withdrawals.

I discovered the Capital One money market account as my mother and daughter were preparing for an extended trip to Spain. My mother told me about the $5 per transaction fee that she paid her bank to use her ATM card in Canada —  on top of the fees charged by the bank that owned the ATM. Determined to help avoid that in Spain, I did some research.

It turns out that Capital One, which offers credit cards with no foreign transaction fees, does the same with ATM cards. After some deliberation, I opened a Capital One money market account online, transferred money into it electronically and requested ATM cards. I had to allow a few weeks to get it set up. It took several days for the funds to clear into the account and another week to get the ATM cards.

(Of course, Capital One then filled the mailbox with a zillion fresh offers and junk mail. Whatever. I can live with that.)

The bottom line is that my daughter can withdraw her money without being taken advantage of. And I now have an account that I can transfer money into before a trip and tap into when I’m abroad.

The real bottom line is that I don’t have to feel like a chump every time I use an ATM card in another country.

The rate for compact cars is $20, mid-size $24, full-size $28 and premium $30. Cars may be picked up as early as 9 a.m. Thursday and must be returned by the pickup time on Monday. The offer is valid from August 19, 2010 to September 20, 2010, and reservations must be made 24 hours in advance. Use rate ID: 7015392.

For example, you could get a Nissan Versa or similar compact car at Bradley International Airport from Friday to Monday for $60, plus $26.92 in taxes and fees for a total of $86.92. A premium vehicle — a Buick LaCrosse or something similar — would total $123.31.

The Department of Transportation reports that only three domestic flights were stranded for more than three hours on the tarmac last month — compared with 268 in July 2009. Last month was, not at all coincidentally, the first full month of new regulations that impose stiff fines on airlines that violate the three-hour limit.

The three delayed flights — all  United Airlines flights caught in thunderstorms at O’Hare  on June 18 — went only 5 minutes over the limit and may not have violated the new regulations, which make exceptions for cases where it would be dangerous to unload passengers.

And it turns out, as the DOT reports, flight cancellations did not increase as the airline industry swore they would under the new regulations.  ”The carriers canceled 1.5 percent of their scheduled domestic flights in June, equal to the 1.5 percent cancellation rate of June 2009, ” according to the DOT.

And so what if cancellation rates did increase as a result of the new regulations? You’d hear no complaints from me. It’s pretty clear that  most passengers would rather see their flights canceled than be held indefinitely on an aircraft.

What was needed here was for airlines and airports to summon up the will to treat passengers with dignity and decency. Now that they’ve been forced to summon up that will, perhaps they’ll find it’s good business.

And, meanwhile, the DOT might try extending these regulations to cover international flights so that we don’t see another fiasco like the one that Virgin Atlantic passengers endured at Bradley last month.

Arthur Frommer has also been following this issue very closely on his blog.

New York, Chicago and Maui are restricting short-term rentals and many other local governments are considering similar measures. Ostensibly, the idea is to protect neighborhoods and their residents.

Of course, these measures also protect hotels. And they hurt middle-class families that can’t afford exorbitant rates for multiple hotel rooms in popular vacation areas.