Using your smartphone becomes a daily habit. But if you’re not at home, be careful. A Canadian family after vacationing in Arizona arrived home to an $11,000 wireless bill. Read the article here. Another good reason to make sure you’re aware what data rates are from your cellular provider when traveling outside your home country. To avoid accidental usage or charges, make sure to turn the “International Data and Roaming” capability OFF on your phone before leaving your country.
30 Days of Airline Changes for US, Europe and Beyond
The first 30+ days of the year see airline changes across the globe. On January 27, Spanair, HQ’d in Barcelona, abruptly shutdown leaving many passengers stranded. This past weekend, Malev, the Hungarian state airline shuttered operations as well. Air India, is also having trouble paying it’s fuel bills which is causing some flights to be delayed or cancelled. American Airlines files for bankruptcy shows airline problems are not limited to just the US. Plus, a slate of mergers in early 2012 are on the horizon as well. BMI, is being sold by Lufthansa to British Airways with the sale set to close at the end of March. TAM in Brazil and LAN in Chile, hope to tie up their merger in the same timeframe, now that both Chile and Brazil have approved the marriage.
Beyond the airlines, the major airline alliances are caught in the ripple effect. Oneworld, loses Malev. Star Alliance loses Spanair and more than likely loses BMI when there merger with Oneworld’s, BA is complete. Everyone is waiting to see who the alliance winner will be when TAM (currently Star Alliance) and LAN (currently Oneworld) officially merge. Both airlines have stated a decision had not yet been made as to which alliance they’ll join.
2012 will continue to be a difficult year for airlines. With the travel season ahead, there are a couple of things to do to protect yourself from this unsettled airline market. Purchase your ticket with a credit card. You’ll at least have a chance on getting your money back from the credit card company. Purchase travel insurance that includes coverage for tour operators and airlines going out of business. Remember, it’s only February. What will happen during the rest of the year?
Snowboarder Saved by Air Bag
Living in the snow country of Colorado, we’re always acutely aware of the danger of backcountry skiing or snowboarding. Snow and mountain conditions change constantly, no matter what the weather may seem like. Being prepared, whether your skiing, snowboarding or just hiking in the backcountry at any time of year is important. Here’s a video clip shot last week of professional snowboarder Meesh Hytner, near Montezuma, Colorado in the Vail-Summit zone of Colorado. As she snowboarded down the mountain, she triggered an avalanche. Luckily, she was wearing an Avalanche Airbag from Backcountry Access and walked away from it. Watch this amazing video.
Savored – A Great Way to Save When Dining Out
A few weeks ago, we checked out Savored. For $10, you can save 30% off your entire restaurant bill. That’s not just food, but alcohol as well. We’ve just tried Savored once, but it works like a charm. We saved over $60. No coupons, no hassles. When you receive your bill, 30% is automatically deducted from the total.
What’s the catch? Well, today, Savored is only available in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington D.C. Savored promises other cities are coming soon. A couple of other things to be aware of is not all restaurants are available every night, plus reservations on weekends are usually for those who dine early (5-6:30PM) or later (after 9PM). You must make your reservation through the Savored website and show up no later than 15 minutes past your reservation time.
We think Savored is a great idea and hope that they continue to add more cities and restaurants to their service. It’s free to sign up, so wander on over and take a look. It’s a good way to save on your next meal out. Plus, don’t forget to tip your server on the full amount of the bill.
Denver International’s New South Terminal
Construction is underway for DIA’s new south terminal project, with revised designs. With a budget cut from $650 million to $500 million, original Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava pulled out of the project. However, his general design lives on albeit with some scaled-back revisions. The two largest features will be a new hotel as well as an RTD light rail platform. The terminal is due to be completed in 2015. Denver International is the 5th largest airport in the US and 10th largest in the world in passenger traffic. See the slide show of the previous and new designs here.
Switching from Zenfolio to Smugmug
During this week, our photo collections may not be available. We’re moving back to Smugmug from Zenfolio. We originally started at Smugmug, switched to Zenfolio about three years ago and now we’re going back. Not that Zenfolio wasn’t good, it’s just Smugmug has become a lot better. They have better integration with WordPress, better upload APIs for Aperture and, all in all, the photos just look better there, than on Zenfolio. So, we’re making the move. When our photos come back online, we’ll also have the long awaited photos of our trip to Madrid and Rioja earlier this month.
Blue Bottle Coffee in Fortune Magazine
One of our favorite coffee places anywhere, is Blue Bottle Coffee in San Francisco. Whenever we’re in San Fran, Blue Bottle is our first stop every morning for phenomenal coffee. They’re really coming into their own, as you can see in this article that appeared in Fortune magazine today. Even if you’re not going to San Francisco anytime soon, you can also order their coffee via the web. Here’s to even more success to Blue Bottle!
Icelandair Expands to Denver
Earlier this morning, Icelandair announced they’ll add service from Keflavik International to Denver four times a week starting May 11, 2012. Icelandair will use Boeing 757′s and flight time between the two airports is estimated to be just over six hours. Icelandair also serves Seattle, Boston, New York, Minneapolis, Washington DC and Orlando in the US. Denver is the 5th largest airport in the US and 10th largest airport in the world. Denver has two other international flights to Europe, Frankfurt served by Lufthansa and London, served by British Airways. Denver has also been working for years to secure a Denver – Tokyo route, however, no significant progress has been made.
Viva España
We’ve returned from our trip to Spain last week and what a trip it was. We ventured to Madrid, then north through Rioja and Navarra to drive the countryside and visit some of our favorite wineries and tapas bars. We promised daily photos via our Twitter page, but our internet connections didn’t quite work out as well as we had planned. So, to make up for that, we’ll be posting a couple of pictures each day directly via Twitter. Plus, we’ll have more on the site throughout the week about our trip. Photos and video coming next week, so stay tuned.
