Tag Archives: research

Easy Travel Reservations

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I’m not sure how Travel Agents can continue to exist.

We’ve been thinking about making a Thanksgiving trip out to Florida to visit some friends and my parents. We did some research online and discovered that the tickets would cost anywhere from $600 to $1200 per person depending on travel dates. The low end was about our budget for the trip, so we weren’t thinking too hard about it.

But we both have frequently flyer miles. Mike has them from his many, many flights between Phoenix and Newark on Continental. I have them through my many, many years of charging up a storm on my American Express card. This morning, I told Mike I wanted to make a decision. Yes or no — were we going to go? It would all hinge on whether we could use miles for travel during that holiday week.

We already had a printout of the dates and flights we wanted from our Web research on CheapTickets.com (Mike’s preferred travel booking company). We picked the combination that was best for us and I called Continental’s OnePass service center to see if we could use miles for those dates. We could — but it would take 50,000 miles for each of us. We had plenty to spare — heck we seem to earn them but not spend them. So while Mike reserved our tickets and used his miles to pay for his flights, I got online with American Express and put in the point to miles transfer request for the number of miles I needed in my OnePass account (45,000). I paid $18 for this privilege and was told it would take 1 to 5 days. I did all of this while Mike was still on the phone. We got the Continental reservation number and instructions for me to call back when my miles were in the OnePass account.

That turned out to be about 30 minutes later. I logged into my OnePass account and the miles were there. I called Continental, gave them my OnePass number, and the person on the phone pushed the necessary keys to apply miles to the flight. She took a credit card number for $10. Then switched me over to Budget so I could reserve a car. Within 3 minutes, that was done, too.

So we booked two tickets from Phoenix to Ft. Myers one day with a return flight from Jacksonville to Phoenix 8 days later and got a rental car for the one-way drive. It took less than an hour to do all this and it cost us a total of about $300 and 100,000 miles.

(Since my miles are based on dollars spent and I transfered 45,000 of them, I’ll be sure to tell my Mom that my plane ticket cost $45,000.)

The trip is now officially on the calendar. That makes all the difference in the world in our household. If it’son the calendar, it’s a commitment. Until then, it’s just wishful thinking.

And with so many travel tools available on the Web and by simply calling the airlines and car rental places directly, how is it that the travel agent business survives?

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The Old Grand Canyon Airport

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I finally find it from the ground.

Two years ago, when I was in training to fly helicopter tours at the Grand Canyon, I made daily trips to the Grand Canyon’s old airport out by Red Butte. I don’t know much about the old airport except how to find it from the air. I don’t think its two runways were ever paved.

Oh, yes. It has the remains of a big old hangar on the west side of where the runways were.

I love exploring ruins and remnants of the past. I remembered the hangar last week when Mike, Jack, and I were doing some back-roading in that area. I think we passed near the end of the main runway while driving out toward the Coconino Rim.

Yesterday, while back-roading with Jack southwest side of Grand Canyon National Park, I remembered the old airport again. And since I had to drive right past that area to get back to Howard Mesa, I figured I’d try again to find it.

Old Grand Canyon AirportI won’t go into details about the roads I tried and the wrong turns I took. Suffice it to say that I finally homed in on it. After driving down a two-track road that cut diagonally across the main runway, I parked my Jeep right in front of the gaping hangar door.

It’s a neat old building with a dirt floor and not much else. The shelves are stripped bare and rooms that could have been living quarters show signs of vandalism, including a burned door. There was a picnic table just inside the main door, offering a shady place to have lunch, surrounded by the ghosts of aviation past.

One room in the back corner had fairly new saddle racks attached to the walls; that same room had a Private Property/No Trespassing sign on it from the outside. (Oops!) I guess someone had used it not long ago to store horse tack. There were other buildings nearby that appeared to be in better condition; all of them had the same Private Property signs on them so Jack and I stayed clear. Still, it didn’t appear as if anyone was living there. Since the old airport is in the Kaibab National Forest, I find it hard to believe that anyone would live there. But who knows? The owners of the buildings could have been grandfathered in when the government bought the land.

The Hangar Door at Old Grand Canyon AirportOne thing is for sure: visiting the old airport and looking up at the faded paint over the door spelling out “Grand Canyon Airlines” has given me a real thirst for knowledge about the place. When I’m finished with my road trip book project and trip to Canada (for work), I might start doing a little research.

It would be great to talk to someone who had actually flown there.

Before leaving, I snagged the coordinates with my GPS. Next time I want to find it, I won’t have to wander around until I stumble into it.

[composed on top of a mesa in the middle of nowhere with ecto]

i-Fusion

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I buy a new iPod accessory.

It isn’t the iPod that’s costly. It’s the accessories.

Anyway, one of the things I like to do with my iPod is listen to podcasts. The only problem is that I don’t listen to my iPod often enough to keep up with all the podcasts I like to follow.

I decided that a good time to listen to podcasts was in the afternoon, when I got home from work and was doing things around the kitchen. You know: emptying the dishwasher, making dinner, cleaning up after Alex the Bird.

I used to plug the iPod into my Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, which has a great sound system. But the other day the darn thing just stopped working. (My third Mac hardware problem in 6 months. They say bad things come in threes.) I have to decide whether I want to find someone to fix it or just leave it in the living room as a nonfunctioning conversation piece.

I tried plugging the iPod into my 12″ PowerBook, which spends a lot of time in the kitchen. The PowerBook’s hard drive is too full to keep the podcasts on it. But I couldn’t get the volume up loud enough to hear over Alex the Bird or the water running in the sink.

What I needed, I decided, was a set of portable speaker that I could use in the kitchen or take up to Howard Mesa or bring along on road trips. Something that had decent sound and was very portable.

i-FusionI did some research. I found i-Fusion.

I read the reviews on the Apple Store Web site. Everyone absolutely raved about the sound quality. I was a little skeptical. These speakers were small. I don’t care what the case is made of. They can only be so good. Fortunately, I didn’t need Bose quality sound. I just needed something that would sound okay and not distort if I turned up the volume a bit.

One reviewer whined that there wasn’t a place to store the power adapter. There is, however, a place to store the iPod and the earbuds. (I normally keep both in my purse when I travel.)

The price was a bit higher than I was willing to spend. My budget was about $100. This was $149. But I found it on the Tiger Direct Web site for $129 plus shipping for a total of about $135. And I felt as if I needed a treat, so I bought it.

It came today.

I must be spoiled when it comes to sound quality. Maybe it’s because Mike used to sell stereo systems and he buys good stuff for the house. Not expensive stuff, but good stuff. Stuff that sounds good. Really good.

i-Fusion does not sound really good. It sounds fine, but not really good. Those reviewers at the Apple Store Web site really need to spend some time in a stereo shop’s sound booth. Heck, I have a Sony boom box in my hangar that sounds better than this. But I’m not complaining. It’s certainly listenable and it can be turned up quite loud.

The case seems sturdy, the storage spaces are a bit silly but functional. I agree about the power adapter. It seems that they could have built the DC converter into the box (perhaps where the earbuds are supposed to go?) and made a retractable cord. That would have been a better design decision. But I can certainly imagine taking this little bugger on the road. With its built-in, rechargable litium-ion battery, it’ll be great for Howard Mesa, which doesn’t have electricity (yet).

Happy with my purchase? I think so.

I’ll let you know when I catch up on all those podcasts.