cloud commuting
My girlfriend and I did a long weekend in Hawaii: 2 nights at the JW Ihilani and 2 nights at the Marriott Waikiki Beach. On top of it being a great weekend, we were fortunate enough to be there for the tsunami scare. I won’t recap the whole story for you. Check out here, here, and here if you need background. So while the tsunami (or lack thereof) kept us confined to our 24th floor hotel room and resulted ...
I really like flying Virgin America. I think it’s a great in-flight experience. Frequent fliers can do much better with traditional legacy carriers, but if you don’t fly that often, I think Virgin America is a GREAT way to travel. They had one thing that really annoyed me, though. Elevate (their frequent flier) points would expire 18 months after they were given to you. That means even if you flew Virgin America like a madman for 18 months, ...
$15 for WiFI?! Are you kidding me? I thought $12.95 was steep, but $14.95 really stinks! I’m writing this post from UA 14 Premium Service SFO-JFK on March 1, 2010. I think they just raised their rates today, March 1. The funny thing is that I just played the GoGo game to get a free internet session here. It gave me a FREE internet session up to $12.95 value. I wonder if it will work on the $14.95 United P.S. flights. I’ll try it next time. Anyhow, I think $10 is a fair price to pay for cross-country WiFi. $12.95 seemed steep, and 14.95 really seems bad. I hope people use it less. I guess they just count on business users to not care and expense it.
Do you travel frequently? If you’re answer is no, then you may not be interested in this post. But if you’re answer is yes, then let me rock your world :) . When bouncing from airport to airport, sometimes on different carriers, it can be tough to keep up to date on flight delays, gate numbers, etc. FlightTrack Pro from Mobiata gives a great interface for tracking ALL of your flight information. Combine it with TripIt and you get all of your ...
A few weeks ago I was flying in United First from SFO to ORD, and I ordered the steak salad for dinner. I was pretty disappointed when my salad only had three tiny pieces of steak in it.As I was eating the salad, I was thinking to myself that the offerings on United’s Choice Menu are far superior to this steak salad. It really drove home the fact that not only are first class meals getting worse, but also that United (and many other airlines!) ...
This is a pretty cool video I was able to snap with my iPhone 3GS, flying from SFO to ORD on United a few weeks ago. Beautiful sunset with a perfect layer of clouds. Even cooler was seeing other planes in the distance surfing right along the tops of clouds like us! I didn’t catch that on video, unfortunately. Enjoy!
Many people don’t realize that as a Star Alliance Gold flier, they are entitled to certain Star Alliance lounges with their elite membership card. I’m a United 1K and Red Carpet Club member, but even if I had no RCC membership (heck I could even be Premier Executive!), I would still be entitled to Star Alliance lounge access. This is really useful in some places, and not in others. One place that it’s GREAT is in Detroit’s airport. All of ...
As both a fan of music and a frequent traveler, I have been in constant search for the best pair of headphones. Like many, I started first with the included iPod / iPhone earbuds. To be honest, I actually find them to be pretty good, especially when walking around the city. The added convenience of the speaker for talking on the phone makes them a great default pair of headphones. But my love for these default headphones ends immediately when i step on a ...
Big thanks to United for a great Fleet Week Employee Celebration. And thanks so much for inviting the Flyertalkers! Here’s the team picture for the Flyertalk team. Unfortunately, the Blue Angels beat us! Go figure… Click the image below for the full size picture. Also, I’ll be posting even more pics from the Employee Celebration later today or tomorrow.
So I’m currently staying at the Courtyard by Marriott Billerica/Bedford about 20 miles north of Boston. After finishing my delicious meal at The Loft, I returned to the hotel and found a stack of fliers and a poster advertising that the hotel was now hosting birthday parties. HOW FUN! Chuck E Cheese’s, broomball establishments , and the local family fun centers better watch out! J.W. Marriott is going to come and throw the biggest and baddest kids’ parties of them ...
Months ago, the United Red Carpet Club in LAX got a pretty big upgrade, in terms of food. Towers of cereal replaced the stale croissants. The bagels and toast were FINALLY complemented by a toaster. Yogurt covered raisins, trail mix, etc – the food got better. I end up in that Red Carpet Club pretty often, but it bothered me that my hometown (SFO) didn’t get the same treatment. I just walked into the club a few minutes ago, and I saw the same ...
Hello from the sky! I’m en route from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis right now. I’m surfing using the onboard Gogo Wifi. VERY cool stuff! This is my first Delta flight in years, and my first ever flight with free WiFi. C’mon United… Hurry and catch up! Continue reading for my speed results.
All in all, feels pretty snappy. It seems very similar to the speed I get when tethering on my iPhone – you have that ...
Yes... This will surely stop it!
I flew into Cancun a few days ago, and in addition to the typical paperwork that needed to be filled out upon entering the country, I was given a new, highly sophisticated form. Hah – it’s pretty funny. It’s just a piece of paper that lists a bunch of flu-like symptoms and asks you if you’ve had them or not. It made me laugh because if I have the flu, I’ll probably stay home from the ...
This past Friday, I flew LGA-IAD-SFO. My upgrade from Dulles to San Francisco didn’t clear, which was a bit of a bummer. However, I knew that United had a new “Choice Menu” that they were testing on the SFO-IAD routes. I was excited to give these new food options a go. The flight attendant walks up and down the aisle, passing out paper menus to everyone. I think having an actual menu is a nice touch. There were three sandwiches and three salads to choose from. Here is ...
Are you serious???
During one of my flights earlier this week, I was browsing SkyMall to see what sorts of new useless, overpriced goodies I could buy for myself! Boy was I delighted to see the “NeckPro Traction Device.” I’ve had some neck pain before. I’m sure we all have. If you need a solution to this pain, look no further than SkyMall’s noose “easy-to-use over-the-door cervical traction device!” Thanks to SkyMall, we no longer have to worry about the mechanics of constructing a suicide device breaking “the muscle spasm / neck pain cycle.” Just look at the guy in the picture… Hilarious…
Done any traveling over the past year or so? If so, you may have seen little blue kiosks near security at some major airports. These clear lanes offered a way for “pre-screened” customers to get priority boarding. The product was flawed from the start. As a platinum member, Marriott gave me a year of free Clear access in 2008 so I was able to try it out. I got my fingerprints and retina scanned, got a little card, and that let me skip the airport security line. The ...
