Michelle Snow's Blog

Posted by Michelle Snow

Continental Airlines has partnered with Budget for a great end-of-the-year mileage promotion that members of their OnePass frequent fliers club will love.

Simply book a car rental with Budget from now until January 31, 2008, with a minimum of five days in the reservation, and Continental will deposit 9,999 miles into your OnePass account. That could put you half way to a free roundtrip coach ticket in the continental U.S.

When booking with Budget, enter U072506 in the "Discount Code" (BCD) box and provide your OnePass number at time of rental or check-in to receive bonus miles. The above code will also give you up to 20% off the regular walk-up rate of rentals.

This promotion is valid at select Budget airport locations in the contiguous U.S. and this offer may not be available during holiday and other blackout periods. You must book the reservation at least 24 hours in advance and normal Budget rules and restrictions apply to drivers. There may also be a frequent flier surcharge of up to $0.50 per day, up to a maximum of $2.00 per rental, may apply and is extra.

So if you're going to need a car rental in the next month or so, be sure to take advantage of this great offer and put a huge bonus of miles into your OnePass account at the same time.

Posted by Michelle Snow

As part of changes coinciding with the inauguration of the legendary art gallery's long-awaited new annex, guests to the museum will be able to take advantage of free admission for two hours daily, except for Mondays, when it is closed.

The new Moneo annex adds 183,000 square feet to the 312,000-square-foot museum, which is considered to have one of the world's richest collections of pre-20th-century masters, including Goya, Velazquez, Rubens and El Greco. It will be officially dedicated and opened by Spain's King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on October 30th.

Entry to the museum will be completely free following the annex's dedication ceremony, from October 31st until November 4th, 2007. Afterwards, free entry hours will be from 6pm - 8pm Tuesdays through Saturdays and from 5pm - 8pm on Sundays. Previously, the museum only offered free admissions all day on Sunday.

Admission to the museum during other hours of operation will remain at $8.50, which is still a steal compared to other major museums in Europe.

If you are visiting Madrid, Spain, and you love art, do not miss the chance to see these amazing works for free.

For more information, you can visit the Prado Museum online.

Posted by Michelle Snow

As the seasons turn to fall, most visitors to New York City end their weekend stays on Sunday. But now, the NYC Visitor's Bureau is giving you a reason to stay over one more night with discounts at select hotels for Sunday night stays.

Participating in this fall program are hotels such as Dream, both Ritz-Carltons, all of the W-Hotels and the Le Parker Meridien. That's right, even stays at top-line luxurious hotels are going to be discounted a minimum of 20%. Some are even offering 25% and 30%.

In addition to the discounts, many of the properties are also including room upgrades, discounted room service and restaurant dining, complimentary breakfast and more.

For a complete list of participating hotels and the needed discount codes, visit nycvisit.com/NYCSundayStays.

It's a great way to include a bit of luxury into your New York City stay at more of a budget-friendly price.

Posted by Michelle Snow

One of the things passengers on Southwest Airlines have always grumbled about is the free-for-all boarding rules in place for passengers. This week, the airline has implemented a system-wide change in the way it will allow passengers to board.

In tests done at the airline's San Antonio terminal, Southwest experimented with further fragmenting its A, B and C boarding lines. Instead of just assigning a letter grouping and letting all within that grouping fight for a place in line to board, the airline has decided that passengers should line up in the precise order in which they checked in. This means if you're the 35th passenger to check-in for group A, your boarding pass will say A35 on it. You would line up to board in your group, behind the 34 people who checked-in before you.

So while this does eliminate the cattle-call like boarding procedures the airline is famous for, it does make it even more important that you check in as soon as you can. Online, this means 24 hours in advance of your flight. The sooner you check in, the further forward in the line you are.

Makes sense.

So while you still have to pick your seats on the plane, if you are an early check-in passenger, you'll get the best seats.

And Southwest has even gone a step further and put together a visual explanation of its new policies online at www.southwest.com/help/boardingschool.

Have any of you had a chance to take the new boarding rules for a test spin? Let me know.

Posted by Michelle Snow

I think it's about time. After all, if you can have pay-per-use seat phones and satellite television, why not the internet?

Exploring new ways to keep passengers happy, especially during long flights, several airlines are working on adding internet use to their onboard amenities list.

Virgin America's new planes already have the ethernet outlets built into each seat, but the service is not yet operational and there is no actual date to begin offering internet use to passengers.

American Airlines says they will begin actual tests of inflight broadband, via AirCell, on its fifteen Boeing 767-200 aircraft that fly transcontinental routes, starting in early 2008. The service will be wireless, allowing laptop, PDA and smartphone access to surf the internet, send emails and send instant messages. The airline, however, says they will block some sites like Skype, to avoid the noise of inflight internet phone calls. Due to the limitations of the non-satellite technology used by AirCell, the airline will only offer this service on its U.S. flights for now.

Southwest says it will begin testing its service in 2008, but is still in the process of selecting a service provider. Meanwhile, JetBlue is exploring an in-seat option for e-mailing and texting next year, utilizing its already installed LiveTV service.

And it's not just U.S. passengers that will get to use onboard internet in the near future. Lufthansa, a German airline, will offer in-flight internet in early 2008, using a satellite-based system provided by the trio of T-Mobile, SES Global and ViaSat. Australia's Qantas said it will also offer Internet access by August 2008, but released no additional details.

None of the airlines will specify exact costs for passengers wanting to use the inflight internet, but I would expect it to range between $10 and $20 per flight, depending on the duration. Still, for those who need to get work done, or just want to connect with friends on the ground, it's a small price to pay for a useful service.

Now if they could only do something about those tiny bathrooms.