Monthly Archives: October 2009
21 Secrets to Save on Travel
Written by Stacy Rapacon
Our insider’s guide to snagging the deepest discounts on hotels, airfare, cruises and more.
The travel industry continues to smart from the recession, so deals abound. You just need to know where to look. Search no further than our 21 tips to save on lodging, airfare, vacation packages and cruises:
Book a bargain stay
1) Check TripAdvisor.com for 25 million property reviews from real travelers and professional critics. For details on cozy and often less-costly venues, go to BedandBreakfast.com.
2) Visit Hotels.com every Thursday for its new last-minute deals. While you’re there, watch for other rate sales and package specials.
3) Book directly through the hotel’s Web site. Many places offer special online-booking and prepaid deals. You can also opt in to hotels’ free rewards programs and receive e-mails about special promotions and discounts.
4) Book blindly for rock-bottom rates. The auction-style booking pushed by William Shatner’s “Priceline Negotiator” in the popular commercials really can cut up to 50% off regular hotel rates (and 40% off airfare and car-rental rates). And Hotwire.com’s “Hot Rates” can knock up to 60% off retail room prices. With either, you specify your length of stay, preferred neighborhood and a guaranteed minimum star class. But you won’t know the exact hotel or location until after you pay – an especially big risk when visiting unfamiliar areas, particularly overseas. (Blind booking is a safer bet for car rentals; a sedan is a sedan is a sedan. But it’s a big gamble for flights because you won’t know exact flight times or airlines.)
5) Call your hotel to confirm an online reservation, especially if you made one at the last minute, and ask about any additional fees you should watch out for. Most hotels are especially willing to waive fees for frequent visitors or rewards-program members. Also, request a copy of your bill the night before you check out so you have time to dispute any extra charges.
6) Consider specialty lodging, such as condos, villas and vacation home rentals, especially when traveling with a big group. These options often offer more space and amenities for prices similar to or less than hotel rates. HomeAway.com offers the biggest selection of rentals, with more than 176,000 listings worldwide.
Fly for less
7) Use Kayak.com to quickly scan hundreds of travel Web sites for the best airfares. And don’t forget to check Southwest.com; Kayak does not include the discount airline’s fares.
8) Sign up with airlines’ free loyalty programs to get the best bargains delivered straight to your in-box. Or visit Airfarewatchdog.com, where the site’s employees join airlines’ rewards programs to snag those promotional codes and special offers to share with you.
9) Plan your purchase at Bing.com/travel, formerly Farecast.com. The site’s “price predictor” forecasts whether fares on major domestic routes will go up or down. Enter your itinerary and it will return a list of airfares with a recommendation to either buy now or wait for a fare drop.
10) Try flying at less-traveled times; flights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturday afternoons typically see the least demand and therefore offer the best rates.
11) Choose your destination based on the cheapest flight. For example, if you’re interested in a Caribbean vacation but don’t have a specific location in mind, you can use Kayak’s Buzz tool to search for flights to anywhere in the Caribbean and then pick the place with the lowest fare.
12) Dodge flying fees. To avoid charges levied for buying tickets in person or by phone, book directly with the airline’s Web site or with one of the big three online travel agencies – Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz- which recently dropped their flight-booking fees. . And pack lightly to dodge baggage costs. At FlyingFees.com, you can compare the baggage fees carried by 30 major airlines, and other types of fees charged by 20 major airlines.
Save a bundle on vacation packages
13) Online travel agencies Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz are well known for their bundled bargains. But don’t forget to check packages offered by airlines such as United Vacations and smaller operators such as Apple Vacations for some of the sweetest deals.
14) Check the cost of add-ons, such as rental cars, show tickets, tours and museum passes, when booking packages with online travel agencies. Sometimes the agencies offer those extras at a discount.
15) Get one price on your trips with all-inclusive deals from resorts such as Club Med and Sandals.
16) Add travel insurance to your bundle. With Expedia’s Package Protection Plan, for example, you’re ensured a refund if you need to cancel or change plans. You’ll also be reimbursed for trip delays, baggage losses and medical expenses. The package costs $40 to $89, depending on your destination. If you’re not offered this protection when you book, or if you need more insurance than what you are offered, go to TravelGuard.com.
Cruise to savings
17) The best deals are close to the departure date — just don’t expect the really cheap tickets to get you a stateroom with a view.
18) Understand the different elements of a cruise, including theme, cabin types and ports of call. CruiseMates.com provides useful reviews and advice columns to get you started. But if you’re a first-timer feeling overwhelmed, consider using a travel agent.
19) Visit CruiseCompete.com, where you submit your cruise preferences and more than 300 travel agents compete for your business.
20) Book your flight separately. Using Kayak or Bing.com/travel, you can often find fares that are lower than what a cruise line will package in for you. Make sure you allow enough time to reach the departure port; the ship won’t wait for you if your flight is delayed.
21) Sail into big savings with a repositioning cruise. Ships need to take these one-way voyages in order to relocate for the season. For example, ships that cruise near Alaska in the summer head south once fall arrives, and cruise lines invite passengers aboard for the ride at deeply discounted rates.
15 Essential Differences Between Men and Women
Written by Manolith
The more politically correct individuals will cry foul at any mention of double standards or reinforced stereotypes in the division between men and women. The realists out there will simply nod, and even laugh where appropriate, since it’s just plain truth in most cases that certain significant differences to exist between the sexes. There are exceptions to every rule, but for the most part, these 15 points of contention provide for easy ways to perpetuate the rift been the two disparate halves of humanity.
Urinary Protocol
It’s really quite simple: Men have stringent rules they follow to make using the bathroom a quick, efficient, and silent. It’s business, whereas for women, it’s a social event. Women will go to the restroom as a group, and use the time to discuss a full range of topics. Men go as far as to have rules set in place to ensure standardized utilization of personal space, as well as a code of silence and overall conduct when in the restroom with other men. The two schools of practice couldn’t possibly be any more different.
Hygiene Rituals
Take one look in a woman’s purse, or for that matter, notice the fact that women need purses at all, and this one becomes all too clear. A man’s bathroom sink might have a maximum of five items, including soap and a razor, whereas a woman’s bathroom will contain so many beauty products that the sink cannot possibly hold even a fraction of them. There will be a large cache under the sink, behind the mirror, and ringing the tub. The collection will be so immense, that a portion of it will permanently reside in the woman’s purse. Entire cabinets are usually added to the bathroom to hold more, as her collection expands, and all the while she will swear that each item is necessary.
Bedding Requirements
A man can fall asleep anywhere, under any circumstances, and sleep well. Many men even prefer sleeping on the couch, as opposed to using the expensive mattress in the bedroom. In fact, many men’s mattresses are unused unless he has a woman over to share it with him. Women feel the need for not only the softest mattress on the market, but extravagant and voluminous piles of pillows, pillow-tops, and pillowy comforters, each in groups and layers, covering the bed until it no longer presents any sort of usably flat surface to sleep upon. Men usually admit to finding these beds immediately comfortable, but report aching backs for the rest of their lives because of them.
Humor
Men have the uncanny ability to find nearly anything humorous. Funny is funny, and whether the joke is appropriate or not doesn’t matter to most guys. Women, on the other hand, take offense rather quickly if they feel a subject is taboo, and they’re pretty vocal about it. Any man who’s ever worked in an office environment knows this all too well, and many have suffered repercussions from the nagging cubicle-neighbor that overheard the random off-color joke and went to HR about it. This same problem makes women hate most comedy movies guys count as their favorites.
Food
When men go grocery shopping, they basically stock up on meat, and things that enhance meat, like bread, or cheese, or different types of meat for layering with bread and cheese. Men can be perfectly happy eating the same burger, sausage, or steak every night of the week. Women, on the other hand, would rather eat something that looks pretty than tastes like food. They make eating such an ordeal that it becomes a hassle to even bother, and this is partly the reason they are able to cope with eating so little. The compromise between these two views is always interesting as the kitchen-drama plays out in new relationships.
Aesthetics – Colors, Decoration, Design
We look at a blue swatch and call it what it is; blue. Women look at the same swatch and declare it to be periwinkle blue. They then proceed to harangue us for not knowing our basic colors. This same mentality spans the entire gamut of design and aesthetics on a daily basis. Men quickly give up on any notion that they’ll be involved in decorating the house in any way, and find solace in the garage, where the distinct lack of any visually pleasing surfaces acts as a deterrent to most women on a home-makeover binge.
Fashion
Jeans and a t-shirt – the quintessential male uniform. The truly amazing thing about this robust combination of garments is the innate customizability. A man can create any number of combinations by simply changing his shirt. Women will require no less than three closets to hold their expansive wardrobes, and that’s not including the separate shoe-racks that will hang from doors, and take space under the bed. Men will often compete to see who can actually wear the most relaxed outfit as a display of manly comfort, whereas women are in constant competition with each other over who can appear to be the most glamorous of the bunch. They will do this for no apparent reason.
Children and Animals
To put it simply, women mollycoddle children and animals to a ridiculous extent. Kids are babied to the point that they aren’t allowed to get dirty, and dogs are ripped from their nobility and turned into dolls. Men, on the other hand, treat dogs as friends, cats as worthy adversaries, and children as miniature humans who should be held accountable for their own actions. The difference between the two standpoints is staggering.
Automobiles and Driving
The above footage shows, more or less, what every man is trying to say when he proclaims that women cannot drive. On top of that, every single part or piece of equipment on or about an automobile is known to women as a thingy. As for men, these things come a bit more naturally to them.
Technology
Women, for the most part, seem to have a mental block when it comes to handling anything technological with any sort of finesse or intuition. Men will instinctively begin figuring out how equipment works, what it does, what it can do, and what it’s good for, whereas women tend to require instruction, from a man, who preferably wears a name tag. Most women will gladly pay money to a kid in a Geek Squad outfit just to plug three simple wires into the back of her television, even after her male friends explain to her that the wires and plugs are color-coded.
Emotions and Stress
The ways men and women handle stress are fundamentally different. Men generally handle bad situations by reacting in a proactive manner, feeling compelled to find a solution. Women almost invariably have the well-known panic reaction. Proof of this can be had any of the 13 times a day that women can be found crying, inexplicably.
Memories, both Good and Bad
Men have short memories. This sad fact routinely gets us in trouble as we forget the birthdays of our wives, mothers, sisters, even children. It also allows us to forgive and forget, bury the hatchet, and roll with the punches. Women remember everything, and they will never, ever let an issue die. You may forget what you did wrong, but a woman will remind you of it until the day you die. They will hold grudges, whether it’s with you, or their former bff, for years.
Communication
Men will communicate quickly and efficiently, with as little hassle as possible. If it’s easier to relay a message via third party, email, text message, or courier pigeon, then that’s how a man will communicate. Women feel the need to spend roughly one third of their waking hours talking. Whether they’re talking on the phone, or in person, women just plain talk too much. When she’s not busy yapping, she’ll be texting, or emailing, or both simultaneously. Men simply don’t feel the need to spend so much time communicating what doesn’t need to be expressed right away.
Punctuality and Time Sense
Men tend to be on time to planned events. They get to the theater early enough to get a good seat, and they get to the restaurant on time when invited out. Men don’t like being late, because it makes them look like they’re not in control. Women behave the exact polar opposite – they’re simply always late. They make it a point to be as late as possible, at all times, as though it were some sort of gauge for how much work they put into their appearance.
Multitasking and Focus
Women always harp on men for their supposed lack of multitasking prowess, when in reality it’s just that men aren’t as frivolous in their focus. Women insist on doing 47 things at once, without any consideration for the safety of themselves or others. They will constantly talk about how flustered they are, and how they narrowly averted disaster while not paying attention to their surroundings. Some women are just one diagnosis shy of being clinically ADHD, and some have even died due to their inability to focus on one single task.
It Was Here. I Swear..
