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Elusive Formula for Cashing in Miles
Matrix - ITA Software by Google
Is the Best Travel Search Engine Around the Corner?
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesThe offices of Joy World Cruise Tour agency in New York. I remember the days when it wasn’t faceless online search engines that helped me find the best deals on flights, but real live people called travel agents. Ivica got me a great bargain to Croatia. Alla helped me maneuver domestic flights within Russia, with an unbeatable price. And Fanny planned my dream trip to China with expert ease. Actually, it’s pretty easy to remember those days: they were just last month. The result: Nearly every time, travel agents bested the Internet big boys on both price (the objective part of the test) and service (what you might call the essay question). In some cases, the agents trounced the competition. I first tried Travelocity, which gave me an astonishingly high $2,923 round-trip fare to Dubrovnik. “John” answered — he was really Ivica Glavinic, the owner, using an English-friendly name — and asked what I was planning to do in Croatia. When I called Mr.
Cost of Living in Chiang Mai, Thailand
If this were a tell-all book then this would be the point where you gasp in shock and awe – she’s going to lay it all out on the line for what it costs to live as an expat in Thailand? Really and truly? Okay, perhaps it’s not quite that exciting, but, even my mother last week on the telephone couldn’t help but dig for the nitty-gritty details on how much I pay to live in Thailand. As a traveler, I’ve always heard that it’s so incredibly cheap to expat yourself in the developing world–and it’s true, it’s cheap! I’ve paid rent in both Orlando and Los Angeles, and my Thailand living costs have averaged at least one third of my previous living expenses. Let’s first look at the hard costs, then I’ll go into what each element translates into in terms of what I get for that price! Total Cost for a Month Living in Chiang Mai, Thailand These are my baseline costs – or rather more fixed monthly expenses. Not included in this price are the visa runs you’ll need if you’re on a tourist visa. St.
The Complete Guide To Diving in Koh Tao – Nomadic Matt's Travel Site
This is a guest post by Alexandra Baackes. Travelers in Thailand like to label their destinations neatly. Intricate island paradises are boiled down to one or two simple words or associations. Koh Phi Phi? Some of them are fairly well deserved. Prospective divers heading to the island are spoilt for choice when it comes to dive schools, dive instructors, and dive sites. PADI or SSI? There are over 50 Scuba Diving training systems, but in Koh Tao the choice will almost always come down to two: PADI vs. PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) – PADI is the world’s leading scuba diving training organization with more than 6,000 dive shops and resorts worldwide. SSI (Scuba Schools International) – This group has over 2,500 authorized dealers around the world. What Is The Course Like? The typical diving course is completed in three days. A rough outline of what your course will look like this: Day 3: You will go out on a morning boat and complete Open Water Dives 3 and 4.
Welcome 4-hour-work-week readers
My name is Benny Lewis. I travel the world and hack languages When I was 21, I only knew how to speak English. I moved to Spain, tried for 6 months to learn Spanish, and failed. But now, 11 years later, I’m a polyglot—a person who speaks over a dozen languages (including Spanish), and I run the world’s largest language learning blog, where I write about travel, languages, and productivity, and share my stories and language hacks with millions of people like you. My new book, Fluent in 3 Months, discusses how I learn languages so quickly. 11 Non-stop years of travel My focus when I take on a new language is to speak with natives. On my 10 year anniversary I made this video about my life lessons learned from those travels, which is an expansion of a blog post I wrote on my 8 year anniversary that went viral. On my blog, you’ll see a lot about travel, whether it’s my favorite countries, strange habits I’ve adopted from travel, or finding love on the road—I cover it all. What I do now
How to Avoid Unnecessary Rental Car Fees
You could end up doubling the daily rate unless you just say no at the counter. Renting a car is a little like buying a car: Before you can drive the vehicle off the lot, you have to withstand a hard sell for a slew of options. And in their zeal to nick your wallet, rental companies are getting creative. SEE OUR SPECIAL REPORT: Best New Car Values, 2012 For example, you'll almost certainly get the pitch for prepaid gas. If you prepay for a rental from Avis and change your mind, make sure you cancel at least 24 hours in advance; if you don’t, you’ll get your money back—minus a $50 "no show" fee. Advertisement Be aware of charges for add-ons, too. If you're charged a fee that wasn't disclosed when you signed for the car or made an online reservation, fight it. The CDW decision. You probably don't need it. But turning down the CDW isn't a slam-dunk. Among credit cards, American Express and Visa cover towing, administrative and loss-of-use fees. Shop smart.
Do Good As You Go - The Muskoka Foundation | Use What You Know, To Do Good As You Go.
Confessions of a fat fingered airline pricing analyst
Brett Snyder is currently the force behind Crankyflier.com, a web site that comments on the airline industry. But for several years, he was one of the hundreds of folks who work in the pressure cooker atmosphere that is the lot of the airline airfare analyst. These are the people who decide how much you'll be paying for your next flight. They watch what their competition is doing, and react as quickly as possible to match or beat what other airlines are charging. And sometimes--less than they used to, thanks to new technology--they make mistakes. We asked Brett to give us an idea what it was like to work in this fast paced environment. Indianapolis to Santa Barbara. You wouldn't think that many people would actually want to fly between Indianapolis and Santa Barbara, but sure enough, all I needed to do was file an absurdly low $52 roundtrip fare and plenty of Midwesterners came out of the woodwork. Despite that accepting attitude, working in the world of airline pricing is not easy.
Independent Blog, Advice and Travel Show: Career Break Secrets
With Filters, Photos Take On Multiple Identities
“I do some specific things, and I was never able to find filters that did exactly what I wanted,” said Mr. Morgan, who lives near Buffalo, Iowa. He says he sometimes finds himself emulating Gustav Klimt, the Viennese artist. “He did portraits, but they were full of little busy patterns,” Mr. Morgan said. “It’s a way to distort the photograph and give it an impressionist kind of look.” Filters that let people fiddle with the photos have transformed hobbyist photography from happy accidents with a point-and-shoot camera into sophisticated art projects. More ambitious photographers are starting to make and share filters they created themselves using tools meant to simplify the often arcane mechanisms for modifying the pixels in an image. Mr. Mark Evdokimov, a spokesman for Filter Forge, said that most of the 8,500 filters available in its online library were made that way. “They’re like little machines, except they process information,” said Cavin Weber, a graphic artist from Austin, Tex.
