Air Travel and Mother Nature...ugh!!!

So as promised, this week's episode of The Midwest Wanderer is all about air travel.  As fellow road warriors, I'm sure you've had your share of stale peanuts, old pretzels, and thousands of miles in an oversized tin can squeezed into a seat that continues to get smaller and smaller.

Today I want to talk about planning for the inevitable (i.e. delays, oversold flights, and overpriced everything),  airline mileage programs, and how to negotiate NICELY to get the most you can when you're forced to make lemonade from lemons.

On a recent flight a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of flying out of my little airport (ATY in case any of you actually want to find Watertown) en route to Oakland, CA.  I happen to fly Delta Airlines often, as this is the ONLY commercial carrier that flies in and out of our lovely little airport (think the TV show "Wings").  The flight out went relatively smooth with connections in Minneapolis and Salt Lake City.  As usual, my flight from Salt Lake to Oakland was overbooked.  If you have any experience with flying the friendly skies, you've most likely ran into this situation yourself.  However, when I fly, I plan as much flexibility into my plans as possible so that I can take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.  In this particular case, my potential reward was $400 in Delta dollars to trade my confirmed seat on a 2pm flight for a guaranteed seat on a flight leaving a few hours later (7pm).  That comes out to about $80/hour for my willingness to wait.  Most of the time when this situation presents itself, the gate agent announces initial compensation that is mediocre.  If no one grabs the goodies right away, often this incentive grows as fast as the desparation rises.  Play it this way friends....wait a few minutes and/or ask for slightly better compensation...chances are you'll get more than the initial offer.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about hotel rewards programs.  You'll notice that most of these programs can be paired with an airline reward program to boost your miles and get you free tickets sooner.  As you'd guess, I happen to be a SkyMiles member (email me if you'd like to donate to my account).  Each leg of your travel itinerary counts as miles toward your accumulation total.  All the major airlines offer such a program.  My suggestion is to find the airline that you think you'll fly the most and sign up before your next flight.  It doesn't take long before you're answering the question, "cookies, peanuts, or pretzels?" without shelling out a dime.  (They'll be the best tasting peanuts ever, promise!)

Mother Nature came into play on the return legs of my trip home.  First of all, my flight out of OAK was delayed two hours due to a maintenance issue with our plane.  Now it's somewhat difficult to get mad at the airlines for fixing a broken plane.  After all, what's worse, a delay or a crash?  This particular leg of my trip was on Alaska Airlines.  If you've never had the opportunity to fly on Alask Airlines (coach is where I roll), I highly suggest it.  There is about 4" more of leg room in coach, and the flight attendants have been overly trained in smiling and being nice (could be worse).  The only problem with switching carriers on a trip is that it causes problems if you wish to check your bags...you'll get them back sometime!  Anyway, I digress.

Once I finally got to Seattle, my plane was at the gate 30 minutes after my next flight was to take off to Minneapolis.  A slight panic set in over the whole plane, which only caused the de-planeing process to take even longer.  What was even worse, I had to hop on three different subway shuttles to get from one end of the Seattle airport to the other (that is one interesting airport).  Once to my gate, the HUGE mob of angry fellow flyers indicated to me that things weren't quite right in Seattle either.  Turned out that my 12:30 flight was delayed until 3:00 due to our lovely Mother Nature (the day after the Metrodome collapsed for any of you who watch the news).  Turned out Mother Nature thought that the good folks in the Twin Cities needed to be reminded that it was winter.  So one of the main hubs of Delta (like I said, for better or worse, that's my only choice from ATY) was basically shut down.  The angry mob at the gate were not the good folks of Delta flight 2114, of which I was a proud member.  This lovely mob was comprised of folks that were hoping to get on the 3pm flight to Minneapolis for which they were holding tickets.  Unfortunately, we got their plane and they had to wait three more hours for another plane to be flown in from somewhere else.

Once in the air (finally), I determined on flightstats.com that I was going to miss my next flight (and the last flight of the day to Watertown).  [WiFi on flights is one of the best things the airlines have done since Orville and Wilber Wright got their glider off the ground in 1900].  Once on the ground in MSP and a mad dash across the whole Lindburgh terminal, I quickly determined that I missed my flight by 4 whole minutes.  Apparently begging, pleading, and a few tears from a grown man won't convince a gate agent to move the jet bridge back in place and open the airplane door.  Instead, I waved to the pilot and co-pilot as they pushed off.  I think one of them might have even flipped me off....but I can't prove it.

Anyway, an overnight stay in Minneapolis and a next day flight eventually got me home a day late.  The funny thing is that Delta was bold enough to send me a survey to ensure they were offering the highest level of service.  Now I'm a realist.  I understand that the powers that be in the Delta organization don't have a weather machine.  But I still thought this was an odd touch.  So I let them have it in the nicest possible way.  In turn, I received a very nice apology letter from one of the Delta marketing staff and was advised that my SkyMiles account had been credited with additional free miles.

In the end, through all the unexpected twists and turns in my most recent adventure in flight, I came out of the deal with quite a few extra miles, all the free Coke products I could handle, and more cinnamon cookies, pretzels and peanuts than I could stand.  Next time....I'm calling NetJets!!!

Connect while on the go...My latest take on Netbooks and Tablets!

Remember the days of old (or last week) lugging that "heavy" laptop throught the TSA checkpoint, having to power up, then having the sweaty guy sitting next to you on the plane reading everything you are?!?  Ok, maybe that stuff just happens to me. 

The days of bringing the "heavy" laptop are long gone my friends!  Introducing the netbook, notebook, and tablet (including the ever-so-proud iPad).  The capabilities of such devices are still somewhat unknown.  But what is a FOR SURE is that tablets and netbooks offer lightweight connectivity just about anywhere in the world (more on this in a minute).  The size of netbooks/tablets allows you to easily pack them in a purse or backpack with fantastic graphics, apps, and standard operating systems such as Windows 7, Windows XP, Android 2.2, and  iOS 4 on the iPad.

Netbooks, the Mini Laptop



Samsung N310 Netbook



There are many offerings on the market today in the netbook catagory.  These devices look and feel like a smaller standard laptop computer.  They offer a standard QWERTY keyboard, great LED screens, in-use battery life from 3 to 9.5 hours (on the Dell Inspiron Mini 10HD), processor speeds from 1.2 to 1.66 Ghz, and hard drives of 160to 250 GB. 



All the netbook options offer connectivity via WiFi.  Many of these devices today are also offered through wireless carriers (AT&T, Verizon, etc) and big box outlets such as Best Buy Radio Shack with 3G capabilites as well.  If you are willing to sign a 2-year data plan contract, you may be able to pick up one of these devices for less than $50.00. The obvious benefit for 3G connectivity is being able to stay connected anywhere you can grab a cell signal. 



These devices are not intended for hardcore data crunching or building your next empire.  Multitasking is a bit limited on the devices as well.  But they offer great option to those who want to stay connected while on the go and like a REAL keyboard!

iPad...ever heard of it?

First of all....if you haven't heard of the iPad yet, I know you have no idea what a blog is!!!  Apple created the market with a true tablet that is more than an e-Reader.  The first generation of Apple's iPad offers a bright, reactive touch screen that runs native programs such as the Safari web browser, iTunes, and iPhoto (all the same features you will see on your Mac desktop or Macbook).  The operating system currently running on most iPads is iOS 4, but version 4.2 is now available for download on Apple's website.



Apple iPad



Some of the critics of the first-to-market iPad complain about the lack of camera, difficulty of connecting external devices (need an adapter for USB connections), doesn't support Flash websites, and is somewhat limited in multitasking abilities (depending on who you talk to).  It's my belief that everyone including Steve Jobs planed to roll out next generations of iPads with many of these features built into version 2.0 and beyond just to flat out sell more devices.  Who knows...good marketing is what I say. 

All in all, the people I've scientifically interviewed who own iPads (i.e. "hey man, you like your iPad?") rarely complain and wish they'd have never bought the damn thing!  It's a cool device that offers TONS of apps, cool things like AirPrint (wireless printer connectivity) and AirPlay (stream digital media wirelessly), and frankly an "out-of-the-box" usable device that you'd be hardcore to hate.



Tablets...the second coming of mobile connectivty!

 

Samsung Galaxy

With the invention of the Android platform, many cool devices have been able to offer similar touch-screen interface as the original iPod touch and now the iPhone and iPad.  One of the coolest devices I've been able to get my hands on lately is the Samsung Galaxy tablet.  This device is slightly smalthan the iPad (7" screen vs. 10" screen on the iPad), but utilizing the Droid platform, the Samsung Galaxy tablet offers just about everything the iPad can with features such as a forward and rear facing dual cameras, USB connectivity, and frankly, the Android Market (similar to the App Store with Apple) offers an app (or fifty) for just about anything you can think of! 

The Samsung Galaxy tablet is basically a larger version of the Samsumg Galaxy S phone that was released earlier this year.  The only thing different (other than the obvious size) is that the Galaxy tablet is unable to make phone calls in in the US at this time.  It is WiFi enabled, can come with a 3G SIM card for connectivity via cell signal, and can do just about anything that most laptops can. 

Keep in mind though, that with both the iPad and other tablets, a lack of a traditional keyboard takes some getting used to.  But like anything else, once you get used to it, it's hard to put the darn thing down!

Coming on the horizon....

For all you card-carrying Blackberry users out there (don't worry, I'm one of them too), RIM wants a piece of this action too!  The Blackberry Playbook is slated to be released sometime in early 2011.  I am apparently not considered to be an "insider tech critic" since RIM didn't send me one of the prototypes to play with.  But from what I know, the Playbook will be marketed similarly as the flagship Blackberry cell devices...i.e. marketed to the corporate enterprise user.  Blackberry Playbook will come with a 1080p HD video camera and will have dual cameras able to take up to 5 MP photos with the rear-facing camera (only 3MP on the forward facing camera), and will have 1 Ghz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM for lightning fast processing (that's what they claim anyway!).

The Blackberry Playbook will have a slightly different OS (Blackberry Tablet OS), so it is unclear of interfacing handsets with this tablet, but I'm sure the good folks at Blackberry have something up their sleeves on this one.  I can't wait to check it out....hopefully the Playbook is a strong player in this market.

Please note:  I did not discuss eReaders such as the Kindle, Nook, and others.  Not because they are not valid, in fact they are quite the devices.  They just do not offer the computing power that the devices discussed do (and I like the iPad, Galaxy, and Playbook better).

Up for next week:  Air travel and Mother Nature...ugh!

Like Willy said..."On the road again..." with our inaugural post

Welcome to the inaugural blog posting of The Midwest Wanderer!  I hope you can learn a little something from the lessons I've learned from the proverbial dusty trail.  This blog will be all encompassing on travel, tips, gadgets, hotels, restaurants, construction updates, and everything else that makes travel enjoyable (i.e. horrible).

Daily Topic:  Hotel Reward Programs

If you are going to stay in a hotel for five days or more in the upcoming year, SIGN UP FOR A REWARD PROGRAM!  You're a fool to not take advantage of some of these programs.  Most of the major chains have one, it's free and easy, and they heavily cater to the repeat offenders...I mean guests.  I happen to be a member of 4 or 5 of these programs (not every cow town I travel to has the same hotel brand), but certainly have a couple favorites.  Chains like Holiday Inn, Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Wyndham, and Choice Hotels all have programs that reward frequent visitors with points that can add up to some serious tangible change!!!

You may think that you don't travel enough to make something like this worth while.  I'm hear to tell you that modest travel (5-10 nights per year) can add up to free hotel rooms or at least some swag and a suite.  Typically these sites (see below) allow for easy sign-up online and don't require credit card information (although I recommend including this information if you want to climb to the upper echelons of Road Warrior-dom).  Most of these sites now have mobile versions for ease of use while on the move.  This feature alone is a driving force for some of my hotel choices.

All of the hotel reward programs offer a tiered membership arrangement.  The more nights you stay, the greater of perks.  These perks range from point-multipliers to free rooms and/or airfare.  Most of the major programs offer you the choice of earning points towards airline miles or hotel perks.  The biggest bang for your point is certainly hotel perks!!!  To be honest, I use one program to boost my Delta Skymiles (another blog another time), while I seriously bank points in another to cover lodging and ensure maximum upgrades.  Check out these links for some of the program language and contractual details:
                     www.priorityclub.com for Holiday Inn, Candlewood Suites, and Crowne Plaza
                     www.marriott.com for Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites, Fairfield Inn, Courtyard
                     www.hiltonhhonors.com for Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn
                     www.choicehotels.com for Sleep, Clarion, MainStay Suites, Econolodge, Comfort Inn

This list is not all inclusive by any means!  But this will give you a sampling of what is out there.

Let's get down to brass tacks....WHY DO THIS AGAIN?!?  Not everyone travels as much as I do (about 120 days a year), and some travel a lot more.  But in one year, I can earn the equivelant of 3-5 extended vacations all while getting upgraded suites, free food and drinks, concierge services, and guaranteed room availabilty.

Next Week: Latest gadgets to make that road trip more productive, more enjoyable, or just plain mo' betta!