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If you want to stretch your dining dollar while on the road, try lunch.

True, many business dining events are oriented to the evening. But that’s often on the company’s tab anyway.

On a vacation with your partner or family, splurging on lunch can have many benefits. First off: money. Many top restaurants offer lower prices for lunch than for dinner. As I blog from Paris, a quick scan of some top spots shows the spread: Taillevent has a 70 euro lunch compared with 140 or 190 euro dinner menus. At the summer dining room at the Hotel Bristol, there’s a 90 euro lunch menu as opposed to a la carte in the evening. And at Pierre Gagnaire, it’s 90 euro prix fixe lunch vs 225 for dinner.

You might have noticed that this is still dropping over $100+ on lunch–and we haven’t even gotten to the wine yet (but tax and tip are included!). But I chose these high-end restaurants because they illustrate the cost-savings that are available at many restaurants in Paris and beyond.

Having your finest meal of the day at midday also provides the advantage of being to walk off the meal during the afternoon. Viewing art at museums burns calories, you know.

And if you have your little ones in tow, lunch may be your best shot at breaking out of a string of pizza joints. Fellow diners might be more accommodating at lunch. And many outdoor spaces such as terraces might be only available at the noon hour, providing some additional space.

And perhaps the best thing about having a nice lunch while you’re on vacation is that there’s no rule saying you can’t have a nice dinner too.

Tyler Colman, Ph.D. writes about value vino on DrVino.com.

“I could never imagine going to Vinexpo [wine trade show in Bordeaux] without a cell phone,” someone told me. Why? Because I did just that.

It was unintentional, of course. Despite having a quad-band phone, I forgot the charger to my Motorola Razr. So no phone during the show. Perhaps you have felt a similar frustration in your overseas travels.

I got reunited with my charger while in France and installed a SIM chip from Orange, a local cell phone provider. It cost 30 euros for the chip and a few minutes credit. I later reloaded it at one of the ubiquitous tobacco stores (yes, that’s what they’re called) where they give you a code to add prepaid minutes. Calling domestic land lines in France is a low per minute rate. But calling French mobiles and the US sucks down the credits faster than I would a glass of 1982 Petrus.

I thought I was being Mr. Savvy International Traveler by going local. But in the end, I’m not sure it was worth it. Yes, I got a French number that is valid for eight months. But the domestic rates for calling mobile phones is so high in France, I’m not sure it’s any less than calling an American number.

So next time I might just switch on international roaming, which generally ranges from $0.99 to $1.29 a minute from American carriers. Imagine that: what’s the most convenient might also be the most price competitive. If you have further suggestions for ways to maximize your mobile, post them in the comments! And what about the iPhone–is it quad-band?

Tyler Colman, Ph.D. writes about wine in print and online at DrVino.com

Apologies for the delayed notice, but I’m in the process of moving, and posting has been difficult. But every trip means more material!

Next week, things should get closer to normal.

A teaser: Look forward to a report from my first stay at a Hyatt Place (the selectively-renovated, newly-rebranded, and otherwise unrecognizable second life of Amerisuites). Also: stories of how my wife and I ended up playing hotel housekeeper at 4:15 a.m., putting sheets on the bed in a room we had finally checked into. Good times!

In the interim, mega-thanks to guest poster Tyler Colman, a.k.a. Dr. Vino, for his live-from-France posts!

As a peripatetic wine writer I often get asked the question: can you take wine on a plane? In this day and age of the Global War on Toiletries, the short answer is no.

However, the good folks at Reef sandals may be on their way to helping plane travelers in need of a nip. They have a pair of sandals known as “the dram” (aff) that has a 1.5 ounce reservoir in each sole. Three ounces? That sounds like the TSA magic number for liquids to me!

The only catch is that you would have to have feet small enough so that the sandals fit inside the infamous one-quart plastic bag. Oh, and the fluid would have to be less than 140 proof (as the TSA helpfully elaborates, that includes 150 proof rum and 95% grain alcohol).

Tyler Colman checked wine in the hold and has some tips from his experience.

I recently flew on the new all-business class airline, L’Avion, from New York to Paris. Or make that actually from Newark (EWR) to Paris Orly (ORY) since that is their route. The airline sells seats on a reconfigured Boeing 757-200 for often much less what business class seats sell for on the major airlines. And they are filling those seats since the company is ahead of its business plan and may add more flights. Thus Mark asked me to provide my first-hand perspective to you.

Since I had never been to Newark International Airport before (gasp!) I was particularly delighted to receive the email telling me where to check in. I proceeded to the appropriate terminal, door, and counter number only to be greeted with a queue for a LOT flight to Poland. Aha. I must admit to a slight panic when I had a flashback to trying to book my ticket on the phone and only getting voicemail! Was this airline for real, I wondered?

Indeed it is. A few queries later and I found the two check-in desks where I was thrilled to find absolutely nobody in line. Passport read, bag checked and I was on my way. Very easy check in. (Longish line at the TSA, however.)

If you are expecting a lounge, this is where the discount part kicks in. L’Avion has arranged for gate 51 to be partitioned off and serves as a waiting area for their Paris passengers. There you will find the finest bottled water, Budweiser, mixed nuts, and cheddar cubes that good money will buy at Food Emporium. I found it overly full and awkwardly silent so wandered back to the main gate area where boarding started on time and proceeded swiftly.

Once on board, I thought a charming member of their staff would greet me with a glass of Champagne. A wine writer can but dream. No drink offer ever came before take off. Interesting drinks are not expensive, L’Avion: provide them liberally.

We pushed back from the gate and sat on the tarmac without a word from the cockpit. And sat. Finally, the usual patter came on about backups, delays yadda yadda and now we’re ninth in line for take off. Information is free, L’Avion: provide it freely. In this day and age of nine-hour groundstops, inquiring minds of fliers want to know what’s going on.

The seat is good, I’m pleased to report, although it is a “cradle” not a flatbed in case that’s what you’re after. The bag of goodies offered, however, is the exact same bag of goodies I remember getting in coach, way back when coach had amenities. The same plastic eyeshade that sticks to your face. A hard-bristled toothbrush. And a pair of those sock things that go over your socks.

The media was the first to arrive. They distributed some little hand-held monitors that had the entertainment in them. In the spirit of adventure I took one even though my only goal was to sleep on the flight. There’s a basic array of movies and games on the system. Oddly, it plugs in to a power socket in your seat. So not only do you have this hand-held monitor (with a pull-out stand to rest on the tray table if it is not in use with, say, your dinner) but your hip is being gouged by the plug adapter.

I just wanted to eat and go to sleep. But, alas, after our delay of almost an hour on the ground, the food did not appear for another hour and with it more exciting beverages than the bottle of Crystal Geyser that greeted me on my seat. The food was solid. And the wine? I’ll save that–and my final conclusions–for the future posting on my return journey.

Tyler Colman, Ph.D. writes about wine in print and on DrVino.com

After posting about the difficulties in reserving a mixed US Airways-United itinerary on either airline’s website last week, I contacted the two airlines about their codesharing policies, looking for some clarification. I’m pleased to report that US Airways has replied with a detailed response.

I asked Valerie Wunder, Associate Manager of Media Relations, to clarify why United-operated flights that had a US-codeshare weren’t coming up on usairways.com. (I asked similar questions of United Airlines, but have not yet received a reply.) She responded with a great, detailed e-mail, the bulk of which is quoted below the jump.

Four things stand out for me:

1) My observation that codeshared flights were restricted from sale (and not simply sold out) is largely validated, though my suspicions for the cause of the restriction are in dispute. Two reasons for the failure to list all codeshares are cited: “System migration issues” and “minimum connect timetable issues.” The former reason makes some sense, considering the integration of America West with US Airways systems has been incremental and problematic. Why should codeshare sales be any different?

But the minimum connect times? Over an hour’s connect time at CLT shouldn’t be an issue, so either the computers are being overly aggressive in blocking out partner flights with “short” connects, or this is a red herring.

2) United isn’t codesharing on the US Airways flights that are technically still operated by America West. United also isn’t codesharing US Airways Express flights when the plane has a capacity greater than 69 people. In both cases, “commercial reasons” are cited. Hmm…

3) US can’t sell UA nonstops if they operate the same exact nonstop route. ORD-CLT and ORD-DCA might be such routes. But they can sell these flights if they’re part of a connection.

4) More codeshares might be hard to come by, because they’re running out of numbers to use.

The bottom line from the airline’s corporate HQ is that US Airways’ website and reservation center still have a few more kinks to iron out of their system. They admit as much. And they admit that other booking sites may come up with more options (which is somewhat like throwing in the towel…)

Read the complete official explanation after the jump…
(more…)

The other day, FareCompare.com CEO Rick Seaney sent over an analysis of AirTran’s recent fare sale. “When is a fare sale not really a fare sale?” The answer: When the airline hikes its fares, only to lower them with great fanfare a few days later. Hooray for the status quo?

Rick suggests that this is tantamount to those stores that once lined the streets of midtown Manhattan, declaring they were going out of business. That is, until you saw that the name of the store was “Going Out of Business, Inc.” or something like that.

So how did AirTran join such esteemed company as the all-things-must-go merchants of New York City? Within a one-month period, Air Tran raised their fares three times — twice for three days, once for five days — and then brought them back to the previous level. Each time, their return to normal pricing was heralded with breathless press releases and a marketing blitz, announcing a sale.

Rick is right: This is an at best questionable, at worst deceptive business practice. Think about it: If a department store jacked up its prices for a few days, then brought them back to normal, customers might be filing complaints with the Federal Trade Commission. Perhaps AirTran thinks that the fluctuating nature of air ticket prices makes them immune to such charges, but I think they’re walking on some very thin ice.

So now they’ve been called out on it. We’ll see if they’ll change their tune, of they’ll just keep right on doing it. If enough people catch on, the phrase “AirTran fare sale” might be like the boy crying wolf.

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Recognizing that a crash landing is no one’s idea of “traveling better,” but simultaneously admitting that when the going gets rough, surviving a landing might just be the best you can hope for, I give you this incredible photo of an Air New Zealand commuter flight, operated by Eagle Air, making an emergency landing at Blenheim Airport.

The plane’s landing gear failed to emerge from its bay. Pilots jockeyed the plane, a 19-passenger Beech 1900D with 15 passengers and 2 pilots on board, right down the center of the runway. Other than a damaged plane, whose fuselage was scraped down the runway, and which clearly needs new rudders on its propellers, no one was hurt. Amazing, especially when you see those hunks of spinning metal flying through the air. Great piloting.

(Full story/image source)

Downgraded: Odds of seeing pole-dancer art on London-Gatwick approach
First it was the Kentucky Fried Chicken ad featuring a Colonel Sanders image visible from space. Now, a website’s advertisement featuring a giant chalk outline of a poledancing stripper is causing controversy in the UK. The image, in a field below a common approach path for flights to London’s Gatwick Airport, is only visible from the air, but is still causing an affront. It’s likely to be removed soon. But thanks to news reports and posts like this one far more people will see it online than ever would see it from a plane. (Yes, I’m guilty of supporting their marketing machine… I know…)

Upgraded: Kayak.com introduces alliance-based search
Aggregator Kayak.com tweaked its search tools ever so slightly, allowing you to sort by alliance (Star, oneworld, Skyteam) and not just by airline. But you can only sort it that way AFTER you’ve the basic search. (You can search preferred airlines up front, so why not alliances? Meh.) Orbitz has allowed alliance search for some time, but this is the first aggregator that I’m aware of that’s doing this.

Upgraded: Hertz’s environmentalist credibility
Last September, Hertz rolled out its “Green Collection” of rental cars and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Buick LaCrosse? Come on. Where were the hybrids? Well, it took nine months, but Hertz finally got around to buying more genuinely eco-friendly vehicles, with a purchase of 3,400 Toyota Priuses (or is that Prii?). That’s more like it.

Upgraded: Wine in coach. Viva jetBlue!
JetBlue is serving up some slightly more interesting wines than usual the usual coach fare. Thanks to a partnership with Best Cellars, the airline is giving their all-economy class passengers a slightly better guzzle. Choosing wine for coach can be challenging, since it has to be a) cheap, b) in tiny ready-for-sale bottles, unlike in premium cabins, and c) pair-able with a wider range of foods. I hadn’t thought about that last one before: After all, the wine in business and first can presumably be paired with the menu (though that’s not always obvious). But in coach, a wine demands “versatility in pairing with a wide assortment of airport meals people bring on planes, including pan pizzas from Pizza Hut and Taco Bell burritos with chicken and mole sauce.” (Taco Bell has a mole sauce? Really?) Either way, good for jetBlue, and good for their wine-imbibing passengers. (Thanks Tyler!)

Downgraded: US Airways right to serve any wine
Unlike jetBlue… US Airways, which got into trouble for selling booze without a license in New Mexico a few months ago, and which has been serving the sauce with a temporary scrip since then, was denied an extension of its license this past week. Tough break. BYOB, anyone?

Upgraded: Marriott; Downgraded: Ian Schrager (or is it the other way around?)
Look, I happen to like Marriott hotels for what they are: Consistent, clean, competent, and overall comfortable spaces to spend the night. (4 C’s!) They usually don’t have too much bling or pizazz, though some of their big-city properties have that 1980s glitz that has an odd appeal to my mid-to-late-30s, graying-gracefully, receding-hairline self. So when I hear that they’re teaming up with Ian Schrager, king of the boutique hotel, to create a new boutique-y brand, I’m skeptical. It seems like a late-to-the-game attempt to create a “W” chain within a chain. If it adds a little funk to the Marriott decor, great. (Bye bye brass fixtures, please!) But it also smacks of desperation. And isn’t Ian Schrager past this? Seems like he’s here to cash in while the cashin’ in is good.

Upgraded: WestJet’s honesty; Downgraded: Little old ladies’ pensions
Canada’s WestJet (hearts) little old ladies. Not because they’re nice grandmas, but because they’re walking piggy banks, and the airline’s got a hammer. Consider this nugget from the airline’s president:

“There would be a little old lady coming up and she’d have a table and she’d have a chair and she’d have six or seven bags and we’d say ‘Yeah, take it on the plane. No problem.’ Now we’re actually going to charge a little bit of money for taking that table and chair and those extra bags on board. And that incremental revenue that we extract from that little old lady is very, very profitable to us. Some 85% goes to the bottom line.”

Good for him, for saying publicly what other airline executives discuss privately. So I guess the business traveler isn’t the company profit center; the rarely-traveled senior citizen is. Bank it.

Upgraded: Amputees and their TSA experience
Got a prosthetic? The TSA wants to make your security checkpoint experience kinder and gentler. Good! On the other hand…

Downgraded: Sippy cups, and TSA cinema verité
A former Secret Service agent reports that she was harassed when she accidentally carried her child’s sippy cup of water through security. Stupid enough, but it gets more absurd: The TSA actually released a silent security tape of the incident, labeled “Mythbusters,” in their own defense. Feel free to view the videos, read the incident report, review the embarrassed mother’s story, and decide for yourself.

Upgraded: Demolition
Let me make myself perfectly clear: I want to help destroy this hotel. I’ve never been to it, but I want to help Spanish hotel chain NH Hoteles wreck the Alcala Hotel in Madrid. The company is holding a contest to see who can take a sledgehammer to the joint. Only 30 lucky few will get to play rockstar-cum-wrecking ball. Let the spirit of Keith Moon guide you.

“Je m’appelle Michel.” L’Avion, the all-business class, all-Boeing 757 airline on the Paris (Orly) to Newark route, has a cute feature for passengers who give the airline their e-mail address. You get a reminder message featuring photos and customer-service pronouncements from the captain and purser.

It’s a nice, personal touch, even if the statements are on the cheesy side. The true value added of the mugshots? Not much, really, since the service provided will be the same whether you’ve seen their face before or not, but I imagine it’s funny, and oddly endearing, to walk down the jetway and actually recognize a staff member’s face.

Let’s just hope that passengers don’t start making their booking decisions on staff photos.

Upgrade: Travel Better reader Marie gave her L’Avion experience two thumbs up recently, which is certainly encouraging. For a full account of the L’Avion experience, stay tuned: Friend of the blog (or ami du blog?) Dr. Vino was our classe affaires guinea pig on the startup carrier last night, and we anxiously await his complete review/guest-post in a few weeks…

This week saw the launch of a company that just might make private jet travel affordable.

The public-relations master himself, Richard Branson, announced his latest venture, Virgin Charter. But unlike Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Blue, Virgin Nigeria, and the soon-to-launch Virgin America, Virgin Charter isn’t an airline. Rather, it’s an online service that matches private jet operators with passengers, in an auction-format like Priceline: Make an offer for a flight, and the operating company accepts or declines.

The key to the market is empty planes and a fractured company landscape. (Unlike the handful of major airlines, there are 2500 companies operating chartered jets in the United States alone.) Empty planes arise when a flight takes someone from city A to city B, but then has to pick someone else up in city C to take them back to city A (or D…). That flight from city B to city C has no passengers, in what is called an “empty leg” or “repositioning flight.” Filling those flights with people, and thereby increasing marginal revenues, helps the operator and the broker.

Selling those repositioning flights isn’t new, and heck, I’ve even blogged about it before. What’s new is the bidding system, and the greater price transparency. Other companies like ElleJet, OneSky, PrivateJetSpecialist, and CharterX have been brokering empty legs for some time, but the pricing rests with the broker, not the passenger. In fact, PrivateJetSpecialist is one of very few brokers that gives you the fare up front online. But Virgin Charter lets the passenger bid for the trip, and that’s a customer-friendly move.

How good can the deals get? (more…)

While airline alliances were created for the primary benefit of the member airlines, they also promise benefits to the flying public, such as the ability to buy a wider range of codeshared flights. So why are US Airways and United Airlines refusing to sell each others’ flights?

Last night, I tried to reserve an itinerary, sold by US Airways, that involved a change of planes in Charlotte. Ideally, I wanted the final leg of my trip, from Charlotte to Chicago, to be the US-codeshared flight operated by United. The United flight’s time was more convenient, and I could sit in Economy Plus or even try my luck at burning an upgrade or two.

I knew from the timetables that the flight existed, that it carried a US Airways number (US Airways Flight US5909, operated by United Airlines as Flight UA569), and that it was available for sale on sites like Orbitz, at the same exact price as other itineraries that were wholly operated by US Airways.

But US Airways wouldn’t reserve the flight for me.

Here’s how it worked: I started by going online and searching for flights. US Airways’ website did not include a single flight that was operated by United in its search results. Not one. Neither as a US-labeled codeshare, nor as a UA-numbered flight.

So I tried United’s website. Their search engine lets you tick a box to “include Star Alliance flights” in the search results. But it only included some Star Alliance flights, and only ones that carried a United codeshare number. The list wasn’t exhaustive, either — not all codeshared flights were listed. And it didn’t include any flights that were sold under the US flight number.

In the past, I have been able to use United’s site to book flights on other Star Alliance carriers, usually as part of a mixed itinerary. That doesn’t appear to be consistently possible any more. The site’s help page for booking codeshares implies that it should still be possible to book Star Alliance and codeshare flights using their tool. But the options are severely restricted.

None of this would have been an issue if I had been ready to pull the trigger and purchase the ticket right then and there. I could have just gone to Orbitz and bought the flight, albeit with a $6 surcharge. But I wanted to put the flight on a 24-hour hold, and Orbitz doesn’t allow that. US Airways’ website doesn’t allow putting flights on hold, either (that’s a post for another day), so I picked up the phone and called them.

The phone agent couldn’t — or wouldn’t — reserve the flight I wanted. I gave them the flight number — US5909 — but the answer was no. “That flight is not available for purchase.” So I settled for a later flight, which leaves me more time to partake in the Charlotte Airport’s rocking chairs, barbeque stands, and North Carolina wine bar.

My experience doesn’t appear to be a complete fluke. I’ve seen this sort of thing before, but I’ve always assumed it was just a temporary glitch. After seeing this again and again, it seems deliberate. To give them one last benefit of the doubt, I just tried searching different itineraries (some domestic, some international) on both the United and the US Airways websites. US Airways excluded every United-operated option, every time. United’s website included some US Airways flights, but only if they carried a UA number. Other Star Alliance carriers, like Lufthansa, didn’t face the same discrimination.

My only conclusion: US Airways and United are no longer fully cooperating within the Star Alliance. It’s stupid, it’s annoying, and it irritates the consumer. Fix it.

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