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Upgraded: First class meals on American Airlines
If your upgrade clears, your inflight meal may improve. Artisan breads, Ghirardelli chocolates, and the option of an antipasto/cheese snack in lieu of the ramekin of mixed nuts. Alternatives to the hot nuts? Blasphemy!
(Thanks, Benet!)

Downgraded: Gay travelers …also on American Airlines
Accusations of homophobia on board AA flight 45 from Paris to New York are percolating through the internet after the New Yorker’s article on a gay couple whose cuddles and smooches were met with flight attendant intervention. An attendant with “Texas hair, like from the nineteen-sixties,” demanded that the couple cease and desist. Ruckus ensued.
(Thanks, Stephen and John!)

Upgraded: Business class seats on bmi
Britain’s Star Alliance member, bmi, which operates a Manchester, UK hub for its international flights, is going fully lie-flat with its business-class seats.

Upgraded: Hotel bathrooms
Beds are better, furnishings nicer, and now, nicer hotel bathrooms, too. And missing? Tubs!

Upgraded: Passport photos
Downgraded: British security
A British man used his two-year old daughter’s passport to travel to the Netherlands. I guess he’s a young-looking fella.

Upgraded, maybe: Connexion inflight internet
Intercontinental internet junkies can hold out some hope: Panasonic is trying to step in and take over as provider of airplane broadband, after Boeing announced the forthcoming shutdown of its Connexion service. But it won’t just transition seamlessly, and will run on a different network, so don’t celebrate yet. As long as it works. Wonk out on the details here, if that’s your fancy.

Downgraded: Wine bars in Portland Airport
I love wine bars in airports, like the Vino Volo at Washington-Dulles. But if you’re going to have one, put it AFTER security… Portland, Oregon’s airport wine bar has been put on the deathwatch.

(image of hot nuts: ejpm99)
tags: travel

Free hotel stays
Want to be a hotel inspector for Small Luxury Hotels of the World? You get one free night’s stay, but you have to get to the hotel on your own dime. Kitty Bean Yancey of USA Today links to the application for the “job” of hotel inspector. You’ll need to fill out a form detailing your lodging habits, and obviously not every applicant is accepted.

Free wi-fi
Yesterday I posted a link to get free T-Mobile wi-fi access. Reader Jeff passed on another great link: A list of airports with free wi-fi, without any introductory offers, etc. Just plain old free. Thanks, Jeff!

Free wine
Answer all 10 questions about wine correctly, and you’re in the running for a free mixed half case of wine, courtesy of Dr. Vino, the site devoted to “wine picks and politics.” Click here to take the quiz. Check out the recommendations for cheap-but-good wine, too. (update: quiz ends midnight tomorrow - Thursday, Sept. 7)

Free SuperBowl tickets
Another sweepstakes, courtesy of Southwest Airlines. Enter by buying a Southwest ticket with your Visa card, or by sending in your name. Details here.

FYI, I’ve got a guest post up at Dr. Vino’s Wine Blog. The topic: Wine tastings and travel… in Utah, of all places.

Check it out. For anyone interested in wine, be sure to visit the main DrVino.com site for plenty of wine picks (high quality, low prices) and stories of the politics behind wine production.

Update: The post was just named a “blog post of the week” by Food & Wine magazine online!

tags: travel | Utah | wine

El Al vs. the TSA
Maybe it was the report of Jessica Simpson putting her dog through an x-ray machine at LAX. Or the Wired story about the idiotic airline-by-airline management of the no-fly list in America. Or maybe it was the story about dogs being trained to sniff out DVDs instead of, say, explosives, at London’s Stansted Airport. (Ok, that’s UK security, but still…) In any case, Israel’s national airline, El Al, has been quietly screening its own luggage at US airports (LAX, JFK, MIA, and ORD) with the consent of the TSA. In fact, they’ve replaced the TSA’s software on scanning equipment, because it wasn’t “sensitive” enough, and assigned their own screeners to the job (though TSA staff remain on-site to supervise). The issue came to light when El Al sought to expand the process to Newark Liberty International Airport.

Wilma vs. the Reverse Pyramid (sounds like a wrestling matchup)
Airlines regularly tinker with their boarding procedures, in an effort to move people onboard faster and reduce the time between flights. Passengers are more commonly called by seating area or zone, rather than row number. Wired breaks down the competing models — the classic “back to front,” AirTran’s “rotating zones,” United’s “Wilma,” USAirways’ “Reverse Pyramid,” and Southwest’s zoned free-for-all (more generously termed “self-organizing”). Click on the “See How it Works” image/link in the article for a graphical demonstration. The reverse pyramid especially seems to make a lot of sense. (Note: While the demo shows first class boarding first, it ignores elite members’ early boarding privilege, for what it’s worth.) Suggestion for the crack programmers at SeatGuru): It might be nice to know which boarding zone a seat is in before you select it…

Wine vs. … well, vs. nothing. Just wine.
As mentioned here, wine bars are expanding in U.S. airports. USA Today reports that Sacramento Airport has approved the opening of a wine bar, which will feature local/regional wines. As a fan of the wines of Amador County, I give this a big thumbs up. The bar will be run by Taste, Inc., the folks behind Washington-Dulles’ Vino Volo.

Airbus vs. the Greyhound bus
25 years after frequent flyer programs were launched, Greyhound’s new frequent rider program “Road Rewards” hits the street. Questions remain: Will they seek membership in OneWorld, SkyTeam, or Star Alliance? Do they just use Mapquest to figure out your points? (via USA Today)

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tags: travel | air travel | airport security | El Al | TSA | wine bars | Greyhound | airplane seating

Most airports’ dining offerings are pretty slim. Finding a decent glass of wine may be even harder.

The airport wine bar seems like a no-brainer, and the Wall Street Journal reported recently (subscription required) that they are indeed on the rise.

The article refers to three existing wine bars: at Dallas/Fort Worth, Charlotte, and Washington-Dulles. I’ve seen the latter two in person. The Charlotte wine bar is really a tasting room in between concourses C and D, selling bottles or tasting-sized pours of North Carolina wines. At $1 a taste, it’s not a bad way to pass a few minutes between flights.

Vino Volo, which opened in September 2005 at Dulles Airport, is more of a real restaurant, with tasty-sounding menu options paired with wines. I didn’t have time to stop in between flights, but this small storefront, in the C-concourse, looks like a great option. And this model, run by Doug Tomlinson, is the one that’s set to expand:

Mr. Tomlinson’s San Francisco company, Taste Inc., hopes to open five more airport wine bars this year — he won’t say where, as negotiations proceed — and then continue to expand.

Bring ‘em on. It beats the wine selection at the Red Carpet Club, I assure you.

tags: travel | air travel | airports | wine bars