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Favorite Restaurant in St. Michael’s, MD

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:14:17 +0000

Photo Credit: Jason Pier

From the outside it looked like one of the best restaurants in town, so we had to go inside and check it out.

208 Talbot in St Michaels, Maryland, is an elegant little restaurant perfect for any occasion: a romantic dinner with your loved one, family gatherings or even a happy hour with friends.

Prices seemed fair for the ambience and food/service you get – it was certainly not too expensive, especially considering that food was simply exquisite, and service impecable. So much so that even after a couple of years this restaurant still lies in the back of my mind whenever I think about St Michaels or Chesapeake Bay

Favorite Restaurant in St. Michael’s, MD is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

This post was submitted by Kris.

airfarewatchdog – Get answers to all your airline related questions!

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:57:59 +0000

I found out about airfarewatchdog a couple of years ago when I was searching for airfare deals, and since then I became a huge fan of these guys. Their search engine is not really that different from many others I typically use, though their fare alerts typically show unadvertised deals, based on the departure airport(s) and destination you choose in your profile.

Nonetheless, the big value-add of airfarewatchdog is in the Q&A section. There you’ll find all the answers that you once had and and didn’t know who to ask. By subscribing to their newsletter you can get those Q&As directly in your inbox and if have stepped on a plane recently, you will find at least one of their tips quite useful.

For you to have an idea, these are some topics I’ve learned from them:
- How Bereavement fees work in airlines
- Best time of the year to book your next vacation
- Information on Baggage Fees
- What to do when the airlines lose your luggage
- Compensation when they sell out or cancel your flight
- and many many more….

Check out their website and let me know what you think or how it was useful for you!

airfarewatchdog – Get answers to all your airline related questions! is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

This post was submitted by Kris.

Booking an Award Trip? Here are some tools!

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:14:16 +0000

I had mentioned about Expert Flyer here on kristraveler.com before. Here’s another article from the WSJ that gives more details of how it works and also mentions another tool – MileageManager.

——————–

Have Miles but Can’t Get a Seat? How to Snare One

JANUARY 14, 2010 By SCOTT MCCARTNEY

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Even though recession-weary consumers may want to cash in frequent-flier miles to get free trips and upgrades more than ever these days, it’s gotten harder to snare those awards.

Continental Airlines, the only U.S. airline to report award redemptions monthly, says awards and upgrades claimed in its frequent-flier program were down 20% in the first 10 months of 2009 compared to the same months of 2008.

And this year may be even tougher. Since airlines aggressively reduced capacity through the economic downturn, they’ve filled flights fuller with paying customers and appear to have reduced availability of award seats and upgrades. As the economy picks up, passenger demand for seats will get tighter.

“Awards and upgrades will be harder to find, unless you are constantly looking,” said Chris Lopinto, president of ExpertFlyer.com, a service used by road warriors that focuses on airline inventory and seat availability.

Landing the free seat you want using frequent-flier miles has long been one of the biggest frustrations for travelers. The prizes offered by airlines are enticing, but the seats never seem to be available on the flights and routes you want. Some people try to call airlines at midnight 11 months before the date they plan to travel—typically when booking opens for a flight—to be first in line for frequent-flier award seats. Some know to check repeatedly because airlines change inventory daily. And many give up the search, letting miles accumulate and cursing airlines for selling false hope.

New Tools

Still, there are several new tools available to help you find that elusive award. Some airlines have made it easier to find award seats—when they are available—and several Web sites have tools to help you search. ExpertFlyer and another site called MileageManager.com have award alerts that send you an email when a frequent-flier seat or upgrade opens up on a flight you want.

Airlines often hold back frequent-flier award seats or upgrades on popular flights, hoping that bookings by fare-paying passengers will be strong. But if seats don’t sell as briskly as predicted, awards can be made available for booking in reservation systems at anytime.

ExpertFlyer’s award alert feature works on 22 airlines worldwide, including Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, a unit of Hawaiian Holdings Inc., in the U.S., plus Air Canada, Air China, Air France, which is a unit of the Air France KLM Group, Qantas Airways and others. ExpertFlyer says that more than 50% of customers who look for an award actually find one that works for them.

Using the alert system, it takes about 25 days on average for travelers to find the award they want, says Mr. Lopinto. His customers typically look for seats about 10 weeks in advance, and the most-searched-for award is a business-class upgrade. “More and more business travelers book into economy and then try to use their own miles to upgrade into business,” he said.

MileageManager’s AwardPlanner function lets you put in up to five different itineraries and when availability is found, AwardPlanner alerts you by email so you can book it. The award alert service works with 10 different airlines: American, British Airways, Continental, Delta, Deutsche Lufthansa, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways.

MileageManager requires you to register your frequent flier accounts with the service, turning over your airline account number and password, before its AwardPlanner function can be used. Both MileageManager and ExpertFlyer offer free trial periods, but after that MileageManager is $14.95 per year and ExpertFlyer costs $9.99 a month.

Checking Alliances

On the airline side, road warriors suggest checking alliance Web sites—StarAlliance.com, oneWorld.com and SkyTeam.com—that show flights on partner airlines that may not be displayed on your own airline’s booking site. Those partner airlines may have award seats available, but you’ll need to call to find out. LOT Polish, for example, might offer something that doesn’t automatically show up on UAL Corp.’s United Airlines’ Web site, but you can often use your United miles to book it if you know what to ask for.

Sharon Adcock, a publicist for the entertainment industry and elite-level member of United’s program, says she usually has success using StarAlliance.com to get free tickets or upgrades even when United’s Web site says nothing is available.

“They tell me they don’t have anything and then I say, What about this one? What about that one? I manage to get award tickets the way I want,” she said.

Charles Witt, a facilities planner who travels the world, has the same kind of success using alliance Web sites.

“If you lead the airline, it can work out. That’s part of the game, too. You know the answer before you ask the question,” he said.

More Options

Airlines have long told customers that flexibility is the key to booking awards—a willingness to travel on different days or even to different cities increases your chances of finding an award. But now airlines are also becoming more flexible and giving customers more options to redeem their miles. That’s because it is actually in the airlines interest to encourage fliers to use miles.

A change in accounting rules has made it more expensive for airlines to carry unredeemed miles on their balance sheets. And miles have become a huge cash generator for airlines, primarily by selling them to credit card companies that give them out as customer rewards. If the miles lose their shine by being difficult to use, credit card companies may curb their purchases. Last year, American pre-sold $1 billion worth of AAdvantage miles to Citicorp, propping up the airline financially and showcasing the importance of miles.

In an effort to spur mileage redemption, Alaska Airlines began offering one-way awards in 2007, allowing customers to use miles for just a one-way ticket, or mix-and-match different mileage levels into one round-trip. The result has been a sharp rise in award redemption for that airline. In 2008, the number of awards redeemed with frequent- flier miles jumped 26% and mileage balances in accounts declined, according to Alaska, a unit of Alaska Air Group Inc. (The airline hasn’t yet reported 2009 redemptions.)

AMR Corp.’s American and Delta now offer one-way award pricing as well. Continental and US Airways Group Inc. also allow different award levels to be combined. A flight at the cheapest award level, typically 25,000 miles round-trip for domestic itineraries, might be available for the outbound part of a trip, but not available for the return the customer wants. Book the return at the 50,000-mile level, and you get the seats you want for a total of 12,500 outbound plus 25,000 for the return, or 37,500 miles total.

Most airlines also now offer calendars on their Web sites that quickly show customers what dates have awards available, and at what mileage levels.

Still, many consumers find using miles frustrating, especially when they focus on scarce awards like summertime trips to Europe. That’s an area where there’s huge variation in availability at different airlines.

IdeaWorks, a Wisconsin-based loyalty-program consulting firm, did 6,400 booking queries last year to rank airlines by award availability on trans-Atlantic flights. The study looked for flights between April and November and found that Iberia had the most liberal offering among 10 U.S. and European airlines, with 83% of the Iberia queries offering award seats. Lufthansa’s program was second at 66% and British Airways third at 63%.

American out-distanced U.S. airlines with 58% of queries successful. United offered awards on only 18% of queries made and US Airways, which has far fewer flights to Europe than larger rivals, offered award seats on only 4% of the queries IdeaWorks made.

The study reinforces the importance of checking partner airlines: Iberia is a partner of American, for example, but American’s Web site doesn’t automatically display all available awards on its partners, IdeaWorks noted.

Booking an Award Trip? Here are some tools! is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

NewYorkology

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:07:05 +0000

Going to New York in the near future? Then you have to check this website: NewYorkology

Sure, there are many (and many!) books and online guides to New York, but few are as fun or up-to-date with everything that’s going on in the city as NewYorkology is.

I’ve been following their tweets for a couple of months now, and even without any travel plans to Manhattan in the near future, I feel like I just ”can’t” unfollow them, as I’d be loosing all the great information they share on a daily basis. After this time just reading their tweets, this week I decided to check their website and was amazed with the wealth of information they offer, that could please basically any audience.

Why I like them and why they are different? See it for yourself. Here are a couple of examples taken from their website:

“New York is big and fast and overwhelming until you realize it’s on a grid, very logical and that most people are nice and willing to help as long as you’re quick about it.

Rule No.1 — walk to the right. If you need to meander or stop, step to the side. Don’t walk three or four abreast unless the sidewalk’s huge and no one’s around. You must share.

Rule No. 2 — speed it up. This goes for everything, including having your MetroCard out before you reach the turnstile, knowing what show you want to see when you get to the TKTS window, and just moving out of the way when you get off the elevator or to the top of the stairs. Got a question? Be concise. People are a) busy, b) don’t want to get sucked into a scam, and c) irritated with slow tourists.

If you go to the Statue of Liberty, reserve a monument pass in advance. If you go up the Empire State Building, spend the extra $15 to get to the 102nd floor (in addition to the 86th like everyone else.)

A cab is for hire only if his numbered/lettered lights are lit on his roof. Let people exit the subway car before you push your way on. Be careful with your umbrellas, don’t stand in the doorway letting cold air in while you decide whether you’re coming or going, and fight the urge to eat and shop at the same dull chain restaurants and stores you’ve got at home. Spend your money at the interesting places so Manhattan doesn’t turn into a generic Disneyfied strip mall. Thank you.”

So anyone can tell you how and where to get tickets for the Subway, but NewYorkology also tells you how not to be run over then taking the train!

Putting the fun stuff aside, the same page that gives the tips above also has a list of current prices for the basics, such as MetroCard, Broadway shows, the cost of a cab from the airport to downtown, tickets for the Empire State building and a cupcake…. all things you are likely to do in your first (or 100th!) visit to the city. Similarly, a list of free museums as well as links to tours in different neighborhoods and much more. All this just in the one page I mentioned, so you can have an idea of the rest of the site.

Too much information on the wesbite and don’t know where to start? That’s natural, that’s how NYC is. Start little by little, reading the basics or looking for espefic topics so you don’t get overwhelmed. Or maybe you prefer use the search box with some random keyword - you may actually many other interesting and valuable tips beyond what you’re looking for!

And don’t forget to check Cami’s posts regularly on kristraveler’s Guest Blogger section as well for great reviews and recommendations of places in Manhattan!

NewYorkology is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

Expert Flyer – How to upgrade your seats

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:01:28 +0000

I’ve used Expert Flyer’s service before, and while I’m still not convinced it was worth my $9.99 a month for finding upgradeable seats - as with other free tools such as SeatCounter (which I talk about in this post) I can track the flights I need myself – I found it useful for other features, such as the ‘Fare Information’ that would give me more options for itineraries and carriers that a typical search engine wouldn’t find.

As I said, I’m still debating if it’s worth it or not, so I may give it a try again in the future.

For those that haven’t heard of their service, here’s a recent article on the Wall Street Journal with more details.

Stuck in a middle seat? Here’s a trick for upgrading

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Nov 16 2009 | By Scott McCartney

Can’t get the seat you want on an upcoming flight? Now there’s a waiting list, of sorts.

ExpertFlyer.com, a subscription service popular with hard-core road warriors, has added a feature that will alert you when a currently occupied seat you want opens up for a flight. If you want a specific seat, such as a bulkhead or exit row, you can get notice if it becomes available. If you are stuck in a middle seat, for example, you can sign up for alerts for any aisle or window seat.

ExpertFlyer.com

A screen shot from ExpertFlyerLike fares, seat inventory jumps around a lot before a flight departs. Sometimes airlines block seats and then open them. Other times people with reserved seats cancel or change flights. Seats open up as premium customers get upgraded. But unless you keep checking the seat map for your flight, it’s hard to follow. ExpertFlyer can now check for you on 84 different airlines around the world.

ExpertFlyer costs $4.99 a month for basic service, or $9.99 a month (or $99.99 for one year) for premium service. The seat alert function is available only with premium service. Two other nifty features that alert you when specific frequent flier award tickets and upgrades become available, or when a specific fare class such as discounted business class opens up, are also available only with premium service. The fare class and upgrade/award alert features work on only 22 airlines, but include Delta, American, Alaska and Hawaii in the U.S.

ExpertFlyer’s bread-and-butter service for heavy duty travelers allows users to peer into the booking inventory of airlines. ExpertFlyer lets you hunt for a specific fare class that may come with upgrade privileges, for example, but you have to immerse yourself in the arcane world of airline booking codes.

The growing number of alert tools available to frequent fliers can really help cut through the complexity of airline tickets. Yapta.com offers alerts on fares for specific flights you may be shopping, or specific hotels. FlightStats.com offers alerts on flight delays and cancellations. Airlines and larger booking sites are offering more and more, and savvy travelers are finding they can help. Share some of your favorites with other travelers in comments.

Expert Flyer – How to upgrade your seats is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

Finding number of seats available in a flight

admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:58:53 +0000

I was trying to get an upgrade for my next flight to Hawaii, though upgrade seats were sold out. And since there’s no waitlist for upgrades, I have to check on a daily basis to see if anything opens, otherwise try my luck 2 hours before the flight at the airport.

SeatCounter is a simple website, though makes the process much easier to check number of open seats available under each booking class on several airlines at once. While I could still find that information through other ways, I like that I can get the info I need in one step and even compare with other airlines if I’m comparing flights before booking. No spending 15 mins on phone with customer service anymore… now I just have to cross my fingers for two seats to open up on class U for Hawaii and vacation here I go!

Finding number of seats available in a flight is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

Save miles when booking your award trip

admin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:44:43 +0000

Gary Leff, from the View from the Wing blog, launched a service for booking award trips – something I hadn’t heard so far though long needed. While his service is not cheap, and you may not see the value for a simple round trip domestic travel, his customized and detailed work can come in handy for those with complex itineraries, international trips, and other, especially when trying to combine miles and points from different programs and/or for many passengers.

For more information on this service, go to BookYourAward

Save miles when booking your award trip is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

Travel Insurance – the peace of mind that airlines can’t offer anymore….

admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:11:34 +0000

As airlines change their policies daily and add fees or restrictions to every step of yours from the buying process until you land back home, travel insurance may be the only alternative left for you to have some flexibility and peace of mind in your trip.

InsureMyTrip is a ‘travel insurance aggregator’, basically a one-stop-shop site that allows you to quote different types of insurances, compare policies and buy the one that best fits to your need.

I haven’t used their services yet, but I’m guessing that in a situation where you need help (with your luggage, ticket refund, etc), any third party customer service will be better than of the airlines these days…..

Travel Insurance – the peace of mind that airlines can’t offer anymore…. is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

New York for Free? Yes we can!

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:41:26 +0000

We all know New York is a very expensive city, but is it possible to enjoy the city on a tight budget? See the article below to get the most of Manhattan for much less than you expected.

New York for Free

From the Guardian, Oct 17th, 2009 | Rob Grader

Follow our four-day itinerary – including Broadway shows, guided tours and live comedy and music – and you needn’t spend a dime

09:00 Start your trip with some of the most spectacular views of the city skyline and have a close encounter with the Statue of Liberty during a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. Yeah, I know, this is a pretty obvious suggestion, but there’s a good reason for it. You simply won’t find a better way to see New York, short of shelling out a couple of hundred dollars for a helicopter tour. Hop on the ferry at Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan, and when you reach Staten Island, turn around and get on the next ferry back. The round trip is free and will take you about an hour. nyc.gov/dot; subway 1 to South Ferry, subway 5 to Bowling Green or R,W to Whitehall Street South Ferry.

10:00 Just a short walk from the ferry terminal is The Old Customs House. This impressive building, one of New York’s most spectacular Beaux-Arts buildings, is home to the equally impressive Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Indian. The museum’s collections include more than 800,000 artefacts and rare works of art and interactive exhibits including first-hand oral histories, music and crafts that trace the entire history of the native cultures of the Americas.

One Bowling Green, between State and Whitehall Streets.

13:00 Walk up Broadway to the historic Trinity Church on Wall Street for a classical music concert. The one-hour performance takes place every Thursday at 1pm. Upcoming performers includes the Moscow String Quartet, soprano Alison Trainer and Slovenia’s Slowind Quintet.

74 Trinity Place, Broadway and Wall Street.

15:30 A visit to the financial district is not complete without a little money talk. A few blocks away is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which offers fascinating tours around this shrine to capitalism. Exhibits include rare coins, impressive counterfeits and a chance to get your hands on a gleaming brick of gold – almost (sorry, it’s a hologram). The highlight of the tour is the trip down to the gold vaults, 80ft below street level, resting on Manhattan bedrock, where about $180bn worth of gold bars are stacked up. The bad news, you definitely won’t get your hands on these; the good news, they do hand out free cash to visitors at the end of the tour . . . really.OK, the cash happens to be out of date and shredded, but it is free. Tours run throughout the day. Make reservations about two weeks in advance through their website.

33 Liberty Street, between Nassau and William Streets.

19:00 While prices for Broadway shows easily top $100, it is possible to see almost any off-Broadway shows (and even some on Broadway) for free by being a volunteer usher – even if you are just visiting for a few days. Here’s how it works: get in touch with the theatre at least a couple of weeks before you arrive. Make a “reservation” to volunteer for a specific date. On that night, show up at the theatre about an hour before curtain-up to help seat the paying folks, then before the lights go down, grab a seat and enjoy the show. Some theatres ask you to wear black trousers and a white shirt to look official, while others just ask that you look respectable. Some theatres fill their ushering slots far in advance, but here are three top-flight, off-Broadway venues where you can generally be sure to land a reservation with just a bit of planning: New York Theater Workshop; Performance Space 122; The Cherry Lane Theatre.

Late night snack Just a short walk from PS 122 or New York Theater Workshop, be sure to stop into the Black Hound New York bakery for some tantalising treats. Black Hound is one of New York’s finest bakeries and every day they set out generous individually wrapped samples of their meticulously crafted sweets. If you’re lucky, you will get a taste of their Busy Bee Cake, a chocolatey, almond-filled mousse and marzipan concoction that melts in the mouth.

170 Second Avenue at 11th Street; 001 212-979-9505.

Day two: Friday

Midday Sure, Times Square is over-run with tourists, but you can get an insider’s view of the “Crossroads of the World” on a free guided tour. The 90-minute (sometimes much longer) tour takes you inside some of the neighbourhood’s most notable theatres, churches and historic buildings, bringing the district’s colourful history to life with little-known stories, intriguing facts and architectural oddities. And the characters leading the tours slip in enough puns and jokes along the way to make sure this tour of the theatre district is more comedy than tragedy.

Times Square Visitors Center, Seventh Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets, +212 768 1560, timessquarenyc.org.

Another tour option is Grand Central Terminal at 12.30pm. The tour is lead by architectural historian Justin Ferate who gives an insider’s view on one of the world’s largest train stations and one of the great architectural wonders of New York. The free 90-minute tour also includes explorations of the Chrysler Building and The News Building, two of the most iconic buildings in the New York skyline.

Every Friday 12.30 pm (Sculpture court, 120 Park Avenue at 42nd Street and Park Avenue, grandcentralpartnership.org).

Afternoon Spend a couple of hours exploring the high-end art galleries of Chelsea. The 150 or so galleries in the area feature the works of some of the world’s most prominent artists and are free to browse any time. Here are a few of the big-shot galleries where you are likely to find works by such artists as photographer Robert Mallelthorpe, Chuck Close, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol: PaceWildenenstein (545 West 22nd Street), Cheim & Read (547 West 25th Street), Gagosian Gallery (555 West 24th Street).

Afternoon snack After the galleries, walk a few blocks over to the gourmet shops of the Chelsea Marketplace. Many of the shops are quite generous with their samples of breads, brownies, cookies, fruit, gelato and even wine tastings.

75 Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets.

16:00 Continue your art tour by slipping into any number of New York’s most renowned museums offering free admission on Fridays. The Museum of Modern Art has free hours from 4-8pm, where you can see everything from Monet and Cézanne to Performance Art and classic films. MoMA’s free hours are popular, so prepare to queue to get in. The American Folk Art Museum next door has free hours from 5.30-7.30pm, including free musical performances. The museum’s exhibits include unique paintings, drawings, textiles, sculptures and objects by unschooled artists spanning the past three centuries. Three other museums with free hours on Friday are the Whitney Museum of American Art (6-9pm); the Asia Society (6-9pm); and the International Center for Photography (5-8pm).

21:00 Settle in for an evening of intimate acoustic music at The Postcrypt Coffee House on the campus of Columbia University. This is one of the great hidden treasures of New York City. Since 1964, every Friday and Saturday night during the school year, this small performance space (only about 25 seats) has been filled with the sounds of some of the top names in folk music. Past performers have included Jeff Buckley, Shawn Colvin, Ani DiFranco, The Roaches, Lisa Loeb, and Suzanne Vega. Nowhere else in the city presents folk music in a purer setting. Here, acoustic means acoustic: no mics, no nothing. And, best of all, you get free popcorn.

Columbia University, Basement of St Paul’s Chapel, 116th Street & Broadway +212-854-1953.

Day three: Saturday

09:00 When in New York, do as the Sex and the City gals might do. And I don’t mean rush out and buy yourself a pair of Manolos. Start the day with a free yoga class at Lululemon’s Union Square location. The yoga store pushes back their racks of stretchy pants and $90 yoga mats for a class led by teachers from nearby yoga studios.

15 Union Square West at East 15th Street (+212-675-5286).

Snack After the class, cross the street to the Union Square Farmers Market where you can fill up on samples of the freshest and tastiest fruits, vegetables, cheeses and baked goods in the city.

Open Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Afternoon Explore Central Park, “New York’s backyard”, with guided walks led by knowledgeable volunteers from the Central Park Conservancy . Every week they offer a full schedule of strolls through the park’s many hidden nooks and crannies. After the tour, work up a sweat by borrowing a free Field Day Kit from the North Meadow Recreation Center(mid-park at 97th Street, +212-348-4867). The kits include sports equipment and games (basketball, football, sponge Nerf balls, waffle bats, horseshoe sets, hula hoops and more). Birdwatchers and naturists can stop by Belvedere Castle to borrow a Discover Kit (binoculars, field guides and maps) to explore the lush paths of the Rambles on your own (mid-park at 79th Street, +212 772 0210).

19:00 Head down to Greenwich Village for an evening of music at two of New York’s most unique venues. Arthur’s Tavern has been jamming jazz and blues fans into its small club since 1937 – and it looks like it. But don’t be put off by the tattered posters on the walls. Every night you can depend on fine music and a raucous crowd. Then cross the street to The Duplex , the ultimate piano bar, where you can join in as your bartender, waiter, Broadway performers, drag queens and that shy-looking chubby guy sitting next to you all take turns belting out show tunes and pop songs. There’s no cover charge at either place but they do expect you to buy a couple of drinks and cough up a few bucks for the tips jar.

Day four: Sunday

11:00 Take a guided tour down Orchard Street, which will take you from the days of pushcarts selling schmatas and immigrants living 12 to a room in dangerous tenements, to ultra-hip clubs and gleaming new condos. Nowhere else in the city does old New York bump into the new as it does on the Lower East Side. The two-hour tour down Orchard Street starts at 11am, every Sunday from April to December.

lowereastsideny.com. Start at Katz’s Delicatessen (East Houston & Ludlow Street, +212 226 9010).

16:00 Every Sunday afternoon, the wonderful Marjorie Eliot welcomes jazz lovers into her North Harlem apartment for a free concert. Get there early to find a spot in her living room, hallway, kitchen or any other place that you can squeeze into to hear some of the purest, sweetest, most swingin’ tunes you will hear anywhere, for any price.

The music gets under way at 4pm at 555 Edgecombe Avenue between 159th and 160th Streets.

21:30 Enjoy some belly laughs at the Upright Citizens Brigade’s weekly free show, Assssacat 3000. UCB is one of the best comedy/improve troupes anywhere. Don’t be surprised if the performers include well-known guest comedians, such as founding member Amy Poelher, along with their regular company members. Tickets are distributed at 8.15pm and the show is very popular, so get there early to queue.

307 West 26th Street at Eight Avenue, +212-366-9176.

Midnight Count the money left in your wallet, then collapse!

• Rob Grade is author of The Cheap Bastard’s Guide to New York, $10.17.

Source: The Guardian – New York for Free

New York for Free? Yes we can! is a post from: www.kristraveler.com

8 things an airline would never tell you

admin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:49:48 +0000

This would actually be quite funny if it wasn’t so real….

8 things an airline would never tell you - Insiders expose little-known facts the industry would rather you didn’t think about

By Alexander Basek | Updated: 5:49 p.m. ET Sept. 1, 2009

“Airport luggage scales often lie.”

It’s bad enough that the airlines charge a fee for overweight luggage, varying from $39 to $300 per bag industrywide. But it’s galling that they may also hit you with the fee by mistake.

At JFK last November, New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs found that 14 percent of the airport’s scales were not properly calibrated.

At Boston’s Logan airport, 10 percent of the scales recently inspected gave incorrect readings.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel has discovered numerous busted scales at area airports.

And the list goes on.

What to do? Stand up for yourself, especially when a scale barely tips the balance into the “overweight” category.

Brandon Macsata, executive editor of the D.C.-based lobbying group Association for Airline Passenger Rights advises passengers to weigh their bags at home first, and if the airport scale comes up with a different number, insist that your bags be weighed on a different scale.

Yes, it’s come to that.

“Our air may make you sick.”

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether potentially harmful fumes have been circulating in airplane cabins.

Between 1999 and 2008, air became contaminated on 926 flights, reports the FAA, without specifying any possible health risks.

Currently, the agency is looking at a particular type of “fume event” that involves “bleed air,” or air that’s been compressed by the airplane’s engines.

If there’s a malfunction in plane equipment, the air that’s fed into the cabin can be contaminated with chemical residues from engine oil — specifically TCP, or tricresyl phosphate.

“Passengers may have symptoms like tremors,” says Clement Furlong, a research professor of genome sciences and medicine at the University of Washington.

So far, federal reviews of the research have been inconclusive about whether bleed air actually endangers the health of passengers and flight crews, though two civil lawsuits about fume events are under way.

“That nonstop flight you booked? We can add a layover to it — without explanation.”

Think you scored a sweet fare on that transcontinental flight? Think again.

You may be making a previously unscheduled layover. Airlines can cancel your nonstop and rebook passengers onto flights with connections, which are obviously less desirable.

Advises Brett Snyder, author of “The Cranky Flier” and a former pricing analyst at America West: As soon as you find out that your nonstop flight has been canceled, check to see if there’s another nonstop option. If there is, call the airline and ask — nicely — to be put on it.

But if nonstop service on the route has disappeared, threaten to switch to another carrier for the trip. Major airlines will typically agree to refund your money without any fees if you refuse to accept a new, multistop flight that will arrive at your destination more than two hours later than you were originally scheduled.

“We wouldn’t tell you right away if there’s an emergency.”

The FAA leaves it up to the airline to decide if it wants to tell passengers about an engine failure or other significant crisis. And many flight crews opt to keep their lips sealed.

The reason? Flight crews don’t want to scare passengers or say something they’ll regret later.

“In one recent emergency, the cockpit crew was faulted for making a public announcement before some of the required procedures were accomplished,” explains Kent Wien, a pilot for a U.S. carrier.

So attendants tend to err on the side of being secretive to avoid trouble.

Last June, passengers traveling from Brussels to Newark on Continental Airlines were not informed when the captain died during the flight. The plane continued along its scheduled route with nary a peep from the rest of the crew, beyond a cryptic question: “Is there a doctor on board?”

“When we let you pick your seat assignment, we were only joking.”

As the airlines decrease the number of seats they fly in an attempt to eke out a profit, they’re swapping out larger planes for smaller ones more often.

Whenever fliers are put on a new plane, seat assignments are scrambled. A traveler may end up in a middle seat he or she would never have selected.

If it happens to you, there’s not much you can do — airlines aren’t obligated to honor any seat assignment.

“Passengers are actually purchasing a fare and not a seat,” says Macsata of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights.

Checking in online 24 hours prior to departure is often the best you can do to boost your chances of getting the seat assignment you want. Print your boarding pass with your seat assignment on it before you get to the airport as proof in case you need to argue with a gate agent over a last-minute switcheroo.

“Our planes are antiques.”

Compared to the rest of the world, we’re flying the airplane equivalent of grandma’s Cutlass Supreme — except Uncle Sam isn’t interested in paying cash for these clunkers.

American owns 268 MD-80 class airplanes, with an average age of 18 years old. Meanwhile, thanks to a geriatric fleet of DC-9s, Delta and Northwest’s average fleet age is 13 years old.

In contrast, Emirates has an average fleet age of about 5 years. Singapore Air’s is 6 years. And, while Ryanair is often faulted for lacking basic amenities, its planes average less than 3 years of age.

Luckily, U.S. airlines aren’t having problems maintaining their aging aircraft from a safety standpoint, notes Bill Voss, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation. “There’s no real indication of anyone cutting corners,” says Voss. “Planes don’t age like wine, but they do remain flight-worthy with proper maintenance.”

The FAA doesn’t have a maximum age limit for planes, though it does require more frequent inspections for planes that have flown for more than 14 years.

So if you’ve ever wished you had a personal seatback flat-screen TV instead of having to share a view of a cathode-ray tube in the aisle — well, now you know the reason.

“Our crew is totally exhausted.”

Airline jobs are famously hard on the Circadian rhythms, and flight crews simply aren’t getting enough rest.

Pilot fatigue has been a factor in crashes that have led to over 250 fatalities in the past 16 years, including the recent crash of a Colgan Air flight to Buffalo, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The night before that accident, the copilot commuted from the West Coast to Newark while the pilot slept on a couch in a crew lounge at the airport.

Crews on reserve (that is, crews readily available for service on short notice) don’t have it much better. “On reserve, we don’t have control over what we’re doing,” says Heather Poole, a flight attendant for a U.S. carrier and a contributor to travel blog Gadling. “One day we’re flying a 5 a.m. departure, and the next day we’re working a red-eye. Do this for a few trips in a row — add the delays in there — and that’s when it gets bad.”

Working reserve can stretch crews to the limit. “Once during a terrible reserve month, I remember staring at my emergency exit door, thinking, Is it armed? Is it armed? Is it armed? I could see that it was, indeed, armed (the evacuation slide was attached to the door properly). But it wasn’t clicking in my brain because I was so tired.”

“Your ticket might not be with the airline you booked.”

Two airlines may sell seats on the same flight, a sales strategy called code sharing. You may think you’ll be traveling on one airline, but you actually fly on another.

The situation seems harmless enough but can cause major headaches for passengers. For example, most major airlines farm out their short, commuter flights to regional airlines.

“By and large, you haven’t heard of Chautauqua or Republic, but you may be flying them when you click to buy a ticket on Continental,” explains Randy Petersen, publisher of InsideFlyer. “With two airlines involved, there’s a constant passing of the buck. Worse, many regional carriers operating on code shares are exempt from reporting their on-time statistics. And God forbid if you need to file a claim with them for lost baggage.”

Source: 8 things airline will never tell you – MSNBC / Budget Travel

8 things an airline would never tell you is a post from: www.kristraveler.com