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Memorial Day travel expected to drop slightly for SoCal residents [video chat] – Los Angeles Times

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:12:12 +0000

Are staycations coming back into fashion?

The number of Southern Californians expected to travel at least 50 miles for the Memorial Day weekend will drop about 2.1% compared with last year.

The annual forecast by the Auto Club of Southern California concluded that about 60,000 fewer Southern Californians will travel for the three-day weekend, compared with last year, with the biggest drop coming among air travelers.

That will bring the total number of vacationers leaving home for the weekend to 2.53 million.

The number of Southern Californians traveling by air will drop 12.5%. The number of travelers by car, 2.17 million, should stay about the same as last year, the Auto Club said.

The Auto Club forecast is based on economic research by Colorado-based IHS Global Insight.

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the Los Angeles and Long Beach metropolitan area has dropped about 9 cents in the past week to $ 4.08 but is up about 13 cents from a month ago, according to the Auto Club.

PHOTOS: Top 10 Southern California companies

An earlier forecast by the travel website TripAdvisor.com offered a more optimistic outlook for weekend travel, predicting a 6% increase in travel throughout the U.S.

The TripAdvisor forecast, based on a survey of 1,200 U.S. residents, concluded that 53% of travelers will spend about the same for the holiday compared with last year, while 25% plan to spend more.

According to the TripAdvisor survey, the top destinations for U.S. travelers will be New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C.

For Southern California travelers, the Auto Club said the top vacation spots will be San Diego, Las Vegas, San Francisco, the Central Coast and the Grand Canyon.

ALSO:

Mid-size airports suffer biggest cuts in airline service

Many fliers willing to pony up for better seats, poll finds

LAX fails to land in top 100 ranking of world’s best airports

Travel – Google News

3 Ways to Get the Most Out of Travel Rewards – ABC News

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:40:19 +0000

Airline miles are some of the most coveted credit-card rewards out there, but they’re also among the least understood. That’s simply because they’re hard to pin down. The value of the traditional reward mile is fickle, changing from one booking to the next and with each swipe of your credit card.

To get a handle on your miles and how to use them best, read on below, where we cover the basics on miles redemption. Who knows? You might be able to squeeze another summer vacation out of this.

Before we leap into the details, you should wrap your head around this concept: there are two types of miles out there, and they’re great for very different purposes (more on that below).

There’s 1) the traditional, airline-branded mile, whose value varies from booking to booking and from one day to the next. You’ll typically earn these on your airline-branded credit card. And then there’s 2) the more generalized, fixed-rate mile, which returns the same rate no matter the date. You also often have the option to redeem these for statement credit on your credit card bill.

Examples of the latter include Capital One’s No Hassle Miles, which are valued at a 1-to-1 ratio: 1-cent redemption for every mile you earn. That’s not an especially high rate – sometimes you can redeem for as many as 3 or 4 cents on each mile – but it’s a dependable one, and it can be clutch for certain types of travel.

The rule of thumb is this: during peak travel times, your miles won’t return as much as they would otherwise. It follows that holidays, when people travel the most, will give you the least flexibility with your points.

There are exceptions, but generally holidays aren’t a great time to redeem your miles – at least the traditional ones. This is the time when you’d use those fixed-rate miles, like those offered by Capital One. These are miles you’d earn on a more general travel credit card.

Other times it makes sense to book with your traditional miles, because you can redeem at crazy-high rates. You’ll usually find this is the case with international travel and on more expensive flights. There isn’t a clear breaking point in terms of price, or when miles are a good choice and when they’re not. But if a $ 100 ticket is asking for tens of thousands of miles, you should refrain from redeeming them, because a better deal will most certainly be around the corner, for a pricier flight.

International travel won’t always be cheaper with miles, thanks to taxes and fees. Airlines will often charge you for miles redemption. And on international travel, those charges can be especially severe: as much as $ 1,000, and we’re not even talking about the cost of the ticket itself!

You can avoid those high taxes and fees, though, if your miles are versatile enough. Depending on the airline, you’ll have opportunities to transfer your miles to a partner, hopefully one that doesn’t gouge you for miles redemption.

Some carriers will give you more options for transfers from one airline to another. Delta is a notable winner in this arena: you can transfer to United, US Airways, American Airlines and more.

Got that? You’ve passed Miles 101. If you haven’t already picked up a credit card for rewards on travel, check out some of our favorites, namely the following:

• The Chase Sapphire Preferred: a 40,000-point signup bonus and 2 percent rewards on dining and travel – what’s not to love?

• The Capital One Venture cards: Two cards, one with an annual fee and one without. The former returns higher rewards – 2 points on every dollar you spend! – so the fee may be worth it to you.

• The British Airways card: The best signup bonus out there, with 50,000 Avios – that’s the British Airways-branded mile, redeemable on their flights as well as other carriers, like American Airlines.

Now go get ready for summer vacation!

This work is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Mike Anderson is an analyst for NerdWallet, a personal finance company dedicated to helping the individual consumer make informed decisions with their wallet.

Travel – Google News

Travel: 5 California music festivals; world’s sexiest nationalities – San Jose Mercury News

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:06:32 +0000

Holiday weekend music

Looking to get away for the Memorial Day weekend? Music’s a top choice in California, with festivals both new and renewed.

Down south, San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter is putting on its second annual event showcasing local musicians. To the north, Sacramento’s world-renowned festival is marking its 40th anniversary by highlighting Latin, blues and zydeco.

Here are five to consider:

May 24-27: Sacramento Music Festival

May 24-26: California Roots Festival (Monterey)

May 25: Gaslamp Music & Art Festival (San Diego)

May 25-26: Santa Cruz Blues Festival

May 25-26: Cajun & Blues Music Festival (Simi Valley)

Sexiest nationalities

If you look on travel as one big dating (scoring?) opportunity, you might as well know the odds and the competition.

A destination dating site, MissTravel.com, polled about 44,000 people on the world’s sexiest nationalities.

Nearly half the women rated “accent” as the most attractive quality in men; not surprisingly, they ranked British men No. 1 and Irish men No. 2 on the desirability list.

A plurality (34 percent) of men who were surveyed put “body type” on the top of their list. Their top two: Colombian and Brazilian women.

Contact Linda Zavoral at travel@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow her at Twitter.com/buh_byeTravel.

Travel – Google News

Japan Basks In Its New Position As An Affordable Travel Destination – Forbes

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:34:42 +0000

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Or, you can log in or sign up using Forbes.

Travel – Google News

Facing furloughs, fewer people in DC region plan to travel over Memorial Day … – Washington Post

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:59:18 +0000

With thousands of the Washington region’s federal workers facing the prospect of furloughs, fewer people say they plan to travel this Memorial Day weekend than last year.

The AAA annual survey found that 2 percent fewer people — a total of 874,000 — said they expected to travel more than 50 miles from home.

“The wonder is so many area residents are still traveling despite the fact furlough notices are going out June 5, and the reality of workers coping with the payroll tax hike,” said John B. Townsend II of AAA. “We will see double-digit decreases in the number of persons flying and in personal leisure traveling by train, bus and other transportation modes. Yet, automobile travel will only experience the slightest shrinkage.”

Townsend said that came as something of a surprise since gas prices have soared in the weeks leading up to the holiday weekend. This is the first time in four years that prices have increased just before Memorial Day. In the previous three years they dropped by an average of 14 cents a gallon in the six weeks leading up to Memorial Day weekend.

“Nearly 62 percent of local households say the rising cost of gas will have little or no impact on their holiday travel plans,” Townsend said. “Consumers probably won’t realize any comfort at the pumps until mid-June at the earliest, or see little real relief until after the Fourth of July at the latest.”

The AAA survey found that nearly 795,000 people in the Washington region say they plan to travel by car to a destination 50 or more miles from home this weekend, a fractional decrease when compared to last year’s travel.

The number who say they plan to fly somewhere — 58,500 — is a 10.1 percent decrease from those who took flights a year ago.

On average, those who say they plan to escape the Washington area for the weekend will travel 737 miles. About a third of them said they plan to vacation on the Chesapeake Bay or the Maryland and Delaware beaches.

Travel – Google News

Easier travel ahead for Conn. commuters – Boston.com

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:26:31 +0000

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — Commuters facing long delays after a train collision disrupted their route along Connecticut’s shoreline can look forward to easier traveling.

Rail service from Connecticut to New York City, along with Amtrak service between Boston and New York, was expected to resume by Wednesday morning’s rush hour on one of the nation’s oldest and most heavily traveled roadways.

Connecticut lawmakers plan hearings on the crash on the rail network they say is in need of extensive improvements.

Members of the General Assembly’s Transportation Committee said they have been briefed by state transportation officials over the years about the hefty investment Connecticut needs to make to fully upgrade the commuter rail line, including a couple of 100-year-old bridges that need to be replaced.

‘‘It’s like anything else, you know,’’ said Rep. Tony Guerrera, co-chairman of the committee. ‘‘You can have a brand-new car and it runs great, but if the roads are awful, with potholes going up and down, what good is it?’’

The Metro-North crash at rush hour Friday evening injured 72 people, including one who remained in critical condition Monday. It snarled commutes for roughly 30,000 people who normally use the train, forcing travelers to navigate a patchwork of cars, trains and buses.

For Gary Maddin, the drive from his home in Milford, Conn., to the Bridgeport train station normally takes 20 minutes. On Monday, it took an hour. Then he had a shuttle bus and a train ride before he got to his destination, Grand Central Terminal in New York.

‘‘It’s a lot,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s a nightmare just to get into the city today.’’

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said resumption of rail service is ‘‘tremendously good news.’’

Some commuters used a jury-rigged alternative that is to continue Tuesday: A shuttle train ran between New Haven and Bridgeport, where a bus connection to Stamford circumvented the accident scene, and finally customers boarded a train for New York.

Others drove themselves, and state officials nervously watched heavy traffic on two major arteries in southwest Connecticut, Interstate 95 and the Merritt Parkway.

But transportation officials were pleased that area highways were not as choked as they feared, Malloy said. He said commuters heeded his warning over the weekend about the prospect of highways becoming parking lots if all 30,000 of the usual train riders drove instead.

‘‘Today went exceedingly well,’’ the governor said. ‘‘People listened to us. Many people stayed home or worked from home.’’

Backups on the Merritt Parkway, a secondary route through Connecticut, were less than on an average Monday, and I-95 was only slightly more jammed than usual because of fog, he said.

Crews have worked around the clock since Saturday, and track rebuilding has progressed quickly, officials with the Metro-North railroad said.

Federal investigators arrived Saturday and were expected to be on site for seven to 10 days. They are looking at a broken section of rail to see if it is connected to the derailment and collision. Officials said it wasn’t clear whether the rail was broken in the crash or earlier.

The last major collision involving Metro-North occurred in 1988 when a train engineer was killed in Mount Vernon, N.Y., when one train empty of passengers rear-ended another, railroad officials said.

Associated Press writers Susan Haigh and Stephen Singer in Hartford contributed to this report.

Travel – Google News

Statement by the Press Secretary on the President’s Travel to Africa – Whitehouse.gov (press release)

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 02:53:27 +0000

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 20, 2013

President Obama and the First Lady look forward to traveling to Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania from June 26 – July 3. The President will reinforce the importance that the United States places on our deep and growing ties with countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including through expanding economic growth, investment, and trade; strengthening democratic institutions; and investing in the next generation of African leaders.

The President will meet with a wide array of leaders from government, business, and civil society, including youth, to discuss our strategic partnerships on bilateral and global issues. The trip will underscore the President’s commitment to broadening and deepening cooperation between the United States and the people of sub-Saharan Africa to advance regional and global peace and prosperity.

Travel – Google News

Statement by the Press Secretary on the President’s Travel to Africa – Whitehouse.gov (press release)

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 02:53:27 +0000

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 20, 2013

Travel – Google News

Statement by the Press Secretary on the President’s Travel to Africa – Whitehouse.gov (press release)

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 02:53:27 +0000

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 20, 2013

Travel – Google News

Cleveland chef Jonathon Sawyer’s Street Frites get thumbs-up from Travel … – Plain Dealer

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:21:05 +0000

Chef-restaurateur Jonathon Sawyer.Courtesy, SeeSaw

Restaurateur Jonathon Sawyer gets a nice thumbs-up in the June issue of Travel & Leisure magazine. In a wrap up of some of the nation’s best stadium food, the editors share a bit of praise for the owner of Noodlecat, Greenhouse Tavern and other NEO hot spots:

“At FirstEnergy Stadium, star chef [JS] Sawyer’s Street Frites serves Cleveland Browns followers modern renditions of classics like the Carnegie Dip, made with beef brisket that’s been smoked at the stadium for three weeks and topped with caramelized onions, aged cheddar, and jus.”

Atlanta’s Turner Field, Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, NY, CenturyLink Field in Seattle and others also get applause. The article adds “It’s proof of what ESPN.com writer Keith Law considers the dominant approach at stadiums these days: ‘Food in a form that’s familiar but better quality.’ “

The Greenhouse Tavern: 2038 East Fourth St., Cleveland; thegreenhousetavern.com, 216-443-0511. Sawyer’s Street Frites is located in FirstEnergy Stadium, Cleveland. A website for the stands is under construction. To read the Travel & Leisure magazine article online, visit travelandleisure.com/articles/americas-best-stadium-food

Read all the latest Restaurant Row news by clicking RESTAURANT ROW NEWS

Travel – Google News