Seattle Seahawks and Other Travel News . . .

What do those Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawk’s have to do with travel?
Well, plenty in the Pacific Northwest!

And as the football season gets underway, several Seattle hotels are paying tribute to the "12th Man" as the fans are known, by offering some interesting packages. Take Seattle’s Kimpton Hotels (Alexis, Hotel Monaco and Hotel Vintage), for example:


Each of the three Kimpton hotels is offering the ‘12^th Man’ Package (Thursday – Sunday on home game weekends) which includes:

· Accommodations
· Poster making bar in the lobby for game days
· Upgrade (based on availability) for guests who wear a 12^th Man jersey upon check-in
· In-room gold fish named for Seahawk player (i.e. Russell Gilson, Richard Merman, etc)
Remember to use the rate code 12MAN when making reservations: www.kimptonhotels.com

More Travel Tidbits from this week’s headlines

Web based travel companies are coming under scrutiny in various metropolitan areas, among them:

Boston, Mass., USA:  The City Council is considering restrictions on ride-sharing services like Sidecar, Lyft and Uber and lodging websites like Airbnb, HomeAway and Flipkey. – reports  The Associated Press

Austin, Texas, USA:  has set up a licensing system with an annual fee and limits on the number of units in a building – or houses in a residential neighborhood – that can be rented at a given time. – reports The Associated Press.

Portland, Oregon, USA – allows single-family homeowners – but not apartment and condo owners – to offer short-term rentals as long as they notify neighbors and complete a safety inspection. –  reports The Associated Press

London’s Gatwick Airport, England – British Airways has added three new routes from Gatwick airport to its 2015 schedule:  Seville (Spain), Funchal (Madeira) and Las Palmas (Gran Canaria) will be introduced from March 2015.  They join the new routes  for next year from previously announced:  Cagliari (Sardinia), Heraklion (Crete), Rhodes (Greece) and Bodrum and Dalaman (Turkey).

Also beginning in December are the new winter sun and ski destinations of Fuerteventura (Caneries), Friedrichshafen (Germany) and Grenoble (Switzerland). –reports BTN, The Business Travel News

 English football fans take note:

London, England:  Coming soon: The Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium – 99 Sir Matt Busby Way, a location that is recognized by sports fans all over the world will open as  Hotel Football on Dec. 8, 2014. Behind the project are former Man U teammates, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville. Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt, all members of what is known as “the class of ‘92”, are also involved.
The 133-room hotel will offer the ultimate match day experience, as well as being home to The Old Trafford Supporters Club.” –  reports BTN, The Business Travel News

That’s it for now ~ happy travels to you! Hope to see you back here soon and do bring some friends and family with you!  If you’ve not yet signed up to receive posts in your inbox, do so by using the box to the right on our home page. 


And if you liked these news tidbits let us know and we will keep them coming ~

Travel Planning: Moving Daydreams to Dates

We’ve been living in Hawaii this last month – watching palm trees sway before an azure sea and sky; a most pleasant change from the dark, gray (and very wet) winter days that exist at our more-full-time Pacific Northwest home.

But no matter where we are, January is a time to get serious about the year’s future big-trip travel plans. 

We used our laid-back days to move our daydreaming to dates on the calendar.

As all travelers know, nabbing frequent flier seats and booking rooms on hotel points, isn’t something that can wait until the last minute.

And travel – despite continuing dire economic reports in the media -- is on an upswing. If you don’t believe that, just take a walk through Waikiki – or book a hotel room there (and prepare for sticker shock).
 


I’d set my sights on Greece for a spring trip and so focused on it were we, that quite frankly we hadn’t been thinking about fall until The Scout found us an incredible deal while Web surfing. 


A springtime trip to our favorite places in Greece was my day dream for celebrating my summer ‘Big One Birthday’.  The Scout has nailed down the frequent flier miles and purchased tickets that will get us to Athens and back. We are using the ‘where the wind blows us-or the ferry sails’ approach to travels after reaching Athens.

And then there’s the Fall trip. . .you won’t believe where we are headed or the deal that we got! I’ll tell you about it on Travel Tip Tuesday. 

In  the meantime, a number of you’ve asked how we go about finding deals.  To check The Scout’s favorite resources, visit our Deal Finder page.

Travel Tip Tuesday: Ridin’ the Rails for Free!

Mary and her husband, who live in south central Washington State, will be traveling round-trip to Chicago aboard Amtrak this fall – on free tickets – thanks to Amtrak’s Rewards Program and a Chase credit card offer she received.

That is a savings of $636.

The Amtrak card – which doesn’t have an annual fee -- works much like those cards that offer airline points.  Mary received 16,000 points from Amtrak for joining the rewards program and another 16,000 from Chase for signing up for the card. The Chase points were added to her Amtrak account as soon as she made a purchase using that card.  It took between a month and six weeks for the points to be posted.

Once they appeared in her account, she put in their travel dates and destination ‘hoping to get a few dollars off the cost of the tickets’. Instead, she found that the amount of points required for the trip was 32,000. Her points paid for the trip. She’s booked it!

“I already had booked a neat brownstone in the Lincoln Park area and will use the card to pay for it and hopefully accrue some more points by next May, when we plan to take Amtrak to Carmel,” she wrote.

Mary’s note came right before news of the latest round of price increases on airline tickets. If you’re tired of airports and want to give Amtrak a try, you might want to also check out the Amtrak credit card site. (Offers can change so you may not find the same deal that Mary got.)

If you missed last week’s money-saving Travel Tip,’ click here to read it.

If you’ve got a tip – place to stay, a good deal, a way to save travel dollars – send us an email to travelnwrite@msn.com Be sure to include details and we’ll use it in a future Travel Tip Tuesdays! 

And, if this is your first visit to TravelnWrite, welcome! Hope you’ll return soon or better yet, sign up to have TravelnWrite posts delivered to your inbox.

Travel Tip Tuesday: The Big, Fat Check’s in the Mail

We are skeptical of things ‘too good to be true’. So with skepticism at an all-time high, we tried out an on-line shopping site that had been recommended by a trusted friend, although it really did sound too good to be true. 

But you know what? 

In this case it was true! 

We’ve since received nearly $200 in rebates from that site simply by logging into it and then heading to our favorite on-line retailers, especially travel sites.

We don’t book any travel related item – airlines, cars, or hotels – without first checking to see if they are listed on Ebates.  And most are found there – the site has some 1,500 participating on-line stores now. 

Just a few examples: 
Hotels: Expedia, Hotwire, Hotels.com, Courtyard, Days Inn, Fairmont, Intercontinental;
Cars: Budget and Enterprise
Air:  CheapoAir, Air France, American, Alaska Air.

We’ve also purchased travel clothes like my Chico’s Zenergy, (that’s what I am wearing in the photo) and Land’s End outdoor clothing, our Clark’s walking shoes and my Baggallini purses and totes (pictured above) through Ebates.

While checking the site this morning I see that Amazon is now among its vast inventory of stores, so our travel books and novels will be ordered via Ebates as well.

With a nod to our Canadian readers, the site offers many of your stores as well.


Ebates  does as it claims: “Big Fat Checks” as they call them arrive quarterly.  We’ve recommended the program to so many family and friends that we decided to let you in on this ‘deal finder’ as well.  We’ve added it as a recommendation on  Joel’s Deal Finder page as well.

Ebates was founded in 1998 by two Deputy District Attorneys in the Silicon Valley, California. They used to prosecute on-line fraud and identity theft before starting this venture.

Click on any of the highlighted Ebates words in this post to go directly to that site and check it out!

Note: As with all our tips, this is intended to show you how we save travel dollars.  We’ve not been paid to promote Ebates.  (In full disclosure, if you click a link on this post and then buy from a business listed there, we will get credit for the referral and you get a bonus as well. All  Ebates customers can  participate in the referral program  - and you’ll probably want to do so after you see how it works!)