I began my two week vacation to the Hawaiian Islands on Monday. During the trip I’ll be visiting Lanai, Maui and The Big Island with reviews, photos and even a few videos to follow. So, if you’re stuck at work for the next two weeks but would like to take a virtual vaction, feel free to live vicariously through my travels.

I arrived at DFW airport a bit early, so since there was time to kill I did it in the travel lounge. Terminal D has every airline lounge imaginable, so being a member of the Priority Pass program I stopped by the club for some refreshments and relaxation.

The lounge in terminal D is quite nice with lots of free snacks, drinks, and good work space. There were only a couple of other people in the club at the time so it was very quite. It also had some great views of the runway and airplanes, and I snapped this shot from the club.
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I’ve been talking about how crappy airline service has become lately, and I just read this article from the Wharton School which I thought I’d share:

Wharton professor Serguei Netessine’s trip from Philadelphia to Dallas in May was an all-too-typical day in the sky.

After circling Dallas for an hour because of stormy weather, his flight was diverted to San Antonio where he spent several hours on the runway waiting for the storms in Dallas to clear and eating a bag of peanuts for lunch. He arrived in Dallas five hours late and missed most of his scheduled meetings, rescheduled his appointments for later in the day and succeeded in booking — actually overbooking, as it turned out — what he thought would be an evening flight back to Philadelphia. He had no choice but to fly home the next day after paying $400 for the only room available at the airport Park Hyatt.

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Everyone is aware of American Airlines and most other carriers elite status levels. These are the people who are invited to board the planes first, get free upgrades, and even get the best seats in the first few rows of the economy seating section (you might not have known that).

Normally in order to achieve elite status you would need to fly at least 25,000 qualifying miles in order to achieve the lowest level of Gold, or 50,000 to earn Platinum. However it is actually possible to get your upgrades with only 5,000 or 10,000 miles respectively.
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I travel. A lot! What’s a lot? Well, in the last 8 weeks I’ve been on 20 different airplanes. (And I’m writing this while waiting for a flight now…) And you know what I’m sick of even more than the overpriced airlines and late arrivals? The other passengers.

I’ve developed the following list of rules that people need to follow for the general betterment of mankind when traveling by air. If you violate them, just know that I - and probably everyone else - am cursing you and wishing horrible things upon your bloodline.
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Sometimes it can be difficult to decide whether or not to go ahead and book that air travel. Prices could go down, or they could go up, so what’s a boy to do? Well here are two sites to help you solve this dilemma.

When you are in the early planning stages, pop on over to Farecast and tell them your destination. Within seconds you’ll get a prediction as to whether the prices are expected to rise or fall for that particular route and you can make your decision accordingly.
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My wife and I were planning on accompanying my brother and soon to be sister-in-law to the Big Island of Hawaii in June, and as a result I did quite a bit of planning for the trip. Being cost efficient is important to all of us, but making sure we end up with decent accommodations at a good value is possibly even more important.

I thought I would document my search methodology in case it helped others to find and book their travel online. Please note that I am very meticulous when it comes to travel planning. I’m picky about where I stay, how I get there, and want to know what I’m going to do while I’m there. I even make printouts and carry a small binder with me. Anal, I know… but it works for me.
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When I booked a flight on American Airlines to travel to San Francisco for my wife and myself for vacation in a couple of weeks, I had no idea the hassle I was signing up for.

I made the booking about 3 weeks ago directly on AA.com, and at the time I was certain that I had signed up for the 9:45am flight. Well, today as I was booking travel back and forth to D.C. for the next few weeks I decided to take a look at that old reservation because I’ll be traveling back from DC the night before we are scheduled to leave the next morning.

So, I opened the reservation to take a look only to discover that there is an error. The flight was supposed to be in the morning, but instead it’s listed in the evening!
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The holiday travel season is upon us, so the airlines will be overbooking flights like no other time of year. Add to that the unpredictability of weather this time of year and you’ve got both a recipe for disaster and for opportunity.

As a former VP of Sales, it’s fair to say I did a bit of traveling. So here are my top tips should you find yourself in a position to volunteer to be bumped from a flight. Keep in mind that if you do this, you will be inconvienced, and it can really suck. So make sure that you get enough to make it worth your while or… just don’t do it.
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Within the last two weeks American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, along with the cities of Dallas and Ft. Worth, have come to an agreement to basically repeal the Wright amendment - a law which has prevented Southwest from flying directly from Dallas to anywhere other than within Texas and a few border states.

This is a huge deal for anyone that ever flys in or out of the DFW area. Since American Airlines is based out of DFW International airport they have had a stranglehold on flights inter-state flights.

To give one example, when I was living in Maryland I could get a non-stop flight on Southwest from BWI for $200 round trip. But to go to Dallas on AA cost at least $300. And Dallas is actually a shorter flight!
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