Does anyone these days make calls on their mobile phone?
It seems that most of my communication is by text or email.
So when I heard about the T-Mobile $30 a month 5 GB plan, I decided it was time to spring for a new cell phone.
Priceless Cities: MasterCard’s World of Discounts
If you currently hold a MasterCard you may have heard about the Priceless Cities program, which offers cardholders unique opportunities and discounts in several U.S. cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.
Registering for the program gives you access to exclusive offers.
For instance, in researching our upcoming trip to New York, I found special offers for early entry or evening tickets to the fabulous holiday train show at the New York Botanical Gardens, as well as discounted tickets for standard admissions.
There were also some club, hotel, entertainment and restaurant discounts, and a special venue for viewing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
But did you know that Priceless Cities is actually an international program?
Funky Map App for New York City, San Francisco, & London
I found this way cool mapping app in iTunes for our upcoming trip to New York City.
Recce provides an animated 3-D view of New York City that allows you to zoom in and out of neighborhoods, and locate places of interest.
The app enables you to visualize very realistic representations of the city.
The developers call it “immersive 3D cities on the fly.”
Recce includes functions that allow you to locate the usual services such as restaurants and hotels.
It also pulls in information on location specific shopping and dining deals from Yelp.
The Priceline Queen Strikes Again!
As usual I’ve waited until the last minute to make reservations for our trip to New York City for Thanksgiving.
Hotel rooms are scarcer than hen’s teeth and the prices are sky high.
Every time I search online, the prices are even higher than they were just hours before.
There’s hardly any availability on Hotwire, unless you want to stay out at Laguardia or in Hoboken. I’ve given up on finding a room that will accomodate all three of us — our daughter will have to stay with her Aunt on the pull-out sofa.
Finding reasonably priced room in Chelsea, our preferred neighborhood, seems impossible. Modest properties like Four Points by Sheraton are charging nearly $300 a night — before taxes.
But wait, what’s this? A listing on Priceline’s Express Deals for a four star hotel in Midtown Manhattan for $135 a night. This wasn’t there yesterday! I wonder if I can snag this property for less by bidding on Priceline’s Name Your Own Price site?
Glass House: Jewel of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club Cabins
PATC Image
Check out my guest post today in The Girl and Globe about one of the best deals for outdoors lovers in the mid-Atlantic states – the Myron Glaser cabin and the cabin system of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC).
The club rents out over 30 rustic, but well-maintained cabins within a couple of hours drive from Washington, DC. With rental costs averaging $30 to $50 a night, these cabins are a well kept secret for family getaways.
Many of the cabins are rented to the public, but some of the properties with more amenities, including those discussed here, are only available to Club members.
With membership costs of just $35 a year, it may be a good investment for you if you live in the mid-Atlantic states.
It’s kind of like owning a vacation home or a time share that you can escape to for hiking, or just relaxing, without the expense and hassle of ownership.
I have visited many PATC cabins, but one that I always return to is Glass House, in the Massanutten Mountains of Northern Virginia.
Free Spielberg Films at the National Archives; Plus: Guastavino Vaulting
One of the things I love best about living in Washington is easy access to cultural institutions — museums, embassies, parks, monuments, and libraries — all of which offer a plethora of free programs.In many Smithsonian museums and government buildings, there are beautiful auditoriums that present concerts, lectures, and film — often free to the public.
The William G. McGowen Theater, deep inside the National Archives building on Constitution Ave., is a leading venue for the screening of documentary films.
This coming weekend, the National Archives will screen a number of Steven Spielberg films in a mini film festival honoring the director’s work, that runs November 15-18, 2013. This free, public film festival will showcase four of Spielberg’s critically acclaimed films.
November Carlson Redizor Contests Launched!
“If you could imagine having just one day to explore a city, where would you go?”
Every month, Carlson Redizor runs multiple contests for a EUR 150 gift card. The contests are designed to familiarize you with Radisson Blu and Park Inn hotel properties, and the nearby attractions.
The prize is more valuable than it may appear at first glance, because of the opportunity to stretch its value for Club Carlson Gold members. (Anyone who holds the Club Carlson Visa card is automatically a Gold member.)
The gist of the contest is to identify the your favorite attraction at each participating hotel. It’s kind of fun, because you can dream about where to use your Club Carlson points, and what to do when you get there!
For the month of November, you can enter the contest 14 times — at 14 different hotel websites.
This month’s contest runs from through November 30, 2013.
You can enter the contest with Radisson Blu and with Park Inn.
The prize can be used for accommodations, meals, or spa services at Radisson Blue, Park Inn, and Radisson Missoni properties in Europe and the Middle East.
I won this contest in September. Maybe you will be lucky too!
Vermont to DC — 4,000 Points on Amtrak — Quite the Deal!
I reeled in a great deal on a round-trip train ticket from Vermont to Washington, DC for the Thanksgiving holiday.
For just 4,000 points, you can travel the entire length of the Northeast corridor on Amtrak — over 500 miles.
I transferred 8,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to my Amtrak Guest Rewards account to purchase a round-trip ticket for my daughter.
The points transferred instantaneously!
The retail price of the round-trip ticket on her travel dates is $239.
Points redeemed in this fashion are worth 3 cents apiece. This is a value proposition!
I earned these points through routine spending on my Chase Freedom credit card.
Amtrak Guest Rewards has a number of blackout dates around popular holidays when award tickets are not offered. Fortunately, there was no problem with our preferred travel dates.
Amtrak used to run a train to Montreal — “The Montrealer” — but dropped the line when Congress cut back funding.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Drugstore
I was in attending a conference in Washington, DC yesterday and happened to stop in a CVS drugstore.
Out of habit, I checked the gift card rack, even though I had not seen Vanilla reload cards in Northern Virginia for a couple of months.
Everyone was picking up chocolate Halloween candy yet I was in search of vanilla!
There were no Vanilla reloads on the gift card rack, but when I was checking out I noticed boatloads of them by the cash registers in the front of the store.
Yum.
Traveling to Britain? Free Lonely Planet Travel Guides
Lonely Planet Travel Guides are among the best, so whenever there’s an offer for a free download, I try to take advantage. The Apple iTunes bookstore is offering free downloads of a number of Lonely Planet guidebooks, including several specialty guides to travel in Britain.
The best free guides include:
- Recession-Busting Britain — Best Free Experiences
- Culture Vulture Britain — Best Cultural Experiences
- Tasty Britain — Best Eating Experiences
- Ye Olde Britain — Best Historical Experiences
- Mini Britain Britain– Best Experiences for Kids
Free on iTunes
These guidebooks to England, Scotland and Wales are full length 100+ page books, though there is a fair amount of overlap between them. A number of the other books are merely teasers for the full-priced version of the guidebook. Hat tip to Miles From Blighty.
The USA Best Trips free book includes excerpts on road trips to three regions — the Pacific Coast Highway, Highway 101 Oregon Coast, and Coastal New England.
One other full-featured free book worth mentioning is Discover the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel.