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P.O.V. Highlight:
Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations
First person "point of view" (P.O.V.) accounts of the top travel and
vacation destinations including timeshare
resorts, RCI Points and more...
| International Airfare Search Tool | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 18, 2006, 12:59 am) | Trying to compare airfare prices from Cleveland to L.A. for different dates is pretty easy these days and checking possibilities from the U.S. to Mexico or the Caribbean is not much worse with visits to two or three sites. Beyond that, however, it’s still a battle to compare international airfares and see what the best [...]
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| Airport Security Makes Good Comedy | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 17, 2006, 12:59 am) | There was a great sketch on Saturday night live that enacted a sample meeting of TSA workers and their bosses. It’s not on the official NBC site yet, but for the moment you can find it here.
After being told that it is now okay to bring 3 ounces of liquid on board because “it has [...]
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| Rating Happiness Around the World | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 14, 2006, 12:59 am) | A new study out this week says that the Danes are the happiest people on Earth. Other rich European countries also scored highly, while the U.S. came in at a respectable #23. Money may not buy happiness, but it certainly helps. Bringing up the rear were Zimbabwe and Burundi. The real surprise was Japan–by most [...]
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| The Real Deal in Oaxaca | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 14, 2006, 12:59 am) |
Boris and the Catrina
Originally uploaded by planeta.
Things are a little dicey in Oaxaca, Mexico, but do some digging to find out what’s happening at ground level.
I just had a phone conversation with Ron Mader, who runs the responsible travel site Planeta.com. He lives in Oaxaca and is in close touch with the vendors and people [...]
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| How NOT to be a Jerk While Traveling | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 13, 2006, 12:59 am) |
obnoxious and annoying.
Originally uploaded by justbadpot.
This article from Budget Travel is a good one on how to avoid being an “ugly American” while traveling. But though my countrymen may be a bit wider and less-traveled than others, they don’t have a monopoly on bad behavior. [...]
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| Vineyard Investing in Argentina | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 13, 2006, 12:59 am) |
Cafayate_wineman
Originally uploaded by Globetrots.
I imagine most people reading this blog don’t have so much money lying around that they would put a pile of it into buying a vineyard in Argentina. But if you know someone with dreams of owning their own winery, you might want to point them to this article I wrote for [...]
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| Smart (and not) Tourism Planning | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 12, 2006, 12:59 am) | After you’ve got a few travel miles under your belt, it becomes obvious that some governments are filled with gifted planners, while others are full of people who belong on the short bus to elementary school.
Today, let’s contrast the local government that dreamed up Cancun with the people currently making a big splash in British [...]
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| A Mixed Bag in Bangkok | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 11, 2006, 12:59 am) | Reports on Bangkok’s shiny new airport haven’t been very encouraging so far. There’s no direct public transportation without getting in a cab or bus, first of all, despite the site being planned a generation ago. There are complaints that there aren’t enough restrooms, which is even more baffling.
A report out in USA Today says 1,200 [...]
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| Think Outside the Cylinder | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 11, 2006, 12:59 am) | When you’re trying to connect to get from where you live to where you are going, the obvious route isn’t always the best one.
If you are trying to maximize your travel budget, sometimes you need to get creative. I spent a half hour on the phone with a friend the other night, trying to get [...]
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| Living in Mexico Adjustments | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 7, 2006, 12:59 am) | Some good advice on dealing with Mexico, from an International Living editor couple.
I just got my new copy of International Living in the mail and eagerly flipped to page 8, where there’s an article of mine on a (not at all cheap) safari trip in Botswana. Complete with a photo of a nasty looking lion [...]
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| Absinthe and Art in Avignon | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 6, 2006, 12:59 am) | I can always rely on my buddy Kent’s Be Our Guest blog for some interesting photos from here and there. Here’s a good one from Avignon, France. Van Gogh and Absinthe–with a pretty good representation of how well they go together.
If you’re a parent like me, you probably can’t get some damn song about a [...]
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| A Traveler’s Report on West Africa | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 6, 2006, 12:59 am) | At times people ask me why there aren’t more African countries in The World’s Cheapest Destinations. After all, the per capita GDP is next to nothing, right? Shouldn’t it be cheap to travel there? With more proof that “poor country” and “cheap travels” don’t directly correlate, down below is a great dispatch from West Africa.
A [...]
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| The World’s Most Polluted Cities | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 4, 2006, 12:59 am) |
A very nice day in Chongqing
Originally uploaded by dan_klimke2001.
This will probably not surprise anyone who has been to China, but an article out yesterday in the Wall Street Journal noted that “of the 25 most polluted cities in the world, 16 are in China.” As anyone who has hacked and coughed their way through India’s [...]
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| Kansas City’s Heartland Bargains | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 3, 2006, 12:59 am) | Want to find a bargain travel destination in the U.S.? Head to a small or mid-sized city that’s not on the east or west coast. In general, blue states are more prosperous than the red ones–and pricier. Big cities are more expensive than small ones. And at times it even feels like the smaller towns [...]
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| Travel Risks in Perspective | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at October 2, 2006, 12:59 am) | A cushy travel mag reminds us that the big world out there is not as scary as some would have us believe.
There are some very good reasons to make fun of the luxe travel magazines. But sometimes one of them will come out of nowhere and nail a subject so well it’s astounding, restoring [...]
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| New Flight Options for Central America | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 28, 2006, 12:59 am) | Costa Rican airline NatureAirjust announced the first flight between San Jose and Limon, Costa Rica in 15 years, and the first ever flight from Bocas del Toro, Panama to Limon. All are slated to begin December 1, 2006.
These are aimed at travelers with more money than time, apparently. The press release says, “This flight will [...]
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| Saying “Cheers” Around the World | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 27, 2006, 12:59 am) |
Cheers
Originally uploaded by fensterbme.
If you look hard enough, you can find a web site for just about anything you would encounter in your travels. Such as, how do you say “cheers” in Bengali? Turns out it’s “joy,” which seems pretty appropriate. Just check this How to say cheers site, run by a whisky lover’s group.
I [...]
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| Africa and Asia, Disney Style | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 26, 2006, 12:59 am) | I just got back from being a good dad, taking the family to Disney World and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It was fun to ride the rides and watch the little one’s face light up. She was in heaven. This time of year is a dream time to go too. I think the longest we waited [...]
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| A Frugal Dad Does Disney | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 22, 2006, 12:59 am) | This blog is going to be quiet the next few days as I am taking the little princess down to Disney World of all places. From the get-go, she has taken the Disney marketing bait hook, line, and sinker, so the time has come for Dad to open up the wallet and head to Orlando.
Since [...]
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| Earning Airline Miles by Doing (Almost) Nothing | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 20, 2006, 12:59 am) | After recently scoring frequent-flyer tickets to both Guatemala and Mexico, I’ve gotten a second wind about earning airline miles. It takes some work, but with enough dogged determination you can turn 35,000 miles into an international flight, putting you well above the penny a mile mark.
So it always pays to watch for silly promotions that [...]
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| A Bangkok Shopping Trip | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 19, 2006, 12:59 am) |
Floating Market, Bangkok
Originally uploaded by Muthu - முத்து.
This AP story on a shopping trip to Bangkok won’t tell you anything you don’t already know if you’ve been to Bangkok, but it’s a nice quick overview on the weekend market and a silk outlet if you haven’t been there. I have great things in my house [...]
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| The Problem With Chain Hotels, Part 2 | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 19, 2006, 12:59 am) | I can bore you for a good half hour about why staying in a small, locally-owned hotel overseas is so much more enriching than staying at a cookie-cutter international chain hotel. For starters, your money stays in the local economy. The place is owned by a real person, not a publicly traded corporation. And you [...]
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| Happy Birthday Marco Polo | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 16, 2006, 12:59 am) | On this day in 1254, Marco Polo was born. He set out on the Silk Road when he was 17. Some say he made his travels sound more fantastic than they really were. Today he would be a travel writer for Outside or National Geographic Adventure I suppose.
He journeyed in the days before comfortable beds, [...]
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| Undervalued Argentina | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 16, 2006, 12:59 am) | Sometime in the coming decade I’m probably going to pack up and move abroad for a while again. I’ve lived in Korea and Turkey in the past, but this time it’s probably going to be Buenos Aires. There are a dozen good reasons why, but the overall one is it’s a terrific value, as this [...]
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| Buy a Book, Get Free Phone Calls | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 16, 2006, 12:59 am) | Pingo, one of the advertisers I work with, has given me some free phone cards to give away for people to try out their service. So here’s the deal. Buy a copy of Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune from virtually anywhere (as long as it’s a new copy) and send me the receipt, [...]
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| Finding a Cheap Hotel in Europe | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 15, 2006, 12:59 am) | In Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune, I recommend digging around to find the hotels most people don’t know about. The funky local places with lots of character. Even if money is no object, you’ll usually have a more interesting experience at these places than you will at the big international chain hotels.
Finding them [...]
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| A Taxi Makeover in Cairo Too | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 13, 2006, 12:59 am) | A few posts back I linked to a story on how Prague’s taxi fleet was due for an upgrade. Apparently the cabs in Cairo are heading the same route, which will certainly upgrade the tourist experience for most visitors there.
This odd C.S. Monitor article, Cairo’s classic cabs get snubbed, makes it sound as if there [...]
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| Touring Africa by Public Transport | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 12, 2006, 12:59 am) | Time for another shout-out to one of the guest contributors in my new book, Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune.
Marie Javins contributed a section on the experience to be gained by taking public transportation, seeing a culture by being butt to butt with them. She is the author of the brand new book Stalking [...]
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| When the Budget Travel Ethos Goes Overboard | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 10, 2006, 12:59 am) | Call me a budget travel expert or a value travel expert, but I know when it’s time to be cheap and when it’s time to open up the wallet. Mainly it comes down to the how you answer the question, “What is your time, your health, and your comfort worth?”
For some hilarious musings on this [...]
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| Pricey Prague and Other Tales of Woe | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 8, 2006, 12:59 am) | My article in the current issue of Transitions Abroad is called “The New Eastern Europe: Now You have to Look for Travel Bargains.” This one is posted online, so follow the link.
Many travelers have not woken up to the fact that a hotel room in Prague can cost more than one in Florence or Barcelona. [...]
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| New Issue of Perceptive Travel! | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 7, 2006, 12:59 am) | Check out the new issue of Perceptive Travel for stories on New Zealand, Argentina, Vietnam, Italy, and…Turkmenistan.
In the September/October Perceptive Travel issue, Edward Readicker-Henderson takes his long name on an equally long trip, just to see some bras hanging on a fence in New Zealand. Graham Reid motors around the Amalfi region of [...]
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| Airline Service - It’s (Partly) Our Fault | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 6, 2006, 12:59 am) | A holiday weekend is over in the U.S. and for many who spent part of it in an airplane, that portion of the trip was likely far from pleasant. But as Tim Winship says in his frequent flyer blog, we need to look in the mirror while complaining because those cheap airfares have cost us [...]
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| Steve Irwin, R.I.P. | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 5, 2006, 12:59 am) | Steve Irwin, TV personality and conservationalist known as The Crocodile Hunter, died after being stuck in the heart by a stingray this past weekend. Here’s a full report. He was snorkeling off the coast of Australia and had the dumb luck of startling a creature that is normally very passive, then getting hit in exactly [...]
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| A Travel Guru Interview | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 4, 2006, 12:59 am) | Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding, interviews travel guru and Transitions Abroad founder Clay Hubbs over at Vagablogging. Go to the interview.
I said at some point I’m going to give a shout-out to everyone who contributed a section to my new book, Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune. I get to kill two birds with [...]
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| Direct Flight from Hanoi to Luang Prabang | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 2, 2006, 12:59 am) | Two of our favorite places in The World’s Cheapest Destinations are now going to be connected by a direct air link. According to this story, Lao Aviation flights will soon connect Hanoi, Vietnam, and Luang Prabang, Laos–twice a week for now.
Getting there is half the fun if you are a long-term traveler or a European [...]
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| Movies Where the Place is the Star | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 2, 2006, 12:59 am) | CN Traveler provides a rundown on movies that inspire us to go see the world.
I keep my subscription to Condé Nast Traveler going every year, even though this reliably annoying magazine seems to be progressively more annoying to read every issue. (More on that later.) Besides giving me something to sneer at though, it also [...]
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| The Problem with Flight Passes | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at September 1, 2006, 12:59 am) | As this article from Budget Travel points out, flight passes within a country or a region often sound better on paper than they work out in practice. In all my years of travel, I’ve only bought a flight pass once–when we planned to cover a wide swath of Indonesia and the Visit Indonesia pass ended [...]
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| Time for a Contrarian Travel Guide | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 31, 2006, 12:59 am) | Step right up, Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune is really here.
I’ve been hesitant to talk about my new book because its journey to the market has been a meandering one. Every CD and DVD release has a “street date,” but the book business isn’t that coordinated. Titles drift out from the printer to [...]
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| A Better Future for Czech Taxi Rides | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 29, 2006, 12:59 am) | The Jaunted blog caught a good story on New Czech Taxi Rules slated to be implemented and in place by 2009. The rules include an age limit on vehicles, required air conditioning, and a coat of yellow paint. If the changes actually stick, it will be a bright new day in Prague.
Among the many ways [...]
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| One More Problem with Chain Hotels | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 26, 2006, 12:59 am) | I don’t talk about this much, but I write regularly for the fun and swarmy site HotelChatter. Since I’ve reviewed over 400 hotels for a trade publication and I stay in more hotels than I can count, good and bad, it makes lots of sense. They let me rant about terrible hotel deals, places with [...]
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| The Cheapest Places to Live, Part 3 | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 24, 2006, 12:59 am) | I just received my new issue of International Living in the mail today and it contains the annual 2006 Global Retirement Index. Whether you are anywhere close to retiring or not, this is some handy slicing, dicing, and opinionated ranking of countries that are a good value. There are a lot of factors at play [...]
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| Local Travel Websites–and a New One on Nicaragua | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 24, 2006, 12:59 am) | Guidebook writer and perennial traveler Josh Berman co-wrote the excellent Moon Handbook on Nicaragua and the duo has a new book coming out soon on being or becoming an expat there. He and Randy Wood have just launched GoToNicaragua.com, a site that will instantly make you an “in the know” traveler. Here’s more about it [...]
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| Point/Counterpoint - Using a Travel Agent | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 23, 2006, 12:59 am) | In this month’s issue of Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, I contributed an article called Upsold Down the River. It outlines some of the more sneaky practices travel agents are using–with the help of providers–to pad their commissions. Some of that padding comes directly out of the pockets of their customers. I do feel sorry for [...]
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| Shrinking Vacation Syndrome | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 22, 2006, 12:59 am) | This is so lame. Worldhum points us to a New York Times story I missed on the Shrinking Vacation Syndrome. It’s a bit more depressing news about how many Americans have vacation time they don’t take, and those who don’t get any to start with. (An important distinction: the first batch have no excuse for [...]
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| Some Kick-back Beaches in Florida | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 21, 2006, 12:59 am) | While it’s nice to go galivanting around the globe and to fly off to distant lands, sometimes you just need a short beach break somewhere that’s easy to get to.
My in-laws live in the Tampa Bay area, so this summer we decided to check out the mellow keys of Anna Maria and Longboat. Here’s an [...]
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| Hotels Open Up the Toiletries Goody Box | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 19, 2006, 12:59 am) | When the increased airplane carry-on restrictions were rolled out recently, I expected to see some fast and creative solutions coming from the likes of Unilever and Proctor & Gamble. Where were the quick deals to put toothpaste in every airport bathroom? Where were the roving lip gloss girls greeting passengers in baggage claim? Where were [...]
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| Bummer of the Week: Goodbye to In-flight Internet | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 18, 2006, 12:59 am) | Boeing just announced that it is shutting down it’s in-flight Internet service Connexion. So if you had planned on surfing the Web during that next flight to Bangkok, forget about it.
In this article, the company said that the service had just not taken off as fast as they had expected. Apparently they’re bleeding red ink [...]
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| Machu Picchu Trekking Fees Going Up | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 16, 2006, 12:59 am) | Sometimes you’ve gotta pay to play. As anyone who has gone to Peru this summer has found, prices have risen again on the Inca Trail. Due to a rise in permit fees and at Machu Picchu, the total fee for the 4-day hike is now running $300-$360 per person if booked with an agency in [...]
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| Adventure Travel Bargains | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 16, 2006, 12:59 am) | There’s a rundown on the 10 Best Adventure Bargains of 2006 on SmarterTravel.com that was just posted. While I’ll say again that any “best of” list should be greeted with skepticism, about half are in bargain destinations and they are all a worthwhile value.
As I point out in my book, and as this article notes, [...]
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| More U.S. Flyers Are Getting Bumped | Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations | | by tim | (cached at August 14, 2006, 12:59 am) | All the focus last week was on delayed flights and security delays. When those things happen, you’re up the creek. The week before, however, it came out in the news that more flyers are getting bumped from U.S. airlines this year. This can be a very bad thing or a very good thing, depending on [...]
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