vacation

If You're Out Of Cellphone Service For A Long Time, Remove Your Battery

If You're Out Of Cellphone Service For A Long Time, Remove Your Battery

If you’re going to be in an area with no cellphone service for more than a few hours, consider removing your cellphone battery during that time or it might go dead. It seems that turning your cellphone off isn’t enough; the cellphone may continually try to resync with the mothership grid, and the successive abortive attempts are very draining on the battery level.

Online Travel Sites Waive Booking Fees To Compete With Airlines

Online Travel Sites Waive Booking Fees To Compete With Airlines

Several travel sites are scrapping booking fees to keep customers away from individual airline sites. Savvy customers currently research fares with travel sites, and then buy directly from airlines to avoid booking fees.

“Hotwire.com announced this week that it would drop its $6-a-ticket charge for airline reservations on both its “opaque” reservations (the bargain-priced fares that don’t let you know exactly what flight you’ve booked until after you’ve paid) and regular bookings through summer. Last week, Priceline.com announced it was suspending booking charges on regular airfares through Labor Day. (The deal excludes its opaque, name-your-own-price fares.) Fees range from $5 a domestic ticket to up to $9.95 for an international reservation.

Cranky Brits Force Queen Mary 2 Refund

If there’s one take home from this story about refunds given to passengers of the Queen Mary 2 after she failed to stop at three ports of call on her latest cruise, it’s that no matter how bad a situation is, it’s always made worse by British people.

However, there were reports of discord among the passengers, many of whom blamed “whingeing” Britons for spoiling the cruise with their protest.