It is always a tad disorienting when you get off an overnight flight to Europe. You may have slept a little, but you haven’t gotten the full eight hours.
This is true even, as in my case, when you are wonderfully ensconced in a bed-like seat in Business Class on a Lufthansa 340-600, with a nice Riesling keeping you company.
So it was kind of a “wow” moment when I walked into the Lufthansa Business Class Lounge at Munich Airport to see beer drinkers at long tables with full glasses and large pretzels dangling on pretzel holders. At 10 a.m.
I grabbed a coffee and plopped myself in a lounge chair to take in the scene, and a buxom woman in a traditional dirndl proffered a basket, so I had a pretzel with my latte.
Gotta love Munich.
Lufthansa added the Bavarian flair to its lounge earlier this year. There is indeed draft beer, tapped from the barrel , which can be enjoyed at the traditional wooden tables below painted views of the Bavarian Alps.
The beer garden is not the only thing in the Terminal 2 lounge, of course. There is also a nice workstation corner for those who need to stay connected, cushy leather seating for those like me who want to take a little snooze and tables aplenty for those who want to grab a quick bite. There are bar areas too. It’s a wonderful place to hang out before your connecting flight.
For those who don’t have lounge access – yes, I know, my job has some nice perks – there is also a Munich Airport brewery/restaurant with beer garden outside of security, open in summer.
Ok, getting to the airport to find your flight is cancelled or you are otherwise denied boarding just stinks. But what should you do in this situation? And what are your rights?
Help, my flight has been canceled
Check the DOT website for consumer advice and regulations.
Contrary to popular belief, airlines are not required to compensate you for damages if you get to the airport and find your flight has been cancelled.
They do have to accommodate you on another flight. And often they will try to put you on another of that carrier’s flights. But depending on the reason for the cancellation (delayed flight crew, mechanical), you may also have the right to request going on another carrier, if that carrier’s schedule is better (while in line waiting to get re-ticketed, check your iPod or Blackberry for schedules).
If the agent doesn’t offer to put you on another, more convenient carrier invoke Rule 240. They may look at you like you have three eyes, but this old rule basically means they should put you on the next flight even if on another carrier. The website Consumerist.com even recommends you carry a copy of the rule and your carrier’s policy on cancelled flights when you fly (the latter policy can be found at the airline’s website).
Also, if you get to your flight much later than scheduled and/or have to do a very different routing, call the airline’s consumer line and complain, and you may get some compensation (usually $100 in airline credit to be used for a future flight).
What is I get bumped because the flight is overbooked. Can I get money?
There are two kinds of bumping: voluntarily and the other involuntary. When a flight is oversold, the gate agents will ask for volunteers and offer you $200 or $400 and sometimes even more in air credit if you give up your seat. It’s your decision whether to take it. They then book you on that carrier’s next available flight (or occasionally on another carrier’s flight).
If you are involuntarily bumped due to an oversold flight, you are covered by DOT regulations (see http:airconsumer.dot.gov). If you arrive at your destination more than an hour late, you may be entitled for compensation up to $400, or the cost of your ticket. If you are more than two hours late you may get up to $800, or the ticket cost. But the airlines have several outs the way the rules are written. And the carrier probably won’t volunteer the cash unless you ask. You also, BTW, have the option of cancelling your trip for a full refund.
What if my flight is really late?
If your plane is late, especially due to weather or air traffic congestion, you won’t get much, if anything. For a mechanical delay, you may be offered meals and compensation for phone calls and maybe even a hotel stay if you are delayed overnight, but again, you have to ask. There is no federal rule requiring the airline to do any of this. Each carrier in the U.S. sets its own policy (check the airline’s website). But in Europe, airlines are required to compensate you for late flights, with meals, calls, hotels and sometimes cash, up to the amount of the ticket, but again there are exceptions such as weather delays.
What happens if my luggage is lost?
The question is, is the luggage lost or delayed. If delayed, the airline personnel will typically offer you a toiletry kit and send you on your way with a promise your bags should arrive in a day or two. If more than 24 hours, start asking for compensation to buy clean clothes and additional toiletries (check that airline’s website for their policy). If your luggage is really lost, and only about 2% of bags are, you are entitled to compensation based on the depreciated value of your items, up to $3,300 in the U.S. (substantially less in Europe).
What’s the deal with the latest security rules?
TSA is using random search measures (they announced this last week), but exactly what and when is secret. There are expected to be more pat downs, use of technology screening, dogs. You can, BTW, opt out of technology screening in favor of a pat down. And you still can’t carry large containers of liquid and do in the U.S. need to take your shoes off.
OK, I know I am the envy of my East Coast pals today, as I have landed in Miami where it is warm and sunny (and not rainy and dreary as it’s been for days now in Boston).
There is something wonderful about coming out of the airport and feeling, well, kind of sweaty, but in that good, “I am in Miami” sort of way.
I am staying at the much-lauded, 411-room Epic Hotel in downtown, a Kimpton property. And my first impressions are this cool design hotel deserves all the praise.
Literally I had a fleet of bellmen in crisp tan uniforms snap my bag out of the cab before I could blink an eye.
In the lobby (above) the equally well-dressed and efficient front desk team got me speedily checked in and within minutes I was in my airy, 18th floor room, checking out my very own deck, which overlooks the property’s hip pool/social area on the 16th floor (top photo, except there are bikini clad bods there at present), tall residential buildings and the ocean beyond.
Complimentary wine is served poolside during an hour-long daily social hour, starting at 5, so I may just hop down for a swig before I head off to meetings and other social obligations tonight. I’m in town to cover Cruise Shipping Miami (formerly known as Seatrade), the annual gathering of the cruise lines and ports and others affiliated with cruising. In the next few days, I’ll fill you in on the latest and great in the world of cruising.
But meanwhile, I heard the San Antonio Spurs are staying here tonight. Lots of very tall men walking around tonight. That, and free Internet access (every guestroom at the Epic has wireless and a complimentary desktop too). Woo-hoo.
OK. I kind of hate Jennifer Aniston. Who doesn’t? She is way too perfect.
And now she may or may not be with hunky Gerard Butler – depending on which of the rags/mags you believe, their “coupling” is either a publicity stunt for their new movie, “The Bounty Hunter, or “true love.” I’m betting the former.
But you can’t deny they had time together at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City. And that’s because the PR folks at the hotel are making the most of their JenBut connection.
In fact, Butler and his leading lady filmed several scenes of their comedy at the Borgata and according to a press release, “got to know each other” off-camera while frequenting the hotel’s restaurants and hot spots.
In celebration of the film’s release, and what the hotel terms “the couple’s budding romance,” The Borgata has created an A-list “Follow the Bounty to Borgata” package, available through April 10.
Included are accommodations in a spectacular Hideaway Suite at The Water Club at the Borgota; a spa treatment from the Immersion Spa (Jen is reportedly a fan of the Ultimate Oxygenerating Facial; no comment); a $200 food and beverage credit you can use at Bobby Flay Steak of Seablue by Michael Mina, where Aniston and crew dined during filming; and a $100 retail credit for use at one of the Borgata boutiques. Plus you get VIP Entry and Complimentary admission to MIXX and mur.mur nightclubs, so like Jen you can glide past the velvet rope.
No guarantee the paparazzi won’t spot you, though. The package is priced at $1,499, and available weekends only.
I got a press release today that advertised “Best price on a China Package – Ever.” And the funny thing is I think it just might be. If you can leave, like, now, or even in the next few weeks, you can do China, complete with air and hotel, from under $1,000.
China Spree’s China Express – Bejing Free-style Travel package (say that five times fast) is a 7-day deal with roundtrip air on Air China and five nights’ accommodations at the 4-star Beijing Huabin International Hotel, described as a comfortable, 290-room property only a 10-minute walk from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (my Beijing photos, above and below). The hotel offers LCD TVs with satellite channels, broadband Internet access and minibars, hairdryers and coffee makers, so how bad could it be?
The operator is even throwing in airport to hotel transfers (by bus, not pedicab) and daily American breakfast. The tab? From $588 per person if you can get yourself to San Francisco; from $988 from New York’s JFK (plus airport fees and taxes from $299). Fares are available from other cities as well.
There is also a land-based price for those who have frequent flyer miles to burn. Reasonably priced tours and other add-ons are also available once you’re in Beijing – so you can get too to the Summer Palace and the Great Wall (from which I sent txts to friends bragging I was on the GREAT WALL). There are meal packages available too.
The low prices are available for departures in December and January.
Back in 1961, the leaders of East Germany probably didn’t imagine that the foreboding wall they were putting up around Berlin – to keep East Germans in – would someday be a big tourist attraction.
But visit Berlin in 2009, as I did a couple of months ago, and you’ll find remnants of the concrete barrier – and the culture of GDR (German Democratic Republic) – are very much part of the tourist scene in Berlin.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, and through the end of the year there are special exhibits highlighting the Wall years and peaceful revolution that led to the fall of the wall and end of the GDR (including at Alexanderplatz, the square in the heart of the city).
The wall that divided the city was really two walls, separated by a “death strip.” Border crossings allowed those from the West to enter the East, but East Germans were not allowed to leave. Hundreds died trying to flee.
In the euphoria that followed the breach of the wall in 1989, much of the concrete was dismantled (pieces of the Berlin Wall now reside not only in Berlin but around the world including in New York). But there is still plenty in Berlin to remind travelers and locals alike of this chapter in world history. (more…)
I am a bit of an architecture geek. No, I’d never try creating anything, but I do admire the work of others – and have been known to go out of my way when traveling to see the latest and greatest, and old and historic.
The camp program takes place at the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in the very drafting room where the master worked in Oak Park, Ill., with a program very much designed for non-architects. Dates are March 5-8; June 13-16; August 1-4 and October 3-6, 2010.
As part of the program, which BTW I think would make an excellent holiday gift for any Wright fan, (more…)
The Portuguese are passionate people. Some might even call them emotional (anyone who has ever seen Fado music performed in Lisbon will surely get this). And this month, I had a couple of opportunities to see how that passion pours over (excuse the pun) to Portuguese wine.
At a tasting featuring several dozen vintners, I sampled everything from young verde(the Portuguese prefer not to call it “green wine” though that’s how most American’s know it) to aged port (a personal favorite).
And last week at Grill 23 n Boston, I sampled a full range of red wines – and one rose – created in the Alentejo region by the Adega Cooperativa de Borba (and distributed locally by L & B Beverage of East Providence, R.I.).
The Adegaborba.pt Rose 2008 was fine with a terrine of foie gras with apples poached in cherry lambic, served with a tarragon egg and “soldiers” toasts.
But the perfect pairing for me was the Adegaborba.pt Reserva Red, 2004, one of three wines served with the main course of slow roasted and braised elk (with yummy creamed bacon and salsify and tobacco onions). In fact, this very drinkable red (which goes for a bargain price of about $15 per (more…)
The other night I had very unusual dreams involving Leprechauns and such that I can only credit to the fact I went to a Bushmills Irish whiskey tasting at the brand new Post 390 restaurant in Boston. I am beginning to understand why Jim Morrison was such a fan of the stuff. I did not quite hallucinate, but…
First let me admit I know very little about whiskey. I’m much more a vodka gal. But my whiskey education included learning the fact I actually rather like the Bushmill 16 year, with a little water and ice, especially when accompanying a gussied up version of meatloaf – Post 390’s is veal, beef and pork, stuffed with ham and Fontina cheese and topped with a slightly sweet Marsala sauce. Yum (and my favorite dish of the evening). But I digress.
I am newly intrigued with Irish whiskey and just may have to head to Ireland to discover more. There could probably be no better guide than Colum Egan, my host at the tasting in Boston and the Master (more…)
Even travel writers have off days and I was having one yesterday. But today I woke up with a new, and better, attitude because it turns out I live in one of the most stressed out cities in America. So I am not alone.
My epiphany came courtesy of Princess Cruises, which has released the results of a Harris Interactive survey it commissioned on – get this – Life Balance (gee, can you tell the cruiseline is based in California?).
My city, Boston, tops the list of places where people’s lives are not in balance, as in, we are crazy stressed out or, presumably, lead unbalanced existences. More stressed out than Beantown, is Chicago and Houston and rounding out the list is Los Angeles and San Diego.
Cities where people are more mellow. or at least claim to have balance in their lives, are Miami, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Las Vegas and Dallas/Fort Worth (hot and lively, boring, boring, crazy lively, boring, so go figure).
The survey, according to the surveyors, finds “Americans continue to strive for the ultimate life balance, which includes juggling work and personal priorities” but concludes “only approximately one-quarter of people in the U.S. actually have achieved this goal.” Gee, and you thought (more…)
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I am newly intrigued with Irish whiskey and just may have to