MORE HOTEL OPTIONS
Told you last week about hotwire, which I admit I didn't know much about. Now travelocity is doing a similar project where you can look for hotels on certain dates but do so through an "opaque" process where you don't find out the name of your hotel until you push the magic "accept" button.
If you go to travelocity.com or travelocity.ca and look for hotels in, say, Vancouver in August, you'll get an interface that has several tabs near the top. Look for the tab that "top secret hotels" and you'll find a series of hotel options where you know the number of stars the property has and the general area but not the specifics. Until, of course, you agree to pay.
It's still fairly limited in terms of choice but officials say they've got properties in many Canadian cities already, including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal.
WHY YYZ?
I'm sure there's a good reason, but I had an interesting chat with a guy on a plane today about airport codes. I understand that when Canada's turn came it was decided that airports should start with Y to differentiate us from other folks. Toronto likely couldn't be TOR as it probably was taken by Torino (Turin in North American-ese).
But why is it YYZ for Toronto? Vancouver is YVR. Why isn't Toronto YTO or YTR or something that makes sense? I think it could be that YTO is for all airports in Toronto, just like YMQ is for all Montreal airports. But YYZ still seems kinda funky.
BRIARS WEDDING BELLS DEAL
The Briars up in Jackson's Point put out a notice today to say that folks whose weddings have been affected by the swine flu can get special deals by booking with them. And good idea, I say. For more info, go to www.briars.ca.
GOLF DEALS IN IRELAND
Finally, while still on the subject of good deals, check out swinggolfireland.com for the latest batch of fine bargains on the Emerald Isle.
Thank you for this nice post..
Will check out the gold deals for sure..
Posted by: chile travel | May 08, 2009 at 03:55 AM
Jim, re: why YYZ? YTR is the international designation for CFB Trenton, and YTO is the one for the Toronto Centre Control zone... so you know.
Posted by: Robert Donnelly | May 09, 2009 at 10:38 AM
Jim,
We've used Hotwire on three occasions.
We were going to Boston,decided we didn't want to stay out near the airport for Holiday Inn and found a four star hotel in downtown Boston for $123.00 a night. Turned out to be the Intercontinental by Boston Common. Posted rate was $350.00
Decided to have a "downtown" sleepover and ended up at the Park Hyatt for $129.00
And finally, rented a car for four days last fall to see my two sons at university in Nova Scotia.
Got a Pontiac g6 for (this is approximate) for $130.00 for the four days, including insurance (Hotwire has a separate agreement with an insurance company that doesn't charge the larcenous rates car rental companies do
Posted by: John Richardson | May 10, 2009 at 04:31 PM