holiday gifts

You can (and maybe should) do your holiday shopping at the airport

Shopping, Uncategorized,


I have it on good authority that Santa grabs a lot of last minute gifts in airports shops, just like so many of us time-pressed travelers. 

Need some ideas?  Here’s a version of a column I put together for CNBC that highlights great gifts you can find at airport gift shops around the country. 

To get you started, Phoenix Sky Harbor International, SanFrancisco International and Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport have put together gift guides highlighting unique items for sale in their terminals.

As the holidays get nearer, community groups will staff complimentary gift-wrapping tables (donations encouraged) in many airport terminals. So no one will be the wiser when you show up with a lovely wrapped gift you bought on the fly.   


Pendleton from Portland 

(2_ Pendleton store at Portland International Airport. Courtesy Port of Portland)

Oregon-made products to pick up at Portland International Airport range from parachuting DB Cooper action figures ($4.99)and Moonstruck Chocolate’s dark chocolate bar honoring the iconic PDX airportcarpet ($12) to woolen scarves, throw pillow, shirts, Native American-inspiredblankets and co-branded Waterstone rain boots at the Pendleton shop. Bonus: PDX has street-pricing and there’s nosales tax in Oregon.

Dainty candy from Detroit

The Frivolous shop at Detroit Metropolitan Airport lives up to its promise of being filled with “wonderfully unnecessary” gift items. Consider candy ‘coal’ and dainty boxes of raspberry gummi candies ($7.99) or brightly colored, fully functional retro push-button phones ($69.99).

Craft beer six-packs

A bottle of wine from any of the more than two dozen Vino Volo airport locations would make a lovely gift. At Nashville International Airport, travelers can pick up six-packs of bottled craft beer to go at the Tennessee Brew Works kiosk and at Yazoo! Brewing or 4-packs of 16-ounce cans at Fat Bottom Beer Brewing. 

The recently opened NoDa Brewing at CharlotteDouglas International Airport offers mix-n-match four packs of cans to go, with signature beers such as Coco Loco and Hop, Drop ‘N Roll.

Channel Seattle with flannel -or soap

“Sleepless in Seattle” nightshirts($32.99) are still available at airport shops in Seattle, even though the film is now 25 years old. The Sub Pop retail shop carries some of record company’s cool clothing line, including a $65 “Fremont Flannel.” And, at Made in Washington, Seattle’s own Jimi Hendrix is honored with PurpleHaze Lavender soaps ($9.99)

Crabs from Miami International Airport

Some Legal Sea Food branches at Boston’s Logan Airport will pack live lobsters to go, while at Miami’s International Airport, fresh Florida stone crabs can be packed for gift giving at Prive Gourmet Market or at My Ceviche.

Presents for pets and their people

At Phoenix Sky HarborInternational Airport (PHX), Connections (T4) sells Arizona Gourmet Doggie treats ($6.99), while Mosaic (pre-security T4) offers a wide range of fun dog-themed refrigerator magnets ($5.95).

Cute pet toys from BarkBox, which are usually available only by subscription, are for sale this season at numerous airport Hudson shops, including in Phoenix; Fresno, Los Angeles, San Jose, SanFrancisco, Orange County and Oakland, CA; Portland, OR; Seattle; andMinneapolis-St. Paul.

Vended treasures

Roeland Park, KS USA – October 13, 2017: zim’s 2017 Product Line

One great thing about doing holiday shopping at airports is that the stores open very early and close super late. Another plus: you can now find SouveNEAR’s vending machines stocked with locally-made gifts and craft items in Oakland International Airport (OAK), Kansas City International Airport (KCI) and NewarkLiberty International Airport (EWR; Terminal A).

Eko Kreations has napkins embroidered with California wildflowers (set of 4; $45) in theSouveNEAR machine at OAK, bottles of Zim’s Hot Sauce (set of 2, 3-oz bottles,$11) are available at KCI, and a tin filled with 10 scented mini soaps from OohLa La Petite Boutique is available at EWR.

Celebrity treatment at LosAngeles International Airport 

A gift membership($4,500; not including per flight fees) or a one-time visit ($2700 – $4,000) to ThePrivate Suite at Los AngelesInternational Airport is a luxury splurge sure to impress.

The private terminal has its own security and customs/immigration screening as well as individual suites for guests with bathrooms, food pantries, daybeds and runway views. Suite-to-aircraft transportation (in BMW 7-Series sedans) is included. 

JetBlue’s new contest will fly you home, wrapped.

Contests, ,

Thinking about what to get your family for as a gift this holiday? JetBlue has an idea.

 

Five winners in JetBlue’s Go Get Gifted contest will get flown home on Christmas Eve (12/24) and then gift wrapped from head to toe for home delivery.

Sound like fun?

The contest is open through December 12. To enter, go to Go Get Gifted, where you’ll be asked to put in your “shipping” information, including your name, email, departure city and destination city.

You’ll also be asked to choose how you’d like to be gift wrapped, including the wrapper paper print and bow style.

Then you’ll need to come up with a good reason (in 280 characters) why you should be wrapped and delivered.

Ready? Here’s the Go Get Gifted link.

If you win, please share a photo.

JetBlue’s new board game includes a flight

Flights, Free Stuff, ,

JetBlue is doing its bit to help make holiday get-togethers a bit more fun and rewarding by rolling out a limited edition travel-themed board game called Get Packing!

The Get Packing game goes on sale at Amazon.com on December 12 for $19.99 and the list of what’s in the box reads: 6 Packing Boards, 60 Packing Cards, 48 Wild Cards, 1 die, 1 rule book and 1 certificate for a JetBlue flight, making this a potentially great travel deal even if you don’t actually sit down and play the game.

Souvenir Sunday: holiday gifts from airports

Airport shops, Airports, Shopping, Souvenir Sunday, Souvenirs, , ,

CANDY

Last minute shoppers rejoice: it’s now possible to do all your holiday shopping at the airport and find great – and often offbeat – gifts for everyone on your list.

Here’s a sampling of some of the items I found for a recent article on Mashable.

Those artisanal-painted chocolate caramels above are just a sample of the artist-made gifts that come out of the SouveNEAR vending machines at Kansas City International Airport.

At Portland International Airport, the old carpet is gone, but not forgotten. PDX carpet swag is for sale in the Made in Oregon stores. Courtesy Port of Portland

The recently replaced carpet at Portland International Airport became a social medial darling and oodles of PDX carpet-themed items are now for sale at the Made in Oregon shop at the airport. The neck pillow is good for travel, but there are also mugs, t-shirts, coasters, jam, beer and vodka to choose from.

And.. in the over-the-top category, consider this $1500 Iberico ham sold at Miami International Airport that comes with its own leather carrying case.

At Miami International Airport, this $1500 ham, comes with its own leather carrying case_Courtesy Newslink Group.

See the full story – with lots more ideas for last minute gifts to buy at the airport – in my story on Mashable.

Prize patrol: hotel points for presents

Shopping

A scale. A bundle of cents-off coupons. A musical jewelry box/clock featuring a ballerina dancing on top of a liquor bar.

I don’t quite have the time – or the stomach – to scroll through all 31 (so far) pages of entries in the Wyndham Rewards My Horrible Holiday Gift Contest, but from the few pages I did view I can tell that a) there are a lot of clueless gift givers out there and b) the competition for winning the grand prize of two million Wyndham Rewards points is going to be tough.

The deadline for entering a bad gift – from this holiday season or one long gone – is January 10th. And voting for the most horrible gift kicks off on January 17th.

Four finalists will receive 25,000 Wyndham Rewards points (redeemable for a $100 retailer gift card) and everyone who enters has a chance to win weekly prizes of 12,500 Wyndham Rewards, redeemable for a $50 gift retail gift card. Which you might use to buy the horrible gift-giver a clue…