London

Free in-flight Wi-Fi and a chance to win free trips

Air Travel, Airlines, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, , ,

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I’m a big fan of free. Free wireless Internet at airports.  Free admission to cool museums. Free samples.  And free travel.  And while I’m personally one of those “I never win anything” people, I keep that line (I think I saw it on a lottery commercial)  in mind – “Some lucky dog’s gonna’ win it” – and enter contests for the really fun stuff anyway.

So here are a few freebies you might enjoy and contests I’m sure I’m not going to win:

There’s free in-flight Wi-Fi for everyone November 15- January 15, 2009 on all Virgin America flights, courtesy of Google.

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www.FlyPittsburgh.com and Delta.com are giving away two round trip tickets to Paris to one lucky person who signs up for the Discount Fares E-Newsletter from Pittsburgh International Airport.  The prize includes lunch before the flight,  free airport parking at Hyatt Regency Pittsburgh International Airport but, alas, no hotel stay in Paris.

The contest runs thru midnight, Wednesday, November 4. and the winner will be selected on Thursday, November 5.  You’ll need register to receive the airport’s Discount Fares E-Newsletter.  Enter here.

Still want to get to Paris for free, but have a place to sleep after eating all those croissants?  Try entering this contest for a New Year’s Eve trip to London that includes a Eurostar train ticket to Paris.

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VisitLondon.com has a New Year’s Eve contest that includes airfare, 5 nights hotel accommodations, a New Year’s Eve dinner cruise, a day-trip on the Eurostar train to Paris, a VIP tour of Wembley Stadium and heaps of other fun stuff.  Enter here by November 19th.

Good luck! And if you win – bring home some fun souvenirs.

Cheap air fares to London: then what?

Free Stuff, Museums, , , ,

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There are plenty of worthwhile things to spend money on in London, including theater tickets, fine meals, shopping and a ride on the London Eye or in an iconic black cab. But there are also loads of attractions, museums and special sights that are very inexpensive and many where admission doesn’t cost a penny.

Two, totally-free hidden gems I recently discovered: The Wellcome Collection and the Grant Museum of Zoology, pretty much around the corner from each other.

The Wellcome Collection has oodles of offbeat health and medicine-related objects on display, including shrunken heads, a brass corset, antique artificial limbs and Napoleon Bonaparte’s toothbrush.

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The Grant Museum of Zoology is jam-packed with skeletons, fluid-preserved specimens ranging from tiny fish to giant reptiles, and all manner of taxidermied animals, including this cute elephant shrew.

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For more cheap, cool places to spend your time in London, see my article posted today on MSNBC.com.

Heading to London?

Cell Phones,

One of the new airline routes introduced on March 31 (2008) as part of the EU – US Open Skies Agreement is daily Los Angeles-London service on Air France.

Passengers on this route cannot yet use Air France’s new in-flight cell-phone service (that’s being tested on one airplane that flies within Europe) but they can watch live afternoon news bulletins from the BBC World.

One topic the BBC is certainly covering: the story of airline bankruptcies (Aloha, ATA) and the ongoing fiasco in Heathrow’s Terminal 5.   British Airways is still canceling flights (schedules might be normal by Saturday) and trying to reunite passengers with checked baggage that’s been stuck at the airport since opening day.

FedEx has been called in to help ease the backlog and a convoy of “lorries” (sounds more dashing than “diesel trucks,” doesn’t it?) has taken thousands of bags to Milan for sorting.

Milan! Instead of handing out discount vouchers to inconvenienced passengers, the airline should offer free “baggage reunion” trips to Milan instead.

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