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Flying for Thanksgiving

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81–90 of 114 posts

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#81
I planned a holiday to the USA last year with my wife. Intentionally planned our trip to Disneyland (1 of 3.5 weeks) to avoid school holidays etc.

Accidentally planned to attend the week of thanksgiving. Fortunately realised before my flights were booked and changed it to the week after.

Near miss :) apparently it’s one of the busiest weeks for Disneyland. And many families end up taking the entire week off not just thanksgiving? I had no idea and found that crazy but there you go :)

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#82
post #81

I planned a holiday to the USA last year with my wife. Intentionally planned our trip to Disneyland (1 of 3.5 weeks) to avoid school holidays etc. Accidentally planned to attend the week of thanksgiving. Fortunately realised before my flights were booked and changed it to the week after. Near miss :) apparently it’s one of the busiest weeks for Disneyland. And many families end up taking the entire week off not just…

Although not universal, a lot of companies give the day after Thanksgiving off as well as Thanksgiving itself. (And, typically, not a lot gets done on at least the Wednesday afternoon as well.) So it's a pretty common week for families (and others) to take off.

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#83

I discovered this about three years back as well. India has quite a few holidays when you are required to travel to your home with two major festivals - Diwali(Oct/Nov) and Holi (March). Since, it is important for people to be at home for these festivals, they would book early, or take costly flights, or alternate flights. With my parents being flexible, and understanding about how I love them even when I am a day la…

Sry to be pedantic, and I do agree with your insight on travelling on Holidays. But I just want to say India is a pretty diverse country, so Holi/Diwali aren't necessarily the major holidays in many parts/sections of the country/population.

That is true. And I am in no way generalizing my experience with whole of India. But, in my experience, I have seen less crowds on Holi and Diwali. And taking flight has not failed me till now.

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#84
The SSID for the WiFi at SFO is called “#SFO FREE WIFI”. It’s named as if someone has a wireless hotspot in their backpack running on a battery pack trying to steal the login information for your bank.

I had the same reaction the first time I saw the WiFi SSID at SFO. “Surely that can’t actually be the name of the official WiFi here. Let’s let it keep looking for networks...”

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#85
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why $5 Starbucks gift cards and not $5 cash?

I hate gift cards. "Here, rather than crassly giving you actual money, I've spent that money on this company scrip that you can only use in one place. Aren't you excited?" Great idea, just brilliant. I'll add it to the stack of worthless iTunes cards and cards for restaurants that don't have a franchise within 500 miles...

I'll buy all your gift cards for 50% of their value.

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#86
post #84

The SSID for the WiFi at SFO is called “#SFO FREE WIFI”. It’s named as if someone has a wireless hotspot in their backpack running on a battery pack trying to steal the login information for your bank. I had the same reaction the first time I saw the WiFi SSID at SFO. “Surely that can’t actually be the name of the official WiFi here. Let’s let it keep looking for networks...”

I've seen lots of airports etc use this pattern. I've always assumed it's because # sorts before most everything else according to the ASCII code, so their SSID will show at the top of the list.

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handing out cash is a bit gauche, isn't it?

Gauche is a bit of an upper class word, no? Why would upper classes decide to stigmatize handing out cash as gauche? Oh.

I don't know if you live I the US, but if you just start walking around with five dollar bills and start handing them out, you really don't know what kind of reaction you're going to get. I tried giving my AT&T guy $20 for waiting for me, he wouldn't take it. Perhaps I could have insisted.

Americans can be deeply sensitive to people thinking they're poor and in need of assistance. And five bucks is practically nothing. Most people might well just take it to Starbucks anyway.

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#88
post #27

This reminds me: I procrastinated and haven't booked my Christmas ticket yet... Bay Area to Atlanta — anyone got any tips? I think Google Flights is the best way to find the cheapest ticket, but if there's something else out there I'd be glad to know!

Anecdotally, use the brave browser to look for hotels and flights. Since it blocks tracking I’ve heard you will see lower cost flights (I’ve also heard the converse that searching with iPhone/safari may result in higher prices.) https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/9gkcow/brave_br...

This is quite an ancient myth of flight pricing, and I'd love to see it die, but alas it will not. Your cookies and/or browser fingerprint has basically no effect on flight prices.

In addition, the "proof" provided on that subreddit has quite a few problems:

A) That route is priced ridiculously anyway, and they are looking at Delta, who always price ridiculously. Delta doesn't care about price-conscious shoppers, so they have virtually no incentive to try and segment fares based on browsing history, etc.

B) They're looking at a third party flight aggregator. These are the WORST ways of buying flight tickets. They're decent for _finding_ deals, but 9/10 times, the airline's website sells it cheaper, and the airline's website gives you more benefits anyway (as you're the buyer and/or owner, not the online travel agent).

C) Furthermore, these online travel agents cache flight lookups _very_ heavily. My guess is that the search with TOR routes to a different edge server with a different cache. API calls to the airlines are extremely costly.

The best way of getting a cheaper flight has nothing to do with your browser, so don't worry about it. The best ways of saving money are based on _when_ you buy, and of course what airline. Don't buy on a weekend, and try not to fly on one either. Holidays are similar, except it's not a bad idea to actually fly ON a holiday, but not around one.

Re: Flying for Thanksgiving

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gauche is a bit of an upper class word, no? Why would upper classes decide to stigmatize handing out cash as gauche? Oh.

I don't know if you live I the US, but if you just start walking around with five dollar bills and start handing them out, you really don't know what kind of reaction you're going to get. I tried giving my AT&T guy $20 for waiting for me, he wouldn't take it. Perhaps I could have insisted. Americans can be deeply sensitive to people thinking they're poor and in need of assistance. And five bucks is practically nothin…

> deeply sensitive to people thinking they're poor and in need of assistance

Exactly. A gift card is appreciation. Cash is pity.

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