Summertime Blues

David J. Danto

Travel thoughts in my own, personal opinion

eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD on all

Summertime Travel Coordination Blues– July 2024

Now that July is about half over I’ve hit the “boy this year is passing quickly” part of the calendar. In years past, when my kids were in their single digits and teens we’d be looking forward to a family summer vacation sometime before school restarted. However, they’ve aged out of that for a while now, so we’re no longer a slave to school breaks. Instead, I now overlay my wife and my work calendars and our business travel commitments for the rest of the year and see what requirements for travel there are, and what opportunities for combining business and leisure travel pop out.

Early in September I need to be in Downtown Denver for a conference. Denver has a lot of wonderful places to drive to, but this conference is not one that will give me much leisure time during the evenings. And, the Denver downtown itself was pretty ripped apart when I was there last year – so that one’s out.

I might have considered staying a bit longer there to explore the mountains, except I now have to go to Oslo, Norway the following week. Now that’s a place my wife would love to join me at, but it’s honestly proving to be too hard to do. United no longer flies non-stop to Oslo (something I distinctly remember doing on the old Continental.) Today United is only offering me ridiculous connections in Europe. (Change planes in Frankfurt in an hour and ten minutes – sure – in who’s fantasy…) SAS seems to be the only carrier flying EWR – Oslo, but it is leaving the Star Alliance group it helped found at the end of the month (the first time that’s ever happened) so I’d lose all my remaining lifetime status perks if I took them – and either way it’s not a cheap flight. No dice there.

That pushes me into October where I have to attend a business conference in the Miami / Fort Lauderdale area. I figured I’d call the Seminoles who are running the Hard Rock big guitar hotel down there and see if I could extend that trip for a few days and have my wife join me to celebrate her October birthday. Now I don’t want to seem petty, but the group that’s running that resort casino hotel sends me no less than five emails a week and at least one piece of regular mail a week asking me to come down and stay there for free and collect various casino giveaways, but when I actually call them to reserve a room (on a nothing special, no holiday day) they say no. Why are they constantly sending me offers if they refuse to honor them? Another sign of the currently terrible, customer unfriendly times we live in.

After October we hit November and the Thanksgiving and end of year holiday season heats up and fills the calendar. So, unless another opportunity pops-up, we’re going to be into next year before we get another decent leisure trip.

“Boy this year is passing quickly”

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This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions.

All image and links provided above as reference under prevailing fair use statutes.

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