Wed
Aug
4
Free Internet with Hilton Loyalty? Sign me up!
Gadling reported today about Hilton’s latest move to attract more loyalty customers by offering free hotel internet to guests based on their Hilton HHonors rewards status.
As business travelers sometimes spend more time using hotel internet than they do their own office’s internet, this is a great way for Hilton to capitalize on biz travelers who at least attempt to keep expense accounts to a minimum. Sometimes the cost of internet for a week can be expensive as spending an extra night at the hotel — absurd!
Kudos, Hilton!
-Sally
Tags
- internet - travel - hotels - wifi - sally
Tue
Jul
6
Less than 10% of fliers are logging onto Wi-Fi in the air
As a frequent flier, this number doesn’t really surprise me. On top of the fact that in-flight WiFi is a tad expensive, flights are the only time when you have a moment to be disconnected. The friendly skies are truly a “BlackBerry black spot” and sometimes - whether traveling for business or for pleasure - we need to just disconnect (yes, watching a D-list movie on the new in-flight entertainment system counts as disconnecting…it’s mindless).
It would be interesting to see if destinations start covering the costs of WiFi for their online-focused visitors (i.e. sporadically providing special access codes on destination partner airlines via Twitter to their followers), encouraging visitors to either use the time to post photos/insights about their trip or do some last-minute research before landing.
-Sally
Tags
- airplanes - travel - wifi - sally
Mon
Oct
19
I must be a sucker for good branding, because I love Google and Virgin (despite my terrible fear of flying).
Knowing that Google has offered to foot the WiFi bill for everybody on board Virgin America flights between November 10 and January 15 makes me love the li’l old monopoly even more.
What does Google get out of this partnership, you ask? As one commenter put it:
“It’s safe to assume that passengers will land on a Google-sponsored landing page (or the Google homepage itself) when they begin their “free” inflight Web experience. This is a great way to feature the Google brand, create buzz around a small marketing spend (compared to TV, etc.), and increase the chance that passengers will perform their searches via Google.”
Whatever Google’s rationale, I’m sure these flights will book up fast!
-Maria
Tags
- Google - Maria - travel - wifi
Mon
Oct
12
In-Flight WiFi and Phone Service...Coming Soon to a Lufthansa Flight Near You
The time many have been waiting for (and others - like me - have feared) has finally arrived. No more stale, in-flight entertainment networks…WiFi will soon officially arrive on Lufthansa flights between US and Europe in 2010.
Will fliers really pay $10 an hour to use the WiFi and $3 per minute for phones? Three years ago it seemed they wouldn’t, but that was long before the world’s CrackBerry and Twitter addictions were mainstream.
While this certainly will give travelers the opportunities to get work done, moan about their uncomfortable seat/annoying flight neighbors to their friends/followers, and maybe even do some last-minute vacation research, in-flight WiFi/phone usage will officially make airplanes just one more place in the world where we can be connected.
Whatever happened to using flights as a much-deserved opportunity to cuddle up with a good book and/or rest your eyes for a couple of hours? Guess those few hours of peace will be to the tunes of typing and blabbing.
—Sally
Tags
- sally - travel - wifi
