Brand Spanking New Bradley Terminal

     The new Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX is open! It’s already won the 2013 Future Travel Experience Award for “best experience at the gate”. A group of travel industry experts liked the electrical sockets and USB ports for charging electrical devices and the automated docking systems and boarding bridges that could prevent flight delays.

     This is only the first phase of a larger LAX improvement. The next phase includes upgrading the U.S. Customs area, relocating the security screening area and securing passage with Terminals 3 and 4 for passengers on connecting flights.

     With construction, there are always delays. We at Excelsior Limousine always stay on top of any congestion at LAX to make airport transfers as seamless as possible. We have Town Cars, SUVs, Limousines and Executive Vans.

Airlines give speed-dating a try in Las Vegas

We at Excelsior Limousine loved this article by Ben Mutzabaugh at USA Today.

 

LAS VEGAS – Airport executives from across the world were here this week hoping to strike it big, not at gambling, but at speed dating.

No, the airport executives weren't in Las Vegas to meet a new spouse – but they were looking for new partners – as in airlines. And the effects from those Vegas speed dates could eventually be felt at an airport near you.

It's all part of the annual 19th annual World Routes conference, a forum that pairs airport and airline executives. The purpose? Airports get to make their case to airlines for why the airlines should add or expand flight offerings at their airports.

"The simple explanation is that it is a bit like speed dating," explains Nigel Mayes, Routes' Vice President – Commercial.

Routes' signature approach lets airline and airport officials schedule meetings in a series of rapid-fire, one-on-one sessions in which the airports can make their pitch for airline service.

"We have a clock that counts down and when it hits 20 minutes, time's up and they have to move on to their next meeting," Mayes says.

Mayes says Routes scheduled "around 8,000 one-to-one meetings" during three days of sessions that ended Tuesday.

But in typical Vegas style, the event was a spectacle in itself. Showgirls mixed with ballerinas representing Russian airports. Canadian Mounties crossed paths with Panamanian folk dancers in the exhibition halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, located just off the famed strip.

Aviation and tourism officials from 140 nations were here for the event, representing 750 airports that run the gamut from behemoths like London Heathrow and Chicago O'Hare to small fries such as the tiny Ogdensburg International Airport near the Canadian border in upstate New York.

And for all of those airports, World Routes was a chance to shine – an opportunity to meet with more airline executives in 72 hours than they otherwise might meet in an entire year or more.

"There's an incredible mountain of efficiency," Mayes says.

For example, airlines reserving a single table for meetings were able to have their schedule planners meet with as many as 50 airports if they fully book their meeting slots, Mayes says.

"And that's just one table," Mayes says. That could mean "50 trips that (an airline) won't necessarily have to make" to meet with prospective airports.

Norwegian Air Shuttle, a European discount carrier that's growing at a breakneck pace, reserved three tables for this year's Routes.

"We have nearly 300 aircraft coming in the next 10 years," Thomas Ramdahl, Norwegian's Senior Vice President for Network and Scheduling. "So, we need to look forward on expanding – both European and long-haul routes," he adds during a short break between sessions with airports.

His advice for airports hoping to land the fast-growing carrier?

"Twenty minutes is a short time to present yourself. So it's important for the airports to be well prepared. "

California success story

One airport that successfully used Routes to win a spot in Norwegian's route network is California's Oakland International Airport. Norwegian announced just last month that it will begin flying from Oakland to both Oslo and Stockholm on the carrier's new Boeing 787 Dreamliners starting this May.

"That development in Oakland is huge for us," says John Albrecht, Oakland International's Aviation Marketing Manager. "There are many airports that would love to have that service."

He says Oakland's successful courting of Norwegian "had its origins at Routes," though he bristles just a bit at the speed-dating analogy.

"It's a little bit more sophisticated than speed dating," he says. "There's a lot of work that goes into it. We actually put a pretty good amount of analytical thought into proposing a market and what market we think is viable.".

To the point, Albrecht says Oakland made its first contact with Norwegian Air Shuttle nearly three years ago after the airline began looking at widebody planes that would allow it to add long-haul routes to destinations such as Asia or North America.

"Part of the sourcing we do really starts with the aircraft orders," Albrecht says. "Norwegian was a hugely successful company in Europe and when they placed the order for the aircraft, you look at the map and realize there's only so many places they're going to fly it to."

So Oakland and Norwegian first met at Routes in Berlin back in 2010, the beginning of three years of conversations that finally led to September's announcement that Norwegian's Dreamliners would soon by flying to Oakland.

A chance to fill in some gaps

Another airport looking to make a splash at this year's Routes was Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport, a big hit with attendees thanks to a top-end motorcycle from hometown company Harley Davidson on display in its booth. Milwaukee invited passers by to stop in and don a leather vest for a photo op atop the bike.

Milwaukee knows well what the payoff can be from a successful Routes conference. Low-cost carrier AirTran debuted at the airport in 2002, service that grew out of conversations that first began at a similar event called JumpStart that competes with Routes.

"They'll tell you the first meeting with Milwaukee at JumpStart is where the seed was first planted and that's where they decided to take a look at Milwaukee," says Pat Rowe, Mitchell's Airport Marketing and Public Relations Director. "And we ended up a couple of years later with AirTran service which then grew into an AirTran hub with a crew base."

That growth helped make Milwaukee one of the USA's fastest-growing airports in the late 2000s, though the AirTran hub eventually gave way following AirTran's acquisition by Southwest.

Today, Milwaukee finds itself in a solid position – Southwest has taken over as the airport's No. 1 carrier – but Rowe says the airport would like to replace nonstop routes to places like Pittsburgh and San Diego that have been lost in recent years.

"These things are long-building business relationships," Mitchell Airport Director Barry Bateman said from his airport's Routes booth about the airport's effort to plug the holes in its route map. "It doesn't happen quickly."

The efforts airports like Milwaukee and Oakland make at Routes also underscores how hard officials at most U.S. airports have to do to grow their flight schedules. It's not as simple as just asking an airline to come or to expanding its existing schedule.

"We get that kind of suggestion all the time," says Milwaukee's Rowe. "A lot of people actually think it's the airport that's in charge of that – that the airport simply needs to issue an invitation."

American debut

This year's marks a milestone for the World Routes event, which is being held in the United States for the first time in its 19-year history.

"The first one was in Abu Dhabi, and it was less than 100 people," Mayes says. "It was started up by some guys that were formerly from Manchester Airport. (They) recognized the difficulty in talking to airlines was that they couldn't actually get the opportunity to speak to airlines all in one place. So they started the event."

"Now we're now here in Las Vegas, and we've got 3,000" attendees, he adds.

The event flourished outside of the United States, but Routes hopes that moving the event to America – and Las Vegas in particular – will help expand the following Routes has cultivated during past two decades.

"Strategically, it was quite important for us because we hadn't been to the U.S. So there's 660 airports in the U.S. that have scheduled services, and we don't get all of those airports to attend our events" when they're overseas, Mayes says. "Having the event in the U.S. helped us to get more of the U.S. airports exposed to Routes and to see the value in route development."

He says 43 U.S. airports are making their first-ever appearance at this year's Routes, "which is great for us."

Mayes also notes the bid that Las Vegas put in to be the host city was a strong one.

"Las Vegas told us that it's a great convention city and that we would see our numbers 5% more than what we'd normally get because it's Las Vegas," Mayes said, adding they have in fact noticed "an increase in our core delegation this year."

And they'll get a chance for an encore next year, as 2014 Chicago give Routes a two-year run in the United States.

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Speaking of Las Vegas--Excelsior Limousine offers a special rate to Las Vegas.  Check out our website for special flat rates for a town car to nearby cities. If you need an SUV just give us a call.

 

To Do List:1. Make a To Do List

We found this article at yahoo.com: 

4 Ways to Make a Better To-Do List

What's currently on your to-do list?

A 2012 global survey by professional networking site LinkedIn found that 63% of professionals frequently create them.

But are we as productive as we are organized? Not exactly: The same survey found that only 11% of professionals accomplish everything they plan to do in a given workday.

Clearly, most of us are on board with keeping to-do lists—but finishing them is a different story. So we spoke with productivity experts to figure out not only how best to plow through our lists but also whether there's a best type of list out there to begin with. And then, just to make you feel a little less alone, we snagged the looming lists of four real, aspiring list-finishers.

If "figure out how to be more productive" is on your list, you're about to check it off.

How to Actually Do Your To-Dos

Documenting the people and things that need our attention isn't so much of a challenge in itself—the tricky part is checking off tasks without that "I haven't accomplished anything today!" feeling. To keep moving forward, keep these four expert tips in mind:

1. Maintain One Master List

Ken Zeigler a productivity and time management expert who has conducted over 16 years of research in the field, suggests a "Master List": a portable pad of paper (he finds the old-school medium most effective for retention) where you keep all to-do items (whether financial, personal or professional) for an entire week. When you have a thought, write it down immediately, then delete it from your mind. “Allow your mind to be a strategic thinker," he says, "not a memory chip.”

2. Batch Your Tasks

The next step in Zeigler's process is to review your Master List daily and transfer action items onto a Daily List, which should be in electronic form to make it easily portable and accessible from multiple devices. This list should be "batched," or separated into groups of similar tasks (like the three separate emails you must answer in the next hour or the five errands you need to run in town). Zeigler explains that batching tasks improves productivity. “By working on all of the similar tasks, it will prevent your jumping from task to task and help you focus on one type at a time,” he says.

3. Work Toward Larger Goals

Peter Bregman, author of “18 Minutes Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get The Right Things Done”  has created his own method for a list that tackles not just the minutiae of daily life but your larger goals. It's called the “18 Minutes To-Do-List”  To get started, you identify no more than five goals for the year—both personal and professional—and generate your daily to-dos keeping those annual goals in mind. Of course, there is space for the unavoidable minutiae, which is called “the other 5%,” because according to Bregman, you shouldn't be spending more than 5% of your time on these tasks.

4. Set an Expiration Date for Each To-Do

When setting yourself up for success, "next week" isn't an effective time limit. “There's a tremendous amount of research that points to the fact that if you decide when and where you're going to do something, you'll do it,” says Bregman. If items stay on your list for more than three days, Bregman gives you three options: Do it right away, put it on your calendar for a specific time in the future (place the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day), or delete it.

Is There a Best Format for Your List?

We all have that friend who dutifully totes around his leather-bound day planner ... and another who is completely bereft without the "Notes" function on her smartphone. But is there really a best place to keep your list? Half of those surveyed by LinkedIn use pen and paper, about 45% use electronic lists, and the remaining 5% store their lists elsewhere, like on white boards—or in their heads.

So which list is the best list? “It's very personal,” explains Bregman. “Either can be effective depending on your process.

If you go high-tech, there’s no shortage of options. Pete Pachal, technology editor at Mashable, suggests the following simple apps:

·         Remember the Milk: Organizes your shopping and to-do lists by due date, includes time estimates, and can send you text and email reminders for each task.

·         Dot::Along with a standard list, this app lets you share your tasks and lists for larger projects with friends and family members.

·         Minimalist To Do List: Allows you to add detailed notes for each task, as well as reorganize your to-dos and email tasks or lists.

If you’re looking for something a bit more advanced to keep track of websites, documents and all of the other aspects of your to-do list, Pachal suggests virtual filing app Evernote photo/voice/note-storing service Google Keep or note-taking software OneNote.

 

Speaking of to-do lists--Have you booked your Town Car, SUV or Limousine for Halloween yet?  Excelsior Limousine is here for all of your ground transportation and celebration needs.

 

Best Credit Cards for International Travel

We found this article at Yahoo Travel

What's the Best Credit Card for International Travel?

By Stephen Vanderpool, NerdWallet

The best credit cards for international travel typically share a few common qualities. They offer high rewards and substantial signup bonuses and waive their foreign transaction fees. High rewards and signup bonuses are characteristic of any quality rewards credit card, but the foreign transaction fee is specific to international travelers and a crucial item to consider when applying for a travel card. Usually, foreign transaction fees are an extra 3% charge on every out-of-country purchase (sometimes you'll see 2.7% as well). If you do a fair amount of traveling abroad, you'll save a lot of money by equipping yourself with a card that waives the "f/x fee," as it is sometimes abbreviated.

Here are NerdWallet's top picks for the best credit cards for international travel.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card
One of our perennial favorites, the Chase Sapphire Preferred has earned a reputation for offering a massive signup bonus. Currently, the bonus is 40,000 points when you spend $3,000 in the first three months. Typically, 40,000 points equates to $400 in rewards. However, by redeeming for travel booked through Chase, your points are worth 25% more. The full value of the bonus stands at a whopping $500.

Ongoing rewards accumulate at a 1-point-per-dollar base rate, with double miles on travel and dining at restaurants. Unlike most cards, 1 point per dollar is not equal to a 1% rewards rate in this instance. You have to take into consideration the redemption bonus for booking travel with Chase and the annual rewards dividend. The rewards dividend gives cardholders a bonus sum equivalent to 7% of the points earned over the course of the year. If, for example, you earn 100,000 points in a 12-month span, you'll receive an additional 7,000 points at the end of the year. Including those two factors in our calculation, the base rewards rate can be as high as 1.34%.

Miles earned with the Sapphire can be transferred to some of the leading travel loyalty programs at a 1:1 conversion rate. The programs include those run by Amtrak, British Airways, United Air Lines, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott, and Southwest Airlines. There is no foreign transaction fee, and the annual fee is $95 (waived the first year).

Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard
The Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard is the best travel card for long-term value. It has no foreign transaction fee and comes with a free subscription to travel-organizer service TripIt Pro, but the real draw is in its long-term rewards rate. It earns 2 miles on every $1 spent, much like the Capital One Venture Rewards, but it does one better: If you redeem your miles for a statement credit against travel expenses, you get 10% of your miles credited back to your account. So if you use your Barclays miles to wipe out gas, hotels, airfare, and so on, your rewards rate is essentially 2.2%. That's on top of the 40,000 Barclaycard Miles signup bonus, which is also worth 10% more when redeemed for travel. Its $89 annual fee is waived the first year.

If you're a rewards hacker and can get great value out of, say, a United mile or Marriott point, you're better off with the Sapphire Preferred, which lets you transfer to other programs. However, if you're like me and would rather not cobble together an itinerary to get the most value out of my points, you'll prefer the simplicity of the Arrival.

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credit Card
I know what you're thinking: Whoa, now, Southwest is a domestic carrier! They can't take me to Europe! And how am I supposed to go on my annual hike through the Himalayas?

Turns out Southwest has a few tricks up its sleeve. Yes, the airline flies only to destinations in North America. But the Southwest credit card uses partners to offer free flights to destinations around the globe. You can go anywhere your wandering heart desires!

Right now, Southwest is offering a killer signup bonus. When you spend $2,000 in the first three months, you get 50,000 points good for two round-trip domestic flights. That's hard to beat. Ongoing rewards accumulate at 1 point per dollar spent, with double miles on purchases with Southwest, AirTran, and Rapid Rewards hotel and car-rental partners.

Again, there is no foreign transaction fee, saving you 3% on every out-of-country purchase. The annual fee is $99, but that's offset by the annual 6,000 anniversary bonus points (worth $100 of "Wanna Get Away" fare). Essentially, then, the card has no annual fee.

United MileagePlus Explorer
This is a pretty cool airline-branded card. It has a lot of neat features that frequent travelers will adore. Let's start with the signup bonus. At 30,000 miles, you have enough to pay a free round-trip domestic flight. To get the bonus, you'll have to charge $1,000 within the first three months -- pretty doable for most consumers. Ongoing rewards accumulate at 1% on all charges, plus double miles for purchases made with United.

A big draw of the MileagePlus Explorer is the multitude of fringe perks. For starters, your first checked bag on every flight is free, saving up to $100 on every round trip. You also get priority boarding, two free passes to the United Club every year, and primary rental-car insurance. Not a bad collection of bonus benefits.

In addition, you can redeem miles for flights to a vast number of destinations. You aren't limited to earning flights with United. Points can be redeemed with any of the Star Alliance, which includes US Airways, Air China, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, and many more. The annual fee is a little steep at $95, but it's waived the first year, and your rewards should easily make up for it.

No matter what credit card you’re traveling with, Excelsior Limousine is happy to be your ground transportation. Need a Town Car, Limousine or SUV? We’re there!  Bon Voyage!

Free Museum Day Sept. 28

From Budget Travel:

Museums all over the country will open their doors for free on Saturday, Sept. 28th, thanks to Smithsonian Magazine's ninth annual Museum Day Live.

While Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian museums are always open to the public, more than 1,400 other museums and cultural institutions are following their lead, at least for one day.

To get the free tickets visit www.smithsonianmag.com to see what museums are participating near you. Only two free tickets are allowed per household and do not include extra charges for special exhibits like IMAX showings.

Excelsior Limousine is happy to provide ground transportation to and from any museum you’d like to visit. We have town cars for 1-3 passengers and SUVs for up to 6 passengers. Field trip anyone?

Hope for Bob Hope Airport

On September 16, 2013, at 6:15 pm the Bob Hope Airport will host a public workshop focusing on the current terminal and the initial vision for a replacement terminal. It will be held in the Airport Skyroom (Terminal A, second floor); validated parking in the Parking Structure will be provided. The City of Burbank and the Burbank Bob Hop Airport have been working together with the community to create the vision for the Burbank Bob Hope Airport and its aging terminal. It is 83- years old! According to the Federal Aviation Administration the terminal is too close to the runways to meet current safety regulations and does not meet current earthquake standards. Yikes! It also lacks many of the amenities available in more modern terminals. We at Excelsior Limousine love driving our clients to and from Bob Hope Airport and support its remodel. If you cannot make it to the meeting but would like to express your questions, comments or concerns on the future of Burbank Bob Hope Airport visit the City-Airport Visioning Process page on the Airport's website.

Last Minute Trip Planning

At Excelsior Limousine we’re always on the lookout for anything that makes travel easier. We found this article at budgettravel.com

6 Great Apps For Last-Minute Trip Planning

Roadside America
Looking for the perfect oddball roadside attractions to visit during your next road trip? The Roadside America app offers maps, in-depth descriptions, and directions to help you find more than 9,000 silly spots around the U.S. and Canada including strange monuments, quirky museums, and other off-the-beaten-path local attractions and tourist traps you may have missed otherwise. Keep track of which ones you've visited, see what's coming down the road as you drive, and share the fun with your friends back home, all within the app. Available in the App Store; pay $2.99 for one of seven available regions—additional regions can be purchased a la carte for $1.99 each, or opt to pay $5.99 for all seven regions throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Triposo
Designed to be the go-to travel app for those who love to plan ahead and travelers who like to see where the road will take them, Triposo offers detailed maps, recommendations, and real-time travel advice (for instance, information about museum closings) for more that 15,000 places of interest in more than 200 countries. The best part: both the app and Triposo's downloadable Destination Guides also work offline, so you don't have to worry about tracking down WiFi on the road. Available for free in the App Store and Google Play.

CheapOair
Do you prefer to make last-minute travel plans or book flights as you go? CheapOair's app lets you view your past bookings, upcoming trips, and make new reservations for flights on more than 450 airlines worldwide. You can also get up to date information on currency conversion rates, choose your meal and seat preferences for flights, and have access to their 24/7 customer service department throughout the entire trip, just in case. Available for free in the App Store, Google Play, for WIndows 7 and 8, and on Amazon.

TripIt
Tired of having to dig through all your emails and text messages to find an airline, hotel, or car rental confirmation number? TripIt is here to help. Simply forward all your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and the app will automatically sort through and organize all your travel plans, presenting them all in a single itinerary so you can keep track of things and share your plans with friends and family back home. Available for free in the App Store, Google Play, for WIndows Phone 7, for Blackberry, and online.

GetPacked: Packing List
Never forget an important item again with GetPacked, the ultimate packing list. Designed to be like a checklist, the app aims to save you time and money on your next trip, helping you figure out exactly what you'll need on your vacation—and what you won't—by asking questions about where you're traveling and the type of trip you're taking so it can create a customized list for you to check off items as you pack. Available for $1.99 in the App Store.

Scout (formerly known as Goby)
Not only does Scout help you discover nearby restaurants, live music, movies, and other things to do over the weekend, the app also gives you tips on where to find the cheapest gas stations and uses GPS street-level technology in real-time to determine the best available routes and help you avoid traffic jams. Available for free in the App Store and Google Play.

 

Excelsior Limousine is here for you for any of your ground transportation needs. Town Cars, SUVs, Limousines, Etc.