Jaunted

Tags: Video Games / Facebook / Travel Contests / Lufthansa / → All Tags

Relive 'Carmen Sandiego' With Lufthansa's 'Virtual Pilot II' Game

Were you a huge fan of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? Or maybe you just have a thing for geography? Well, Lufthansa totally understands and they're rekindling a bit of the Carmen Sandiago adrenaline with their second version of the geography trivia web game "Virtual Pilot."

In Virtual Pilot 1, you'd be given a city name and you'd have to click on a map in order to "land your plane" as close to there as possible. The first round showed city dots and country borders, the second round only had country borders, and the third round only gave you land masses to go by. We fared pretty well on it, but Virtual Pilot II is kicking our butt hardcore.

more ›

Tags: Lufthansa / Airline News / Twitter / Facebook / Airlines / Social Networks / → All Tags

Lufthansa's 'MySkyStatus' Tweets and Facebooks Your Flight Status For You

Lufthansa is announcing the launch of MySkyStatus, a new web service that lets you send live information about your flight status to your Facebook and Twitter streams. The setup is entirely straightforward - give them your account credentials, type in your flight information, and you're good to go. Regardless of what airline you're flying, the service will send updates like "Jaunted is now flying over Paris, France" to your accounts.

This seems like a neat way to keep friends and family abreast about where you are, plus status updates are supposed to be about your status. If you're over Paris that's what you'd be tweeting if you had cell phone access. So you might as well set up a service to do it for you. The messages even come with a link to a Google Maps mashup that shows your plane's location.

more ›

Tags: All-You-Can-Jet Pass / Very Awesome Stuff / Jetblue / Twitter / 599Club / LCCs / Airline News / Facebook / → All Tags

Jetblue's All-You-Can-Jet Pass Ends Today, But The Tweets Will Last A Lifetime

There were the good times and there were the bad, but most of all, there were the sleep-deprived times; today marks the end of the first-ever All-You-Can-Jet Pass from Jetblue. After today, the mini-population of AYCJers who've been residing in the skies this past month will return to solid ground, and to their own beds, although they may still dream for days that they're sleeping behind a departures board.

There's no doubt that Jetblue's $599 pass was a resounding success, earning them millions of dollars in publicity while they filled seats on flights that would have otherwise gone empty. Wired's Terminal Man was just one of the AYCJers who became a Jetblue ambassador by default, as everyone from NBC to local news stations to Wired readers came to visit him during layovers. We even find ourselves looking forward to reading the tweets of AYCJers, and now have to break our addiction to this, some of the best and most humorous twittering out there.

more ›

Tags: All-You-Can-Jet Pass / Very Awesome Stuff / Jetblue / Twitter / 599Club / LCCs / Airline News / Facebook / → All Tags

Jetblue's All-You-Can-Jet-Pass Starts Today; Follow Along With These Travelers

Today is the day we have been waiting for since Jetblue announced in mid-August that they'd be selling an "All-You-Can-Jet" Pass for $599 for one month of unlimited travel on their routes; it's the first day of the thirty valid for travel on the pass. Somebody break out the bugle and play "Reveille" please so these jetters have a proper send-off?

Since the pass started selling like hotcakes, we've watched Facebook groups, Twitters and various other social media networks pop up to rally around those taking part in it. They are the AYCJ-ers, and their adventures begin now.

To follow the spontaneous folks—including one guy who refuses to leave the airports during his thirty day of non-stop travel—we've compiled a list of All-You-Can-Jet groups to follow:

more ›

Tags: Guatemala Travel / Tourism Boards / Travel Advertising / Facebook / → All Tags

Guatemala Puts The Word Out That They're More Mayan Than Mexico

The Guatemala Tourism Board has become the latest tourism organization to go all-in on web marketing. The board's new "Last Minute" campaign tries to bring together potential travel customers with potential travel providers. Ads will be placed on Google and Facebook and aimed at users who are already searching for Guatemala-related topics, so it won't interrupt your Facebook zombie app or anything.

Users who click on the ads will be taken to a campaign-specific English/Spanish website. The site tries to go beyond the usual "come here because we're awesome" tourism site, linking the 70+ sponsoring travel companies with users. Offers run the gamut from accommodations to food to activities. The site will also include 25% off coupons for these amenities, plus car rentals and tours.

more ›

Tags: Very Awesome Stuff / Jetblue / All-You-Can-Jet Pass / Travel Deals / Twitter / 599Club / LCCs / Airline News / Facebook / → All Tags

Jetblue's All-You-Can-Jet Pass As Social Media Movement

Did you snag one of the much-coveted All-You-Can-Jet Passes from Jetblue? If you did, congratulations and we want to hear all about it once you begin traveling in a few weeks. If you didn't, sorry but it's too late since Jetblue says that demand was way higher than they ever hoped, and therefore they ended sales of the pass early, closing it yesterday instead of August 21.

Ever since the pass was announced on August 12, the country (and aviation fiends like ourselves) have gone crazy over it, mapping dream routes in our heads and attempting to justify taking a month off of work. Some are actually doing it, like Seth Miller, an IT consultant whom Time describes as an "aerophile." He's mainly interested in the actual flying and airport visiting, and so, during one weekend, he'll fly from "New York to Ponce, Puerto Rico back to New York to Las Vegas to Long Beach, Calif. to Portland, Ore. back to Long Beach to Chicago to New York to Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and back to New York one last time."

more ›

Tags: Travel Booking Sites / Orbitz / Facebook / Social Media / → All Tags

No Orbitz, You Didn't Need To Develop That Facebook Application

Memo to booking and airline companies: despite how it sometimes might appear, we're on your side. Really we are. We want you to only do smart things. When you do not smart things you incur costs without producing revenue, creating shortfalls that you pass on to us. That means we travel less, which causes us to get just a wee bit claustrophobic, and without getting into too many details - everybody loses.

Shifting gears, the last few years have seen something of a trend among the 30 year old former frat boys who inhabit the classrooms of our nation's fine MBA programs. Specifically, if a project has a Facebook application or somehow involves Twitter, it's gold. Conversely, projects without Web 2.0 tie-ins are preemptively deemed failures. Proposals don't have to make sense. They just has to have lots of phrases like "viral advertising" and "user generated content."

Fast forward a few years and these supple minds are now consultants, randomly going from business to business telling middle managers to invest in Facebook apps. To which we can only respond the same way fashion blogs react when starlets show up to awards shows wearing formal shorts. Oh honey, no:

more ›

Tags: Baggage Fees / Airline Fees / Airline News / American Airlines / Facebook / → All Tags

American Airlines Needs More Cash So We'll Pay More To Check Our Bags

Apparently we are in the middle of a fee fiasco. Delta and Continental just slapped us all with another $5 for checking a suitcase at the airport, and now American Airlines wants to get in on the fee-for-all as well. They’re upping their first and second checked baggage fees by $5.

Now your first bag will cost $20 to get under the plane’s belly, and the second bag will be $30. These new charges begin for tickets purchased on or after August 14, so you only have a few weeks to save a couple bucks on your next trip.

more ›

Tags: Wine Travel / Sonoma / Free / Wine Country / Facebook / Tourism Boards / → All Tags

Cali Wine Country Hooks Up Facebook Fans With Freebies

It seems like every tourism promoter and their mom is getting on board the Twitter/Facebook/YouTube thing, although we have yet to see many destinations that are actually blowing us away with their social media campaigns. Nonetheless, we're intrigued by Sonoma wine country's effort, because it has at least one word we like: free! (Also, wine!)

All you have to do is become a fan of "The Wine Road" on Facebook between June 21 and 26, and the group will toss you a free three-day "Ticket to the Wine Road," a savings pass that normally retails for $50. When you present the ticket at any of 152 different Sonoma wineries and 50 lodges, you'll get a boatload of freebies like complimentary breakfast, free bottles of wine with your room, and discounts on tastings.

OK, so it's mostly discounts—you still gotta pay for a trip out there—but it sounds a pretty sweet deal for just being a fan.

Related Stories:
· Wine Road Announces Facebook & “Ticket to the Wine Road” Promo [The Intoxicologist]
· The Wine Road [Facebook]
· All You Need Is One Hand and a Dream [Jaunted]

[Photo: Dave Schumaker ]

Tags: Film Festivals / Free / Movie Travel / Recession / Screen on the Green / HBO / Facebook / Washington / → All Tags

The Recession Puts a Kibosh on DC's Outdoor Film Festival

Looks like free outdoor movies are joining music festivals on the list of things that won't live through the recession. HBO has announced that it's pulling the plug on DC's popular Screen on the Green series, which brings out thousands every summer for free classic movie screenings on the National Mall.

In what could be construed as a diss to DC, HBO will continue to sponsor this year's Bryant Park Film Festival, which is basically the exact same event, but in Manhattan, and kicks off with a showing of The Sting on June 15th. Given that DC already copes with a minor New York inferiority complex, Washingtonians are not happy, and nearly 2,000 of them have joined the Save Screen on the Green facebook page.

No word yet on whether Obama plans to bailout the film festival, but rumor has it The Kennedy Center is planning to step in with its own summer film series on their terrace level·also a picturesque spot, although considerably smaller than the Mall.

Related Stories:
· Screen on the Green Rescue Efforts Underway [DCist]
· Film Festivals coverage [Jaunted]
· Movie Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: voteprime]

Tags: Travel News Briefs / Facebook / Gossip Girl / Tragedy / → All Tags

Now That Everyone is On Twitter, Airports Create Facebook Pages

With so much travel news raining down on us, we don't always have time to give every story its own forecast. Here's more of the day's news, in brief.

· Airports on Facebook: The truth is the new redesign of Facebook has killed most Facebook addictions. We find ourselves updating our status maybe once every two or three days now instead of once an hour. Why? Because we have Twitter for that now. But apparently a believer in "Better late to the social media party than never" credo, airports like Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International have begun creating Facebook pages where you can check in for actual airport updates and possibly win a roundtrip ticket on Frontier airlines. [Today in the Sky]

· 'Gossip Girl' Stars Spend Time in Miami: While we eagerly await the next episode of Gossip Girl tonight, co-stars Ed Westwick and Jessica Szohr cozied up together during a mini-vacay to the Mondrian South Beach. Looks like even Chuck Bass needs a trip to the gym every once in a while. [HotelChatter]

· JP Morgan Gets New Corporate Jets: The Wall Street firm has set aside $119 million for new jets and a hangar upgrade. But don't worry, no bail-out money is going to be used to buy them. And like, they won't even arrive until 2012. Still, we bet there are better ways to use funds. [NY Post]

· Tragic Plane Crash in Montana: A private plane chartering 14 people, including seven children, to a ski trip in Montana crashed just 500 feet west of the airport, landing in a cemetary and killing all onboard.[NY Times]

Tags: Barack Obama / Facebook / Inauguration Travel / → All Tags

Barack Obama Rocks The Youth Ball, Now In Video

The inauguration coverage just never ends. But we promise this one is totally worth it. Thanks to an awesome Jaunted Facebook friend, we have some amazing footage of President Barack Obama attending the Youth Ball on Tuesday night with the First Lady. The video gave us some chills as President Obama stepped up to the mike to address the crowd. "I've been waiting for this ball for quite some time," he said.

To watch the video and Obama's great speech about the young people of America, head on over to Jaunted's Facebook page (and become a fan!) and click on the Jaunted Videos. While you're there, feel free to upload your own videos and photos or at least, write on our wall telling us how pretty you think we are.

Related Stories:
· Where the Party At? The Top Inaugural Bashes [Jaunted]
· Inauguration Hangover Insights: "The Real Party is On the Metro" [Jaunted] "