Life is Funny

With the addition of the internet, people nowadays can book their flights and hotel packages online. This lets you get past having to pay a Travel Agent for their services (or artificially raising the price).

Here’s something I learned, and I’ll share it with you.

We were looking at booking a trip to Las Vegas from British Columbia, Canada. We were thinking of booking a package with Westjet as the carrier.

On a whim, while passing through the mall, we saw a travel agent that did not seem busy. (They are really not being given the business that they should).

We stopped in, and talked to someone. After logging into their specialized agent system, which was somewhat of a website backdoor into various airlines, she quickly gave us a quote that was about $s250 less than if we booked it ourselves.

“How can that be?” we asked.

Well she said, you have to be careful on the price breakdown that the retail travel websites give you. Everyone looks at the airfare price, and then quickly move through the ordering process, not reading the fine print. By the time you are done, there are all sorts of extra surcharges, levies, penalties, reservation fees, etc, that get tacked on to inflate the price.

When you book through us, we avoid a lot of those common pitfalls.

She quickly pointed out.. “Look here. See this, if I go through the website, it automatically adds on priority boarding surcharge of $20 and it didn’t even give me that as an option. It just added it on its own. Now look here, you said you were only going to bring 1 bag, but they’ve added a charge for 2.  You didn’t want cancellation protection, but again, they’ve automatically added it”

She then went on to explain how the taxes are much lower by flying out of Bellingham, Washington USA, than in British Columbia. You can save yourself another $150 just by driving to the other airport across the border.

She then went on to say “if you book it yourselves, and the airline carrier goes out of business or cancels the flight (and it does happen in the USA because airlines are having financial issues), you would not be protected. However, if you book through our travel agency, you are completely covered in the event of a complication like that”..

She added a lot of insight to the while thing, and it wasn’t just a sales picture. We actually saw the savings in our travel itinerary if we went through the travel agent.

We thanked her, and took a business card. We signed nothing, paid nothing, and were under no obligation. It was a very calm, informative experience.

Understand that while you may only book yourself a couple trips a year…

These people do it 9 to 5, five days a week, every week. They know where the deals are..

The airlines, the holiday package websites, are all made in such a way, to secure the most reservations while tricking the customer into spending the most..

Don’t be fooled, and don’t cheat yourself. At the very minimum, speak to your local travel agent before you hit the “charge my credit card” button on the website when booking your next vacation.

Good luck.

Online gambling sites are illegal in many parts of the world. In order to run one in North America it isn’t easy. Therefore, many setup shop overseas. Once you do that, people worry about trusting the establishment, since they seem so unreachable. (Ie: Not easy to drive over to their office, or file a complaint with the local authorities).

So it’s about trust. It’s no secret that the early online casinos and online bingo halls were run by fraudsters and tricksters who would modify their software to give few few payoffs.

Things have changed now. I’ve been playing one tonight named www.bingosky.com and it seems very legitimate. There are rules and regulations that you do need to know about, but other than that, it seems like a real legitimate outfit.

For instance, in order to keep your “bonus dollars”, you must make a deposit (minimum $20) every 45 days, otherwise you just get to keep your current cash balance and any winnings. So when you are awarded a 500% bonus when you first login, it is important to make note of that fact.

If you do not keep your account “active” which means either buying bingo cards, or making a deposit once every 6 months, all money you have in your balance is forefeited and donated to charity.

These are big deals that many people do not read when they first login. So before you make that spontaeous decision to start playing. READ THE FINE PRINT. It is there to protect the online gambling site, but also to protect the consumer too.

Now that we’ve talked about the negative aspects of online gambling, let’s talk about the positive ones. You can gamble from the comfort of your own home. That saves on gasoline, wear and tear on your car. It saves on expensive food bought elsewhere. It guarantees you a comfortable seat, in a comfortable setting (your home). You have access to your own private washroom. Using a cellular phone or regular phone in the middle of the session is perfectly ok.

It’s really enjoyable to spend a bingo night at home.

The way I found www.bingosky.com was in a magazine advertisement. Right on their website it says that they have received a stamp of approval from the Internet Gaming Commission.

After doing some more reading, it appears that the Internet Gaming Commission (IGC) was actually a fake watch dog site, a parody of the real “Internet Gaming Council”

So what I’m basically telling you, that if you are gambling, realize, that the whole concept of gambling online is a gamble in itself. You might get paid, you might not. The payoff odds might be correct, or they may be in the house’s favor.

Either way, it is fun. Just be careful with how much you spend. Keep an eye on your credit card balance too.

Good luck to you.

When fuel prices go up, so does everything else.  Anything that can trigger widespread problems, like natural gas or hydro, is often regulated by the government, even if it is delivered by a privatized corporation.

So why is gasoline any different?

I understand that with global warming concerns and the environment, having high gas prices does keep us driving less. But it’s also driving up the cost of groceries and other basic necessities. We all need to eat. We all need to therefore make a living to support basic survival.

Fuel Prices need to be regulated. Find another way to charge people who drive too much. But leave our grocery prices alone.  There is fuel surtax on wholesale food. Which in turn, drives up the cost of retail food.

It’s important that our Government gets more involved, and starts regulating Fuel Prices, even if it means, only for the trucking industry.

Today I learned a new thing about a new movement called Freeganism or Freegans.

Basically it is a group of people, both poor and middle class, who are sick and tired of commercialism and waste in society.  They find that by raiding dumpsters behind grocery stores for food, they are harvesting tons of quality edible food for free!

Personally, I think if your stomach can handle it, and you’ve got nerves of steel to be caught doing it (it’s not socially acceptable behavior), then more power to you. I agree with the premise.

We overpay at the grocery store for simple items, but one of reasons why the prices are as high as they are, is because of the waste that is going on at the rear of the grocery store.

They are saying that when an egg breaks, often they will throw out the entire carton (because you can’t just sell 11 eggs to someone).  That’s significant waste!

I think the whole concept of Freegans needs more attention. Share this with people you know.

Ok, I’ve got a solution to “writers block” for bloggers. There is nothing worse than sitting down ready to write your blog when you have some time only to sit and stare at the screen wondering what to write.

Now all day long (ok, slight exaggeration, let’s try this again)..

Once or twice a day during my regular routine, and thought will pop in my head, and I’ll say to myself “that will make a great blog topic, I have to remember that”. So the first thing I do is promise to remember, and the second thing I do is forget about 20 minutes later.

I’ve made quite a good routine out of this.. Unfortunately its causing me to have reoccurring epsidoes of writers block everyday.

Not anymore. This time, I will definately write a word or two down when I get these ideas, so that I have something to remember my thoughts by.  If you are a blogger, I recommend you follow this strict regimine yourself (if you need help circumventing writers block).

It seems like a simple concept, but often we always tell ourselves “oh, this idea I won’t forget. No, I like it too much, its too important. It’s very vivid in my mind”. Then.. 20 minutes later, you forget.

Now the last thing that is very important that I wanted to share with you is…

Ooops, I forgot.