A Golf Blog

Crazy for You

I don't know where you check-in, but this seems a bit insensitive. Surely, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company could have come up with a better promotion for Valentines Day. Link to a bigger picture.

The Right Choice

Every so often, it's nice to know that you have made the right choice - a review of the Audiovox 5600 Scoblephone. I've had mine for a couple of months and it's just about as close to perfect for me as it could get.

101 Dumbest Moments in Business

Business 2.0 is out with their annual 101 dumbest moments in business. Ingersol Rand’s Kyrptonite subsidiary took the top prize for their Bic pen hackable bicycle lock.

Tim Bray on U.S. Patents

Come on Tim, how do you really feel?

Customer Service Top Ten

If ProFlowers.com isn’t number one, they’re surely number two. My bride, Mandy purchases quite a bit from them and as recently as mid-December, she was trolling their web site for something for the very hard to buy for relatives. Several bouquets were purchased and were to be delivered on December 22nd.

Sometime after the 25th, we got a call from them saying that the delivery for the New Jersey address was 4 days late – no fault of ProFlowers.com – Mother Nature was the culprit. We did not know the about the late delivery and would not have if they didn’t call but they did and even offered a free order for the inconvenience. That one will be delivered in time for Valentine’s Day.

Then yesterday, Mandy got an email from ProFlowers.com making sure that everything was alright – she’d not ordered anything since the holiday bouquet fiasco and I guess they were concerned that she was going to bail as a customer. The email even included a 20 percent off coupon good for 30 days. Notice that I'm smiling.

I know your thinking ProFlowers.com is only doing this as part of their customer retention policy – maybe, but our buying pattern has not changed in years. Only who we buy from – our brick and mortar florist never gave us that level of service.

One Step Back

I came across this job posting – actually, NewsGator found it in a search for Sabre.

Why would anyone want to continue to proliferate the legacy system instead of deploying a web based offering like My.Sabre.com? This posting says there’s “an URGENT need for Travel Agents – must know NATIVE SABRE.

Seems to me that this is a step backward.

Category: Hospitality/Travel.
Duration: Contract to Perm.
Rate: .
City: Tampa, State: Florida, Country: United States.
Description: Incredible position available with a nationally known travel agency. Our travel company has an URGENT need for Travel Agents - must know NATIVE SABRE and have a minimum of 1 year travel/reservations experience. Responsibilities will include customer...
Requirements: call for details, Native Sabre Other desired skills: call for details, Native Sabre Education: Not Specified Experience: Not Specified Travel: Not Specified.

Delta Vacations RSS

I’d been meaning to look into Delta’s RSS offering since well before the holidays and I’ve finally gotten around to it. At first glance, I like it. Travel information via RSS is a total no brainer. A Google search for “rss feeds” and travel returns 4,980,000 results so there is plenty to look at.

Certainly, I’m not interested in everything that comes down the feed but at least I know what’s being made available. Delta requires you to sign up and you’re certainly welcome to do that. For those of you that aren’t, here are a few links to what Delta is pushing down the wire.

Say "I Do" for Free with SunSwept Resorts in St. Lucia!
Ski More for Less. Get Free Nights & Lift Tickets
Get That Aloha Feeling with Free Nights in Oahu

Up next - RSS via the GDS.

Ticket to Paradise

[W + (D-d)] x TQ
N x NA

Where W is weather, D is debt, d is monthly salary, T is the time since Christmas, Q is the time since a failed quit attempt (like smoking or dieting), M is low motivational levels, and NA is the need to take action.

That’s the formula that Dr. Cliff Arnall, a seasonal disorders specialist at the University of Cardiff, Wales created for devising peoples lowest points.

The study was commissioned by a travel agency to help them understand what’s the best time for people to purchase that ticket to paradise.

Link

Awesome Airfare to Rome

I normally don't write about fares - that'd keep me busy 26 hours a day but this one is incredible and warrants passing along. Mind you, is for San Diego to Rome and while this is far from ordinary, it does demonstrate that great deals do occasionally crop up.

I wonder what Iberia is using for fuel - with fares like this, they'd need to run on water.

Travel Industry Predictions for 2005

Norm Rose at Travel Tech Consulting has a post on his blog with ten predictions for 2005.

With one exception, I’m pretty much on board with everything from the viability of GDS bypass (not a good thing for Sabre), to dynamic packaging, wireless applications, and so on.

While I don’t agree that meta Web search will fizzle, I think it will be de-emphasized in favor of RSS. It’s true the reservation systems would take a pounding from major portals like Yahoo and AOL. The GDS’ are hastening the process by exposing functionality via web services which I suspect is being done to expose more of The Long Tail of Travel.