Technology Smooths Out Bumps in the Road

Home Office Computing, Dec, 1998 by Alison Ashton

The travel industry is putting the Internet to work, and smart business travelers are well advised to do the same. Here's a quick roundup of some of the best new Web bargains and shortcuts for home-based workers on the move.

Safe Shopping Sabre Group's Travelocity (www.travelocity.com) has introduced its Safe Shop Guarantee. If credit card fraud occurs with transactions made on Travelocity's secure server, Sabre will reimburse the consumer's liability fee up to $50. Also, the recently redesigned site speeds up airline reservations with its new Flight Express feature. Just log your name, password, destination, and travel dates on the home page, and Travelocity will search for the best three itineraries.

Bargain Beds Lodging Research Network predicts average hotel room rates will rise to $82.44 a night in 1999. But you can save 20 to 65 percent when you book through www.1800-usahotels.com. In recent months, the site has doubled inventory to include more than 11,000 hotels worldwide, and in December it'll offer virtual tours of selected properties.

Find Your Way Vicinity Corp.'s new Internet-based Pocket Mapblast site (www.mapblast.com) lets 3Com PalmPilot and Palm III users download custom maps for any location in the United States and Canada.

Earn More Miles Apply online for the NextCard Visa (www.nextcard.com) and sign up for their Rewards program to earn miles on Alaska Airlines's Mileage Plan (also good for British Airways, Horizon Air, Northwest, TWA, Qantas, and KLM Royal Dutch Airways flights). Upgrade to Platinum membership, and all purchases accumulate up to two miles for each dollar spent. Buy books through barnesand noble.com and earn mileage on seven airlines, as well as points toward hotel rooms and car rentals.

Keep Track Biztravel.com's (www.biztravel.com) new CalendarDirect feature makes it more convenient to download travel itineraries to electronic calendars. Use it with any application that supports vCalendar format files, including Lotus Organizer 97 GS and 4.1, Microsoft Outlook 98, Netscape Calendar 4.02, Starfish Sidekick 98, and Corporate Time/Open Time.

Manage Expenses A new feature on The Trip.com (www.thetrip.com) allows you to compare your travel expenses to government-based per diem travel costs for major U.S. cities. The site also features a new e-mail flight notification service. Now you can notify up to three people of your arrival, with complete flight information and a brief personal note sent either before or after the flight lands.

Stay in Touch Tired of faulty hotel Internet connections? Symantec's Norton Mobile Essentials automatically adjusts modem settings and resolves remote connection snafus for notebook users. Cost: about $70.