There are 83 million Millennials, children born between 1980 and 2000, in America and they have become the most savvy of travelers. Here are 5 ways this generation is creating their own itineraries and taking educated risks.
Hotels are catering to the needs of millennials with free wifi, changing stations, cool designs, and social areas.
Millennials also have to option to not stay in a hotel. They will choose the cheapest place they can find and are more inclined to stay in places like Airbnbs now.
They are also more inclined to flying and are willing to pay more to plug-in or have wifi.
There is no limit on what a millennials can do abroad, for ideas they just have to ask their network of social media connections.
Millennials carry and endless supply of information from maps to photos and transportation to dining. Apps give millennials exactly what they need to make their trip great.
Click here to read the full article by Juliana Shallcross on CN Traveler.
Whether you are just taking a weekend trip close to home or on an adventure around the world there are some things you need to do before travelling on your own.
Give someone at home your contact info and where you will be staying.
Check in occasionally, even on social media, to ease your friends minds.
Make copies of important documents like your passport or social security card.
Look for potential contacts that you already know to show you around.
Bring a book for long flights, trains, or bus rides.
It’s easier to get seated at restaurants when you are alone so take advantage.
Be selfish and go anywhere you want to see.
Click here to read the full article by Lilit Marcus on CNTraveler.
Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, the issue of jet lag can be a serious damper on your trip and potentially result in several days of discomfort.
Luckily there are several ways you can reduce the symptoms and get your body on the right track as soon as possible.
Here are some helpful methods to try:
Be Diligent About Self-Care
Everyone knows that exercise, eating right and drinking water are important factors in making sure your body feels its best.
These habits are especially influential when you are putting your body through a challenging endeavor such as switching time zones.
Make sure to be strict in adhering to your workout routine, eat lots of healthy meals, and stay hydrated around the time of your trip. This will help your body adjust as rapidly as it can.
Choose Your Airplane Seat Carefully
For plane sleeping, it is ideal to go with the most expensive seat you can afford, as business and first class spots will provide the most room for getting some shut eye.
However, even if you can only swing economy class, paying a small fee to get a little extra room or an exit row seat may be worth it.
As for where to sit in the row, if you will not need to get up regularly, a window seat is great because you can put a pillow against the window.
Avoid seats in the back of the plane, where residents can feel turbulence more, as well as ones in high traffic areas where the activity can be disruptive.
Get on the Right Sleep Schedule ASAP
Most people who fly regularly agree that it is a good idea to get on the sleep schedule of your destination as soon as you can.
Therefore when you arrive, even if it is the middle of the night in the place you originated from and you are exhausted, try to stay awake.
If you absolutely MUST sleep, take a short nap and then get up. Do not sleep for a long period – it will just make it very difficult to go to bed when night time comes.
The holiday travel season brings stress and little time to re- energize yourself. Here are 7 tips to take care for yourself and boost your mood in all the planning and travel.
Create your own mini spa on your plane or train with a neck pillow and immerse yourself in a great book.
Don’t eat an energy bar if your looking for a boost at the airport, instead pack a bag of nuts, popcorn, or an energy bar with no additives.
If you get to the airport with time to spare walk around and explore the terminal instead of just sitting at the gate. You should also do some full body stretches to loosen your muscles.
If you are a caffeine junkie you should alternate caffeinated drinks and non-caffeinated drinks while traveling to stay hydrated.
In your hotel room take an lavender Epsom salt bath and bring a candle to feel more at home.
Instead of turning to junk food bring small packs of high calorie snacks like Edamame to keep you going all day.
Portion sizes at this time of year can also be very large, to combat eating too much cut your entree in half and reevaluate your hunger after eating just one half.
Click here to read the full article by Perri O. Blumberg on Brit&Co.
The greatest brands in luxury travel gathered at the Shanghai International Luxury Travel Market. If money is not a question here are the top experiences you need to visit.
Necker Belle: 105 foot Catarmaran in the Carribean where guests create their own itinerary with 12 lucky friends for $110,000 a week.
Hotel President Wilson: Many celebrities have stayed at this very private and safe penthouse in Geneva. It has 12 bedrooms, a helipad, gym, and bulletproof windows.
Private Helipcoter tour in Queenstown, New Zealand to Stewart Island where you can hike and fish.
Belmond Napolean Barge: You can take a 6 night river cruise with candlelit dinners and a jacuzzi from Provence, France with 11 other people for $76,100.
Private Jet Tour: Fly over Australia and New Zealand for $27,000 per person to see the Outback, Great Barrier Reef, and Sydney.
Singita Serengeti: Here you stay in an all inclusive 4 suite villa for $84,500 a week in the middle of the Singita grumeti reserve.
South American Cruise: Sail the high seas on teh Seven Seas Mariner for 72 days and stopping in location all around South America for $120,000.
Iceland: Known for fire and ice, Iceland has beautiful landscapes and you can see many of them on the 10 day tour by Ker & Downey for $23,325 per person.
Click here to read the full article by Chris Dwyer on CNN.
Many luxury travelers visit Ireland several times because of the massive castles and beautiful ladscapes in the country, but Lisa Mandell has created a whole new tour for people who have seen enough castles. It is called The Retreat and takes guests to fine dining, hotels and museums.
Click here to read the full aricle by Donald Leibenson on Millionare Corner.
One thing you should do before you go heli-skiing in Chile is check out what your health insurance cover while you are abroad. You can purchase a supplementary policy but most of the major providers supply insurance while you are abroad. But there are still major expenses that may not be covered, like being medically evacuated back to the U.S. which could cost over $10,000. The State Department recommends calling your provider and asking what they will cover if something happened to you out of the country and what you will need to cover yourself.
Click here to read the full article by Stephanie Rosenbloom on NYTimes.
So you just booked your private jet charter. You now wonder… what kind of food can I expect to find on board?
Standard Stock [what comes with the plane] varies from aircraft to aircraft. Where a Heavy Jet may come with a large assortment of snacks, fruits, cookies, a fully stocked bar, floral arrangements, etc., a light jet might just come with a few dry snacks and soft drinks.
The industry standard for charter flights in the United States is to provide the aircraft with “standard stock,” and then offer the option to have the flight catered to the chartering client. Catering is generally then billed to the chartering client upon completion of the trip.
When a charter passenger opts for catering, charter companies will generally outsource the order to a local aircraft catering company. For flights out of Los Angeles and Las Vegas for example, my company generally uses Stevie’s Catering; we have a whole list of approved catering vendors across the world, however. A good aircraft catering company is open practically 24/7, and can prepare practically anything you want. Aircraft catering options can be surprisingly scarce in smaller towns, where we will often have to rely on local shops and restaurants or ship amenities in from a major city.
Good aircraft catering comes at a price, however. We find that the biggest “sticker shock” of a private jet flight can be the catering bill. Seldom do the catering companies offer prices for their orders until after the order has been delivered. When a client asks me how much their catering order will run, I tell them to imagine the cost of ordering the exact same food through room service at a top hotel, and then multiply that cost by 4. I’m accustomed to seeing single bagels, without condiments, invoiced at $10.00 each.
In the past, we have come up with several alternatives to the pricey in-flight Worry Free Catering companies. In New York and Las Vegas for example, we have hired courier services to pick-up custom orders from 5-star restaurants in the city. Doing this has provided the passengers with “brand name” cuisine at lower prices. Brick and mortar aircraft catering providers are still preferred due do their refrigerated transportation vehicles and packaging that fits perfectly in the aircraft galleys, however.
It is always important to keep the type of aircraft you’re flying in mind when placing a catering order. If you’re flying on a Gulfstream G550 with a personal cabin attendant, full stock of fine china and flatware, and a full service galley, you can order a lot more than if you’re flying an Embraer Phenom 100 that doesn’t even have a heating source. For larger aircraft, food will generally be packaged in galley containers for the flight attendant to work with before plating you meals. On smaller aircraft however, the food will be packaged in a way that is meant to be presented directly to the passengers.
On your next private jet flight, you can have as few or as many amenities as you’d like. Sometimes however, those amenities will come at a premium due to their supply network.
If you spend a few minutes shopping for anything related to private jets, whether it be a charter flight or an entire aircraft, you’ll probably come across some sort of “jet card” program. If you’re even slightly considering purchasing a jet card, make sure to continue reading this article.
Simply put, a jet card is an account where a buyer locks him/herself into a pre-set number of flight hours to be flown during a pre-set period of time, on a pre-set type of aircraft, such as a Cessna Citation X, for a pre-set price; that much is pretty standard. The aircraft and flight infrastructures behind the various cards differ vastly however, and such cards only make financial sense to very specific types of fliers.
The original jet cards were conceived on the notion that they would lower the entry barrier into fractional programs such as NetJets and FlexJet, offering travelers the opportunities to fly fractional aircraft for a mere 25 hour annual commitment as opposed to a 100+ annual commitment and asset purchase. Jet cards through fractional aircraft providers offer their cardholders the consistency and predictability often assimilated with a fractional carrier; late model planes, planes with like paint schemes and cabin configurations, and consistent customer service.
More recently, the market welcomed jet cards offered by charter brokerage companies. Unlike the cards offered by fractional providers, cards offered by charter companies offer less flight experience consistency, though can match (or exceed, based on the outfit) the customer consistency on the ground of a fractional carrier. Flights by jet cards offered by charter brokerage companies are fulfilled by the national network of part 135 charter planes, which are individually owned aircraft placed on the charter market to defray operating costs for their owners. Cards offered by charter brokers tend to be mildly less expensive than those offered by the fractional carriers primarily because charter brokers can fulfill most of the flights for significantly less than the cost of fractional carrier flights.
It is this writer’s belief that jet cards in general should be avoided by most (but not all). To support my opinion.
1. The cost of one hour on a jet card is generally about the cost of two hours of a jet charter (though ferry hours may be required in a charter).
2. The cost of a jet card flight will be consistent for a given route, however the charter cost for the same flight will be less in most scenarios despite jet card marketing propaganda, and can be significantly less in many cases thanks to one-ways, empty legs, and floating aircraft.
Furthermore, it is this writer’s belief that jet cards offered by charter brokerage companies should be avoided even moreso. Charter brokerage companies fulfill their card member flights the same way they fulfill one-off charter flights. If a jet card member were to request a flight from New York to Los Angeles on their Gulfstream GIV card for example, the pre-set rate might fall in the $60,000.00 + tax range, similar to the cost of the fractional jet card. The charter brokerage company will likely turn to the wholesale market and cover said flight for $35,000.00 + tax if availability is good, leaving them with a “winning flight.” As the owner of The Early Air Way, a charter brokerage firm, I’ve designed our system to price flights based off of current wholesale market inventory, meaning that your price would be about $35,000.00 + tax for the same flight. It is true that we wouldn’t guarantee that $35,000.00 + tax rate on every flight whereas a cardholder elsewhere would be guaranteed the $60,000.00 + tax rate, however we seldom have to charge anyone the $60,000.00 + tax rate ever, even when availability isn’t optimal.
Jet cards make sense for charter fliers sometimes, however. On short (generally under one hour in duration) one-way or overnight flights, between two small towns, or on a heavy cabin aircraft such as a GIV, charters can be loaded with extra costs whereas your jet card program will still pass along your preset hourly rate. These are the few flights that can often be less expensive with a jet card than with a straight charter and would be a “losing flight” for the card provider. It is the general belief that the significantly larger profit margin on most flights through a jet card system will far outweigh the potential losses incurred by the provider on the rare “losing flights” mentioned above, offering an overall increased operating margin to the provider. Unless you fly a Gulfstream on one-way trips between two very small towns less than 500 miles apart from one another regularly however, you will likely be overspending by a significant margin with a jet card.
If you must purchase a jet card however, be sure to select the program with the most stability; after all, the provider will be holding a significant amount of your cash. Be sure to vet out charter brokerage companies with fewer than 5 years of history. If your broker’s jet card flight ratio of “winning flights” to “losing flights” is bad for a short period of time, the company can too easily go bust, disappearing along with your deposit. I will argue that the only jet cards worthwhile are those offered by large fractional providers, even if they cost more than those offered by brokerage firms, ONLY if you are one to regularly fly the rare “losing flights” previously mentioned. You can always hedge your card, making sure you simply charter a flight instead of booking a “winning flight” through your card provider.
Jet Cards aren’t for most, but they will benefit a select few. For most, on-demand charter is the way to go.
