Cyber Monday and the Wrong Flight

I am on a flight today headed back to Salt Lake City. I picked today to fly trying to avoid the tail-end of Thanksgiving travel. I also knew I could get some important work done on the flight with the help of in-flight Internet. I'm glad I planned to work as the plane's entertainment service isn't working. They've reset the system 3 times now without success. It is kind of annoying but it means I can focus more of my attention on getting work done. Sometimes you pick the right flight where there are empty seats next to you or something amazing happens. Today is not that day.

Today also happens to be Cyber Monday when all of the online stores have their biggest sales. Once again my e-mail inbox received a flood of messages encouraging me to spend money on potential Christmas gifts. Once again I am not really interested in spending money. It would probably be a good idea to come up with a list of gifts for those on my list before Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around. Then I could take advantage of some of the deals. Fortunately the discounts seem to stick around up until the big day. Then everything really goes on sale.

One sale I knew would happen today is that from the airlines. I received a special e-mail from both Alaska and Delta as those are the two carriers I use the most. I'm sure I also got one from Southwest but skipped over it as I have not been flying them recently. Don't get me wrong, they are a great airline with spectacular deals. I just prefer nonstop flights and Southwest seems to have multiple legs whenever I want to go somewhere. That doesn't mean I don't check their schedule first as it serves as a great baseline price.

I also received a lot of e-mails from hotel chains that I tend to use for business travel. There are some great deals out there. Unfortunately, for my personal travel I have been scouring AirBnB for most of my overnight accommodations recently. For about the same price as a hotel, I can get a living room and a kitchen. It is only business trips where I use hotels any more. Since the company is paying for it, I don't mind staying in hotels and eating out at restaurants.

Speaking of business travel I should probably get back to work. There is a lot going on this week and I need to get ready for all of the events. Then I can wind down for the Christmas break.

Cyber Monday in Tokyo

Once again I find myself in Tokyo, Japan. This is the fifth trip this year and just happened to occur over Cyber Monday. Due to air travel and crossing the international date line at just the right time, my Cyber Monday was all of about 4 hours long. That means I didn't really get the chance to partake in all of the online shopping deals. I'm not really sure I missed much as most of my Christmas shopping is already done. However I am starting to realized the breadth of deals being offered online at this time of the year.

My e-mail inbox filled up with a number of advertisements related to travel deals and I feel I may have missed some of the best prices of the year. I know my dad took advantage of the low airfare as he forwarded me a message for a trip he will be taking with my mom in February. For someone that commutes weekly between my home in Salt Lake City and my office in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm wondering if it is too late to cash in on some cheap flights.

I also enjoy taking my wife on quick vacations every quarter and wonder if there were some spectacular destination hotels having jaw-dropping deals. I already have my long weekends away booked for the first two quarters of the year but am vacillating on what to do for the third one. Perhaps I will log into some travel sites and see if there are any great deal on Alaskan cruises or a trip to Hawaii. Holiday deals associated with Black Friday used to be restricted to toys and things that could be wrapped to put under a Christmas tree. Now everything goes on sale and can be had a discounted price. What a crazy world we live in.