If you want to come home from your Hawaii vacation with more than a tan, here’s a new offer from Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) for the discriminating voyager. Starting this fall, you’ll be able for the first time to get medically supervised Botox, Restylane and Perlane treatments at sea here in Hawaii. In an industry [...]

There’s a new Price Assurance policy at Orbitz. Here’s how it works. If the flight you book on Orbitz becomes available later at a lower price, they’ll refund the difference up to $250 per ticket. While it sounds good, the fine print tells a different story. “If…after you have booked…another Orbitz customer has booked the [...]

Hawaiian Airlines asked last week for airport slots at Orange County’s John Wayne Airport (SNA). SNA lost popular service to the Islands when Aloha went out of business in April. The significance of this announcement goes beyond Orange County.  Hawaiian Airlines will be adding a new aircraft type to their Trans-Pacific fleet in order to [...]

The 400 pilots of Hawaiian Airlines are losing patience following a year of informal attempts to reach a new contract. This situation could deteriorate rapidly and pose serious risk to the health of Hawaii’s largest, locally-based airline. The announcement comes at a time when Hawaiian Airlines can least afford any interruption in service. In Sunday’s [...]

One of my favorite hotel reservation sites, Wotif, will no longer be offering those often great last minute deals we’ve come to expect. Gone will be their up to 28 days in advance reservations, to be replaced by a more traditional system booking stays up to one year in advance. This places Wotif directly in [...]

Before you jump on any deal to Hawaii, no matter how reputable the name is behind the offer, make sure it’s going to actually save you money. Your best buy may be skipping the deal and carefully shopping for air and hotel separately. Here’s our report on three current promotions. 1. Maui: Summer from $447 [...]

Earlier this year we offered our 10 Hawaii safe driving tips. You can save money, and your life, by slowing done and buckling up. Here are two things you should know: 1. Hawaii speeding fines are expensive. Up to 29 miles over the speed limit, the fine is $5 per mile and a $57 court [...]

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on airline fuel consumption and what it costs per person to fly between New York and Los Angeles. Given that we’re talking approximately the same distance to Hawaii from Los Angeles (2,550 miles), I thought I’d take a stab at some estimates. Here’s what I’ve pulled together from [...]

The airlines are not cutting seats to every destination.  In fact, in a not altogether surprising move, Pacific Business News just announced that United Airlines will be adding 10 daily flights this summer from the U.S. mainland to Hawaii. Starting on June 15 United will add: Three flights to Honolulu, Oahu Four flights to Kahalui, [...]

In light of deteriorating predictability of fuel costs, I think the airlines may soon move to a completely new way of separating fuel charges from ticket prices. Here’s what I predict: A non-refundable fuel charge calculation based on today’s cost of oil, times the actual number of miles flown.   Something like this: Airfare roundtrip [...]