Staying in touch with family and friends while traveling can be quite a challenge but today’s technology makes it easier than ever before. It pulls at my heartstrings every time I talk to my niece and nephew and they ask me when I’m coming to visit. Luckily apps like FaceTime and Skype make communicating much more convenient than it used to be. This New Year’s I did FaceTime with the family and my niece asked me where I was watching fireworks. I told her I was in Thailand and she said, “oh, you’re at your house?” She’s at that age where she understands that I travel for work, but because I have been in Thailand so much lately, she’s starting to think that’s where I live. While the distance is great, I still get to see her and her brothers every week and that’s huge!

Having a device like an iPhone, iPad or tablet can make it very easy to stay in touch. They’re very light weight and easy to travel with and you can connect with Skype or FaceTime over Wifi while avoiding international calling charges. Recently, I’ve added google+ hangouts to my list of tools to keep in touch. You can have multiple people in the chatroom and everyone can see each other

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Scoot & Doodle uses google+ Hangouts to power its tool that allows families to gather, play games, chat and even collaborate on family projects – planning that family reunion will be a snap!

In addition to apps that allow you to talk with loved ones, there are also apps that allow you to interact with each other. Toontastic Jr Pirates is an app that allows you to create cartoons, animate them and add your voice to the story. You can connect with your friends, or family, through the app’s StoryShare feature and create, talk and share in real-time via the internet. It’s like an online toy box!

Keeping in touch doesn’t mean the traditional phone call anymore. Pick up your iPad, iPhone, tablet or even your computer and reach out in creative ways – it’s much more fun!

Are you UsingMiles? How do you manage all of your points and miles? There are so many points programs out there that it’s hard to keep track of them all. Got a My Starbucks rewards card? Pinkberry PinkCard? One, two, three or more airline frequent flyer mile accounts? Tracking them all can be time consuming.

Using a tool like UsingMiles can make the chore of tracking miles even easier. I’ve tried several tools before, and UsingMiles is very simple. There’s a dashboard that aggregates all of your information into one central view. Never let a mile expire again!

In addition to tracking your points, UsingMiles has a search engine that allows you to search for flights and award tickets. Just today I used UsingMiles to find a ticket from Kuala Lumpur to Siem Reap Cambodia and discovered that I actually had no miles that would cover a frequent flyer ticket. Instead, I used the search engine to find the lowest cost ticket.

There are two membership levels, basic (free) and premier ($29.99/year.) Premier includes all advanced features like expiring award alerts, award searches, bonus deals and more.

Since I use, and love UsingMiles, I was very excited when they asked me to partner with them on this promotion. UsingMiles is giving readers of VeryGoodPoints a FREE LIFETIME premier membership. It’s very easy, all you have to do is use this link to sign up and you’re on your way to simple points/mile tracking and great search tool. Here’s the cool thing, not just one person who comments on this post and is picked at random will win – EVERYONE can get this great benefit from UsingMiles!

How do you make sure your miles don’t expire? Let me know!

Have you heard about #GivingTuesday™? #GivingTuesday is a campaign to create a national day of giving at the start of the holiday season. It promotes and encourages activities that support nonprofit organizations. There are more than 2,000 #GivingTuesday partners with specific #GivingTuesday initiatives. When I started to write this blog, I figured I’d find many travel related business or companies supporting #GivingTuesday. After going through the list, I was quite surprised to only find three – and I had to stretch to include Skype.

None the less, I was very happy to see Starwood on the list of Large Corporations/Brands supporting #GivingTuesday. I will be booking at least a few rooms tomorrow to help support the effort. I added Skype to the list because they do make it possible for travelers to keep in touch with friends and family while on the road! I hope you’ll join me in supporting one of these travel related businesses or one of the many other businesses supporting #GivingTuesday.

Starwood Preferred Guest National, Large Corporation or Brand

How they are participating

In the spirit of the season, Starwood Hotels and Resorts and its award-winning Starwood Preferred Guest program has partnered with #GivingTuesday™, and will donate 10 Starpoints® to UNICEF for every Cyber Monday booking, up to 500,000 points.  Working to spread the word about #GivingTuesday, Starwood will promote the movement through public relations initiatives, corporate social media channels, email marketing, and a Twitter chat, hosted on November 26th, 2012 on the Hashtag #spglife.

Starwood Hotels of Chicago National, Large Corporation or Brand

How they are participating

Starwood Hotels & Resorts is the official hotel partner of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana and is committed to doing the right thing, going the extra step and playing as a team. This innovative social marketing partnership provides a space where purpose meets profit and serves as a platform for Starwood customers and employees to donate and create volunteer opportunities while providing exclusive access to offers and activities to families staying at the new House.

Skype National, Large Corporation or Brand

How they are participating

SUPPORT WORLD PEACE WITH PEACE ONE DAY AND SKYPE – RESULTS TO BE REVEALED ON #GIVINGTUESDAY

As part of Skype’s #GivingTuesday commitment, it has launched SkypeforPeace.org, a crowd-funding effort to support Peace One Day, an organization devoted to promoting non-violence in all its forms and creating a united and sustainable world. All funds raised through this initiative will be used to expand the Peace One Day Global Education Resource to more teachers around the world so they can teach their children the value of non-violent conflict resolution. Donations can be made here and Skype has pledged to match every dollar of the first $100,000 donated. Skype for Peace is Skype’s contribution to the Giving Tuesday movement in its role as a founding partner.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I had the opportunity to appear on Huffington Post Live with the CEO and Founder of the Gilt Groupe, Kevin Ryan. Ryan talked about Gilt’s plans for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

On Black Friday, Gilt will misprice several products throughout the site at 12pm, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm EST. Look for designer items priced as low as $20. The mispriced items will not be revealed, so you’ve have to spend some time hunting for them – exactly what Gilt is hoping for.

Cyber Monday:

At 11:45am EST, Gilt will launch a new sale called “Free Fall,” which includes sales in Gilt’s Women’s, Men’s, Home and Taste stores that will only be available for approximately 5-10 minutes. Throughout that time frame, the prices will continue to drop until the sale ends or the item sells out. You have to decide when to get in on the deal – if you wait too long, the deal could be done. New “Free Fall” sales will continue at 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00pm EST

At 12:00pm ET the Cyber Monday sale will include fabulous over the top gifts at insider prices!

No word on any sales on Jetsetter and Gilt did not respond to requests for additional information.

Happy Shopping

Yesterday I had the opportunity to appear on Huffington Post Live with Gilt Groupe founder Kevin Ryan. During the conversation Ryan shared some great tips for shopping online this holiday season and talked about Gilt’s newest venture – Jetsetter Now.

Jetsetter Now is a same-day, mobile only app that offers deals up to 60% off. Initially rooms will be offered in Jetsetter’s top seven markets: New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Boston and Chicago. What makes Jetsetter Now unique is that the name of the hotel is not disclosed and remains a mystery until the room is booked (which Jetsetter says provides greater discounts), each property is Jetsetter-Verified (meaning a Jetsetter employee has stayed at and reviewed the hotel and scores 87% or higher with reviews), and the app tells you how many rooms are left at that hotel.

Within the Jetsetter iOS app, you’ll now see a tab labeled ‘tonight’. Same-day deals always go live at noon. You can click on what city you want to find a hotel in, and the app will show you your options.

Once you find a hotel, you can choose to pay with your credit card or, if you have a Jetsetter profile, your credit card info will automatically upload. Something that makes this app unique is that Jetsetter has partnered with Card.io (acquired by PayPal this year) which allow users to snap a picture of their credit card allowing the app to automatically upload your card information. The app has Apple Passbook integration (so make sure you have the most recent version), so you can drop reservations into Passbook. If you’ve enabled push notifications, when you get within 500 yards of the hotel, the reservation will pop up on your device.

It’s time to start thinking about what to get for the Road Warrior in your life this holiday season. I think Road Warriors can be especially challenging to shop for because they’re not home frequently enough to enjoy things for the home/kitchen, they eat out all the time so restaurant gift certificates may not appeal to them, they have very specific tastes when it comes to travel – so if you buy a travel related gift, you better know what they want! If I get another neck pillow and eye mask I might scream!

So what do you get that person who spends more nights in hotels and in the air than at home?

Gift Certificates –

• Gift Certificates that can be redeemed online (while they’re traveling) are very appreciated. I like iTunes gift cards myself since I download a lot of TV shows and movies while I’m overseas
• Generic Gift Certificates such as an Amex Gift Card or Visa Gift Card that can be used anywhere for anything. It may seem impersonal, but for a Road Warrior it’s definitely something that will be used and appreciated.
• If the Road Warrior has a favorite hotel brand, look for a brand specific gift card. You know they’ll use it! Hilton offers a card through Amex and Marriott offers their own gift card. Now, if only Starwood would bring back their gift cards!
• Housekeeping gift certificate. I would love to get a gift certificate for a house cleaning since that’s the last thing I want to do when I come home! If you know the person has a regular housekeeper, contact them. If not, look for a service in the area.

Accessories –

• Travel accessories are nice gifts – if you know it’s something the person wants or needs. Don’t get them a neck pillow because you think every traveler needs a neck pillow. They likely have 3 already! Try to find unique travel accessories.
• Small photo books – I love having a small photo book with me that contains pictures of my family. It’s easy to pack and provides a reminder of great memories when you’re on the road.
• iPad, iPhone, iPod accessories – if your road warrior is a techie you can always look for cool new accessories for their iWhatever! Someone got me a cable that connects my iPad to the TV and I’ve recently found many more hotels providing TVs that will allow you to connect. This way I don’t have to look at my small screen, I can project right onto the big screen TV!

Are you a road warrior? What would you like to get?

Many people who love to travel turn to online shopping portals to earn extra points and miles. For a road warrior, online shopping isn’t just a way to rack up the miles, it’s a way of life. The more time you spend on the road, away from home, the less time you want to spend on chores – like shopping. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love to shop, but I think there are two different types of shopping. The shopping you have to do – grocery shopping, shopping for travel necessities, shopping for beauty supplies and other essentials and then there’s the shopping you want to do – window shopping, shopping for new toys (TV, electronics, etc…) shopping for clothes (and even that can be tedious.)

For most of my shopping, I turn to the internet. You can buy almost anything online today and it’s usually very simple. This year, I’ve only spent 13 weeks in the US at so that’s pushed me towards online shopping more and more. One thing you always have to be mindful of is identity theft and credit card fraud. Using very strong unique passwords is essential. Using different passwords for you email accounts than you use for all other accounts is critical and linking accounts together – well, that’s a no-no. For all the caution you take in creating strong passwords, there’s only so much that can do for you (just check out this article on hacking.) We also need to rely on the companies we shop with to maintain their own security protocols and at the same time, count on our credit card companies to detect fraudulent behavior.

I work in an industry where talk about security and terms like PCI compliancy, SSAE 16 and SOC 2 every day. While I’m hyper aware of security on-the-job, I – like so many others – am way to lenient in my personal life. I was reminded of this today when I got an interesting phone call, from The Gap – parent company of Old Navy. Almost simultaneously I got an email about the order I had placed earlier that day. I was a bit suspicious of the call and will never validate any personal information when receiving an unexpected inquiry. The woman on the phone gave me a number to call back. I looked at the email and the same number was in that email. Hackers are getting much more sophisticated, so I was still a bit suspicious.

I went to the Old Navy website and called the main customer service number listed there. I spoke to an agent and told her about the call and email I had received. She took my order number and verified that the call had in fact come from The Gap. They were concerned that the order might be fraudulent. She transferred me directly to the appropriate department and I spoke to someone who asked me a few simple questions. She said the order was being shipped to an address they didn’t have on file for me previously and asked me to confirm what address the order was to be shipped to she also asked me to tell her what the previous shipping address had been. She asked me to tell her what one of the items was in the purchase. Then she told me that they had already called my bank and verified that the card information was correct. Once I did that, she asked me to confirm that I had made the purchase and I did. She said that was all I needed to do and the order would be held up no longer.

It was interesting to me because I’ve never gotten a call like that directly from a store/company that I’ve shopped with. I’ve gotten that call plenty of times from my credit card company or bank – but this was a first. At first I was a little annoyed with the inconvenience, but as I thought about it more, I was relieved that the Gap, and its subsidiaries, are taking this step. The more protection I have from credit card fraud and identity theft, the better!

About 15 years ago my identity was stolen and it took years and years to recover from that. I would get calls out of the blue from creditors, banks and other companies informing me of new accounts that had been opened, things that had been purchased and more. The strangest – and now funniest – incident came when I got a call from a car Insurance company asking me if I wanted to renew my insurance policy. I was surprised at the call because I had never used that company before. When I asked them what type of car the policy was for, I discovered it was for a car that I had never owned. It took an unbelievable number of calls with police, FBI and credit bureaus to resolve the issues that resulted from the fraud and identity theft.

About 3 years ago I was in Singapore and used an American Express card. I only used that card one time in Singapore and remember the exact shop I was in when I used it. Several hours later I got a call from Amex asking me if I had made a $2 purchase followed by a $10,000 purchase. Nope, definitely not me! Amex is great about taking care of problems like this, but it was a stark reminder of how easy it is to have your information stolen.

So today’s call from the Gap, during one of the busiest shopping periods of the year, to remain vigilant and protect your personal information.

Tips to protecting your information:

• Never use the same password for your email address and other online accounts
• Use passwords that are not easily identifiable and are complex – don’t use short passwords (most websites require passwords that are longer than 6 characters these days, but many experts say that’s not even long enough!)
• Commit your passwords to memory – putting them on paper or storing them in an unencrypted manner is inviting trouble
• Change your passwords frequently and if you think you’ve been hacked change all your passwords right away.
• Make sure you have unique passwords for platforms that are frequently hacked – like Facebook and Twitter.
• Never give your password out
• Don’t answer security questions with easily identifiable information – for example if your secret question or security question is “What city were you born in” and you answer with the city you were actually born in, a hacker could figure that out. Your birth place is public information. Use questions like “what is your favorite food” or “what is your favorite pet” or “what is your favorite color” things that hackers can’t easily figure out.

Social Media has changed the way many companies do business. For the consumer this has lead to better customer service and in many cases increased convenience. I have used Twitter now for months to make reservations for L’Appart, the French restaurant at the Sofitel Sukhumvit Bangkok, with great success. It’s simple, I tweet @SofitelBKKSuk and (depending on the time) someone replies very promptly. If I tweet let’s say, between 8am – 10pm Bangkok time, I’ll have a reply within an hour or less. If I tweet during their nighttime, I always have an answer when I wake up in the US!

I think this is a brilliant way to provide an added service to customers. It’s interactive and it’s easy! I think ease is the key to being successful today and making use of Social Media tools certainly makes things much more easy.

Other companies use social media successfully as well – though I haven’t yet figured out how to make an airline reservation via Twitter, the Starwood social media team has made hotel reservations for me. In my opinion, Starwood has the best social media team. I recently replied to a tweet from Starwood Hotels about hotel deals in the US asking if they had any deal in Phuket Thailand. Minutes later I had a reply suggesting a link where I could find deals in Thailand. @StarwoodBuzz (the Starwood Hotels Twitter handle) and @SPG (the Starwood Preferred Guest Twitter Handle) will reply to questions, complaints, issues w/reservations, problems at hotels and more. They are fast and always make things happen.

I had to Tweet @HiltonHelp recently, and while they did solve my problem in the end, it took several days and several emails. So while I’m glad that Hilton is engaging in social media, they have a long way to go. I have not found Marriott International’s Twitter team to be responsive at all, though some of the local Twitter teams are very responsive. For example, @MarriottAustralia is great about providing customer service via Twitter and some of the individual hotel’s on Twitter are responsive as well.

In the world of airlines, I think the stand-out is clear cut, @AmericanAir is the most responsive and most interactive with its followers. They even seem to have fun while they’re doing it and have a great sense of humor. @KLM has really stepped up their Social Media presence, especially on Facebook with their VIP Flynt (VIP stands for Very Important Puppet in this case) and he’s hysterical. I’m happy that @USAir has gotten into the game, a little late, but better than never. Now, they’re not nearly as funny or as quick as @AmericanAir, but who knows what will happen with rumors of an impending merger heating up. They can be helpful and they do respond, which is a great start.

I think more and more companies will be looking to Social Media to interact with and provide service to customers. Those who don’t, I suspect, will lose that segment of the market who rely almost solely on technology to do day-to-day tasks, make reservations, etc… I bet we see many more companies like step-up on social media like @SofitelBKKSuk, @SPG and @AmericanAir have.

What companies do you interact with most on Social Media?

This week (and over the last few weeks) I’ve felt like I’m living in a chapter of the children’s book “The Amazing Days of Abby Hays: What Goes Up Must Come Down.” As you know, I celebrated my 1 year anniversary on BoardingArea last month, and since my blog is hosted by BoardingArea, I’m impacted as much as my readers are when their servers are down. And they have been down – a lot – lately.

You have endless choices when it comes to travel blogs and I am very glad you’ve chosen to support me, VeryGoodPoints. It is deeply embarrassing and incredibly frustrating to me that this continues to happen and that I can’t do anything about it.

The Boarding Area team is moving – not so flawlessly – to a new platform which will hopefully provide stability and reliable up-time. I hope they are able to keep to their new timeline and have the issues resolved this week.

I appreciate you sticking with me – even through the downtime frustrations!

Thanks and as soon as BoardingArea is more stable look for a whole new contest with exciting prizes!

Stacey

Heathrow International Airport has launched a new self-serve baggage drop with Australian based Qantas airlines. The self-serve bag drop will allow passengers to check-in at a kiosk and print a bag tag. The passenger then attaches their own tag to their bag and places it themselves on the conveyer belt. Heathrow expects this service will be popular with its 30 million annual business travelers. During the trial of this new “service,” (I’m not really sure how you can call do-it-yourself a service) which launched on October 31, staff members will be on hand to assist passengers.

Heathrow’s Terminal 3 Director, Kathryn Leahy, said, “This is an important step in our ongoing journey to provide the latest technology to our passengers at Heathrow. We know our passengers are quick to adopt new technology and embrace the idea of having more control over their travel experience.”

I’m not sure if this move is really about allowing passengers to control their own travel experience or finding ways to reduce overhead and eliminate staff. It will be interesting to see how the trial works out for Heathrow and Qantas as I’m sure there will be a lot of initial glitches. Just wait until someone prints a bag tag and it’s not for their final destination. Will they notice?

Ironically, Qantas Regional General Manger for the UK said, “At Qantas Airways we remain committed to providing our passengers with a premium level of service.” I’m just not convinced this is a “premium level of service.”

What do you think?

I had the opportunity to interview the Director of Online Marketing for one of the world’s largest Hotel brands this week. I asked him about Social Media’s impact on hotels and how his job has changed as a result of social media. Here’s the interview:

Q: How has social media changed the way hotels operate?

A: Social Media has changed the way hotels operate in the sense that they must be more accountable for their actions. If something goes wrong, the guest will take to social media platforms to tell all of their friends and others that may stay at that hotel. If the hotel doesn’t respond, then that makes it even worse, so hotels/brands have to stay on top of social media and respond quickly.

Q: How do you respond quickly with so many people out their posting?

A: Our Company has tools that allow the hotels to pull up positive and negative comments whenever they want, so it puts it all in one place and they can respond. We also have a team on our Guest Assistance team that is dedicated to watching social media for negative posts and responding within 1 hour. A lot has changed in a short amount of time and I know it will only get more sophisticated as more platforms launch and hotels/brands being to support them.

Q: What are the biggest changes you’ve seen?

A: The biggest challenge is obviously keeping up with all of the comments and feedback guests provide using social media. We have a dedicated team that helps watch for negative reviews, but most brands have an agency that helps them keep up with comments, posts, tweets, etc… With new platforms coming onboard all the time, we have to determine if that platform should be part of our brand strategy or not.

Q: What is the biggest surprise that you’ve encountered this year in regards to how social media has changed the way you do business?

A: The biggest surprise is just the landscape of the apps because as a brand, we have to stay on top of all the apps to know if they are right for us.

Q: What is your goal in using social media, what do you hope to accomplish for your brand?

A: Our goal in social media is to engage with our customers. We don’t want to “talk to them,” but rather “with them.” We always ask questions, do polls, post images and see what people are up to. As we do that, we see what our audience responds to the most and then we do more of that. We hope in the end that with our engagement and timely customer service that they will stay with us again and recommend us to their friends and family.

Q: Do you think your social media goals align with what your customers are looking for with social media?

A: I do feel that the guests are looking more for fun engagement with brands and research shows that as well. Guests want to know they can speak to us on our different platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Trip Advisor, etc…- and that a real person is going to answer them, and quickly, as we do that. We have several departments that touch this aspect and it all aligns to making our guests happy.

Q: Do you have a favorite form of social media yourself?

A: I prefer Twitter myself because with my daily schedule being so busy, getting 140 character updates is good; it is easy to get information quickly.

Q: What do you see happening in the future?

A: Things are going to become more personal and more customizable.

Q: Do you think social media is here to stay?

A: For sure! People love to connect, so social media will never go away in my opinion. Whether they connect with friends, family, brands, team, etc.., people love to have that connection and studies of younger generations show this as well.

Q: What things do you do today that you wouldn’t have done 5 years ago before the explosion of social media?

A: First of all, social media was not even a part of anyone’s job description even 4 years ago. The biggest change is having to make sure we keep up on comments to guests and that is hard with all the other duties I handle including display advertising, online strategy, direct response creative, social media, brand emails, etc..

Q: What do you love about your job?

A: I like the interaction every day, which that is with customers, hotel employees, team members, agency partners or whoever is in the office. I also love the strategy side of my job. I get to work with the great marketing team here and work with great agencies to make our hotels as great as they can be.