Mobissimo

Over here at Mobi, we have canned responses like:  No, we're too busy, try again later or Future Hazy, Roll Again.  Anyway, worth a chuckle, check out this from Development Crossing.

Apparently, Ben Baldanza, the CEO for Spirit Airlines, made a big mistake while handling an email complaint from a disgruntled couple asking for compensation after a flight delay made them miss a concert, as reported by a blog called Alexrudloff.com.    

So you're most likely browsing travel sites, reading tons of content to plan your next trip.  One person's Shangri-La is another person's Detroit, plus those strange rating systems?  Not very helpful to me.  Go old school, read a book ... or at least look at the pictures.

NEW YORK (AP) — What's the best time of year to visit Tuscany? How about Sydney, La Paz or Antarctica?

A new coffee-table book from Eyewitness Travel, "Where to Go When: The Best Destinations All Year Round" ($40), is being promoted as the ultimate trip-planner. Whether you're an armchair traveler or a globetrotter, the book offers plenty of inspiration for a travel wish-list. It's loaded with beautiful, colorful photographs, descriptions, advice and other tidbits.

Not the smartest move and pretty costly for Travelocity. You can travel to Cuba but only with certain approved tour/work/works groups that have special permission. Otherwise, you're out of luck when they stamp page 11 in Havana.

WASHINGTON - In a first for an online travel company, Travelocity.com has been fined by federal regulators for booking trips between the U.S. and Cuba in violation of a 45-year-old embargo.

Travelocity.com earlier this month paid $182,750 to settle a complaint brought by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which said the company violated the prohibition nearly 1,500 times between January 1998 and April 2004.

Treasury's complaint said Travelocity "provided travel-related services in which Cuba or Cuban nationals had an interest by arranging air travel and hotel reservations to, from, with or within Cuba without an OFAC license."

Of course you can always fly through Canada and then to Havana or Varadero via a great Canadian supplier that only Mobissimo searches - Flight Network. Castro's still there, but perhaps not for long, check flights now.

Mobissimo is the leader in international travel search, we search so many international suppliers, even I can't keep track of them.  Because we search so many suppliers, we also can bring hidden routes to MobiUsers.  Traveling from New York to London?  You'd think British Airways, of course, and yes, we do search them, but we also search Air India and we pull a very nice price of $600 right now.  New York to Frankfurt?  Lufthansa?  Sure, we search them, but also Singapore Airlines which has a great fare at $527.  Mobissimo's comprehensiveness means more options for the traveler and most often, a better price.

If you've seen the lines outside you local passport agency, you'll realize that yes, the new passport rules are affecting a lot of people, although not necessarily for travel reasons only.

 WASHINGTON - The price of a passport: $311,491 in back child support payments for a U.S. businessman now living in China; $46,000 for a musician seeking to perform overseas, and $45,849 for a man planning a Dominican Republic vacation.

The new passport requirements that have complicated travel this summer also have uncovered untold numbers of child support scofflaws and forced them to pay millions.

The State Department denies passports to noncustodial parents who owe more than $2,500 in child support. Once the parents make good on their debts, they can reapply for passports.

There you go, once you need that passport again, you put up on the grid.

Despite the brouhaha over Virgin America and Sir Richard, Southwest Airlines is returning to SFO after an extended layoff and offering even lower fares.

DALLAS, Aug. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Get a jump on your fall and winter travel plans with super low fares from Southwest Airlines. These southwest.com-only fares range from $39 to $169 one-way and are available for sale beginning today. Fares require a 14-day advance purchase by Aug. 23, 2007, for travel beginning Aug. 28, 2007, through Jan. 11, 2008. To book these super low fares, available only at southwest.com.

Let these guys duke it out over low fares, the traveler will only benefit.

If I have $4 million in pocket change AND bored with terrestrial vacation spots, I may consider getting off the planet. Galactic Suite, a Spanish venture, will meet my needs. They seek to open a hotel in space by 2012.

"Before the flight, guests would get 8 weeks of intensive training at a space camp on a tropical island."

Hey, I've been loaded on flights before, even thrown off one, but still, I'm not the one serving drinks.  

 LEXINGTON, Kentucky (AP)  -- A flight attendant appeared in court Monday to answer charges she was drinking alcohol on the job and told a captain "You're dead" as she was removed from the plane.

Public safety officers at Blue Grass Airport reported Sarah Mills, 26, threatened the Delta captain Sunday afternoon. Court documents said she smelled heavily of alcohol and admitted drinking whiskey onboard.

Mills' driver's license lists her residence as Union, Missouri, though she told officers she now lives in Atlanta.

She was being held Monday at Fayette County Detention Center on a $350 bond following her arraignment on terroristic threatening and public alcohol intoxication. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Awesome, she will be my future ex-wife.

Mobissimo continues to add key suppliers to our travel search engine, this week adding Vayama and CheapoAir to the Mobissimo Airfare Search. Both suppliers offer great fares and travel options for international as well as domestic itineraries.

'The addition of Vayama and CheapoAir to the Mobissimo AirSearch adds tremendous value to our international searches.' Peter S. Shin, Mobissimo Business Development. 'We further distance ourselves from other travel search engines by getting fares, especially wiith international itineraries, where pricing is variable, that they simply cannot, either technically or commercially.

See for yourself on Mobissimo.com and plan that trip now.

Is that a monkey under your hat or are you just glad to see me?  A passenger from Lima, Peru smuggled a small monkey into the United States:

 NEW YORK - A man smuggled a monkey onto an airplane Tuesday, stashing the furry fist-size primate under his hat until passengers spotted it perched on his ponytail, an airline official said.

The monkey escapade began in Lima, Peru, late Monday, when the man boarded a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell. After landing Tuesday morning, the man waited several hours before catching a connecting flight to LaGuardia Airport.

Brings a whole new meaning to Zoo York.  Zing!

King Barry hit his 756th home run to surpass Hank Aaron on the all time homer list.  Big deal if he has more steroids in him than the USC football locker room, he still hit that little ball.

SAN FRANCISCO - For one spectacular moment, Barry Bonds and everybody cheering him could forget about the controversy surrounding his chase and appreciate the phenomenal feat: 756.

Nobody in the majors — not Hank Aaron, not Babe Ruth — has ever hit more home runs than the San Francisco star.

On Tuesday night, in his home ballpark, it didn't matter how many of them might have been fueled by steroids or performance-enhancers. Bonds has the title of home run king all to himself, ending Aaron's 33-year reign.

Visit San Francisco, flights are from $350 from the East Coast, hotel rooms are from $50 - as always on Mobissimo.

NYC. Everything, nothing happens in New York City. While you can party all night and spend the night at the library or Balducci's in lower Chelsea, most likely you need a place to sleep. You could stay at the Y for $120 or for $625 you can hang at the Hotel Gansevoort. A great semi-boutique hotel in the Meat Packing district, the Gansevoort has all the amenties needed for summer fun. Rooftop deck with pool? Rooftop bar with loungey sitting on thingies? Spa and exclusive lounge area below? Japanese style adjacent restaurant? Check to all of those. You can usually get a really good rate, i.e. $300 per night through Tablet Hotels, which Mobissimo will shortly search. Give it a shot, until then, you can visit the hotel site directly.