Hotel Websites and Their Cancellation Policies
When looking for Colorado Springs cheap hotels you will undoubtedly find low prices on the major booking sites such as Hotels.com and Orbitz.com. However, when shopping for hotels you should note that many, if not most, times you will find that the lowest prices you receive are also non-refundable. Often times, for a particular hotel you will get a low price from, say Hotels.com, but find out that the hotel’s website offers a price that is $1.00 higher with a cancellation policy which extends up until your arrival date.
Travelodge South is one the cheapest hotels you can get for the Colorado Springs area. For a sample test, Orbitz.com gave me a price of $101.56 and the hotel website gave me a price of $102.29. Although the hotel’s own website had a price that was $0.73 higher than Orbitz, it also had a cancellation policy which allowed me to cancel up to the day of my arrival.
For the Colorado Springs area I found that although Priceline’s prices aren’t very competitive (Priceline, when compared against Hotels.com, Orbitz.com, Travelocity.com, and the hotel website, for its top ten lowest priced hotels only had the best price for Crossland Colorado Springs – Airport) , for all of its hotels, they also have the most admirable cancellation policy, which allows you to refund your hotel purchase without penalty up until 1-3 days before your arrival date. If you use a site like Kayak.com you’ll likely notice that Priceline usually does not have the best price, but is the best major booking site in terms of cancellation policy that I’ve seen so far.
I have not yet found a metasearch site which allows you to sort your hotel search results by lowest price and by cancellation policy. This means that when you want both options, you’re going to have to do a little more homework.
Travel Agency Franchise – Become a Home Travel Agent Without Spending a Fortune
As a home travel agent, you can combine your love of travel with a flexible and profitable career. While there are still traditional job openings in travel agencies, recent changes in the industry have seen many consultants start home-based travel businesses, working flexible hours and earning lucrative commissions. Owning a travel agency franchise allows you the freedom of running your own business while incorporating your love of travel.
Buying a traditional Travel Agency Franchise can be quite expensive, ranging from $50,000 all the way up to $100,000. Many people don’t have that much money to invest in starting a new business. That cost doesn’t even include office space, electrical bills, phone bills, and paying salaries to the employees. Do people really want the headache of hiring and dealing with employees? I would say that most people probably would not.
There are some companies that will allow you to own your own business without the big hefty price tag on owning a franchise. These companies offer positions where you own your own business, but you don’t have to hire employees to help you run the business, unless you want to of course, but most of them are run without just yourself. With these companies you are in charge of marketing yourself and your business.
You want to look for a company that will provide training on how to market your business. Just telling your friends and family will only take you so far, so you want to learn how to market to the world, preferably online. Finding a company with this type of internet marketing training is very difficult, because most companies just don’t provide this type of information because they simply do not know how to do it.
If you ask me, I think travel agents do a lot of work. Between booking the air fare, rental car, and hotel accommodations, it all just seems like a lot of detailed work that would take a lot of time to spend with the client. Some business opportunities actually entail that all you need to do is introduce a travel club to a client and if the client likes what they see, they buy into the club. You would then receive the commission and the club will then handle the clients travel arrangements. This sounds so much easier, since you would not be the one making all of the detailed special travel arrangements.
A Classification of the Sub-Genres of Time Travel, Itself a Sub-Genre of Science Fiction
Time travel enables revisiting the reader to view the past with a modern perspective. It enables going to the far future and witnessing events that transpire long after we and our society are gone. It enables interacting with famous people who are dead. It enables changing a major decision and witnessing how this would have affected us or our society. It enables creating complex, intricate stories, where past and present interact in unpredictable ways: excellent setting for mystery stories.
I have always been (almost) obsessed in reading time travel novel and watching movies. In fact, I’ve read so many that at some point I realized there are many sub-genres to Time Travel, admittedly, a sub-genre of Science Fiction. Here I try to classify the sub-genres of Time Travel. Note that obviously, some stories could have more than one classification. I also tried to pick a movie example (since these are best known) when I could think of one.
Alternate Reality: in this category of novel/movie, the protagonist travels to the past, and makes a change that affects the present. At times, this happens multiple times. The point here is usually to examine how one or more decisions, which at times could be very small, could have transformed the world. Example: A Sound of Thunder.
Anthology: a collection of multiple short stories or 2-3 medium sized stories. Although this is not specific to time travel, I feel obligated to mention this since this is one of the classifications that can be used for time travel.
Effects of Time Travel Technologies on Society: in these novels and movies, time travel is not actually achieved. However, something related does happen: certain knowledge is being transferred from the past or the future to the present. This knowledge is so important, so radical, that it affects every person on the world – and changes society. For example: Knowing (Nicholas Cage’s new movie).
Fantasy: there are numerous fantasy novels where time travel takes place (can’t think of a movie though). Although in many ways this should not make a difference, my personal feeling is that it does. Since time travel (often) enables the reader to examine a future version of our world – or conversely – see the world as it used to be, I don’t feel that using it in a fantasy setting has the same meaning. Consequently, I’ve given these novels their own classification.
Future Reality: in this class of novel/movie, the protagonist is being transported in some way to the future. It could be done using a time machine, being cryogenically frozen, or moving close to the speed of light. The end result is, we are being given the opportunity to witness one – or more – version of the society of the future. Example: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Planet of the Apes, The Time Machine
Historical Characters: in many novels the focus is on utilizing various real characters that have lived at some point in time, normally, to obtain their perspective on a contemporary issue. These characters are either put in contact with present-day people, or are literally moved in time to our present or future. You may be surprised, but there are quite a lot of novels with this premise. Example: the 80s show Voyagers (I used to love that one!)
Past and Future Time Travel: the focus of these novels is normally exploring a variety of different time periods: the past, the present, the future, the very far future, the unimaginably far future. Usually the point is the adventure, witnessing a crazy variety of societies and situations. If done well, this can be really good.
Past Time Travel: the focus of these novels is usually the examination a historical setting. Although an author may simply write a story situated in this historical period (and obviously many do), utilizing a time device of some sort to get to this time, enables examining the historical time from a modern perspective. Not to mention, this setting proves ample opportunities for paradox creation (Paradox: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!). Example: Timeline, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the Time Tunnel.
Personal Alternate Reality: just like ‘Alternate Reality’, only the changes affect a person’s life and not society as a whole. The point here is usually to examine how one or more personal decisions could have affected the course of a person’s life. This is quite a popular movie premise. Example: Groundhog Day, Back to the Future.
Personal Time Travel: different from ‘Personal Alternate Reality’. In this category of novels/movies, the protagonist usually has some kind of an ability to travel forward and backward in his own life, often (but not always) without the ability of making any changes, only reliving certain events again and again. Example: The Butterfly Effect.
Plot Device: in these novels/movies, time travel is a large component of the plot, though often just a way to push it in a certain way. I also included here novels which utilize some kind of a time effect – not necessary time travel. Example: the most recent season of Lost.