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E L L I O T T' S TRAVEL NOTES
Travel news, opinion and analysis

June 22, 2004

Space No Longer The Final Frontier
A civilian test pilot flew a star-spangled rocket plane on a suborbital arc yesterday, establishing a record for the first privately funded manned space flight. The mission was conceived by renowned aircraft designer Burt Rutan and bankrolled by billionaire Paul Allen. "It was a mind-blowing experience – absolutely spectacular," said Mike Melvill, 63, SpaceShipOne's pilot. The plane was carried into the early morning desert sky by a ship called the White Knight. At roughly 50,000 feet, the ship dropped away and Melvill fired the rocket engine. San Diego Union | Posted 6:30 a.m.
-- Herald: What's next, space tourism?
-- Seattle P-I: Captain Kirk watches historic flight

• Finally, the private sector is getting involved - and at a time when the government can't seem to find its when it comes to spaceflight. But besides the coolness of traveling into space, the success of SpaceShipOne's flight has other intriguing applications for conventional flight. Ninety minutes from New York to Paris no longer seems so far-fetched. Send us your comments.

Award Tickets Getting Scarcer
A survey by e-Rewards Inc., a consulting firm in Dallas that specializes in loyalty programs, suggests that many airlines are quietly cutting the number of seats available at the 25,000-mile redemption level while promoting their costlier premium-redemption plans. In the poll of loyalty-program members, 26 percent described their recent experiences in booking award travel as "much more difficult" or "virtually impossible," an increase of five percentage points from an identical survey last year. About two out of every five travelers reported that they had made premium redemptions in the last 12 months, and half of those who did said they had felt they had no other choice. The New York Times | Posted 6:45 a.m.

'Toilet' Fee Averted in East Palo Alto
Future business travelers, Stanford University visitors and Peninsula tourists won't have to think twice before flushing toilets at the Four Seasons, thanks to a settlement between the city's sanitary district and the hotel's developer. The yearlong legal battle over the luxury hotel's sewer hookup fees has ended with the district board of directors voting unanimously to settle its appeal of a court judgment invalidating the 62 percent fee increase. Hotel development company LD Rivera LLC paid $511,293 to connect to the district's sanitation system in November 2002. The district had raised rates a month earlier, charging the 10-story, 199-room proposed hotel more than $800,000. But Rivera sued, arguing the increase was "arbitrary and capricious and wholly without evidentiary support" and exceeded the "reasonable cost" of providing a sewer service. Washington Post | Posted 7 a.m.

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• And finally ... if you've noticed that other travel blogs have begun looking like this one, take a number. But don't worry about anyone "stealing" my intellectual property. This blog is itself modeled after another non-travel blog - although many of the features you read here are homegrown innovations. We like to share in the Blogosphere. Posted 7:10 a.m. | Send us your comments.

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