Sale: Flight 001's sleek travel products

Name: Budget Travel LLC
Price range: $

By Kate Appleton

October 3, 2012

Now’s the time for a travel makeover: Specialty retailer Flight 001 is taking an extra 30 percent off sale items already marked down 30 to 75 percent. You can browse at seven U.S. stores or flight001.com for chic carry-ons from brands like Orla Kiely and Y-3 Adidas as well as onboard amenity kits, games, and other goods that improve the travel experience.

Use promo code FBCSUMMER30 to get the additional 30 percent off online purchases; an Acme x Paul Smith striped laptop bag drops to $97.99 (originally $185) and a leopard print 3.5-inch travel clock is $17.49 (originally $45).

Airline fee decoder

So you're looking for airplane tickets, but you're not sure how fees will affect the final total. What to do? Well, meta search engine Kayak has put together an easy-to-read chart. Kayak has listed the five most painful fees to watch out for on each of 25 domestic and international airlines. [kayak.com/airline-fees]

Wall Arch -- gone!

Long the star of Devils Garden Trail, the Wall Arch was one of the most photographed sights in Arches National Park, five miles north of Moab, Utah. It fell down a week ago due to gravity and erosion, says the AP. The arch had measured about 33 feet tall and 71 feet across and had been made of thin, vertical sandstone fins. Here are the before-and-after views, courtesy of a half-minute video on YouTube: Luckily, there are still about 2,000 other arches intact, including Delicate Arch

Inspiration

Brand news: Two innovative new hotel chains to watch

From the September 2008 issue of Budget Travel: Starwood's first Aloft and Element hotels are opening this summer, sporting a trendy design and amenities such as self-service check-in kiosks and a touch-screen concierge. Aloft hotels are in about a dozen cities [Montreal was the first one]; Element is currently only in Lexington, Mass.

It's payback time if you flew to London between 2004 to 2006

Last spring British Airways had to pay more than a quarter-billion dollars in fines, after having admitted to conspiring with Virgin Atlantic to hit passengers with fuel surcharges that were over and above the actual cost of fuel. The fees overcharged more than 2 million American passengers, plus millions more British travelers. Refunds will vary between $7 and $34 per passenger per round-trip ticket* and will be paid to anyone who flew between the U.S. and the U.K. between August 11, 2004 and March 23, 2006. Apply online by clicking here: airpassengerrefund.com. If you no longer have your ticket info, that's okay. You can use your passport number if you flew British Airways, your frequent flier number if you flew Virgin Atlantic, and other information if you don't have either of those things handy. Flights include all Virgin Atlantic flights and most British Airways flights between the U.S. and the U.K. during the dates listed above. A complete list of qualifying flights on British Airways can be found on the site. It was announced today that some folks may be going to jail because of the fraud. "Four past and present British Airways executives have been charged with price-fixing offences by the Office of Fair Trading," reports The Telegraph. "If found guilty, they could be jailed for up to five years and face an unlimited fine." *UPDATE Aug. 11, 8 a.m.: The above post has been corrected. It originally read "up to $20 per passenger per ticket." I regret the error. EARLIER British Airways is the same airline that says it will apply to be excluded from standard U.S. antitrust laws in the coming weeks.

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