Travel Tips

After bringing and picking my wife up from the airport due to a weekend trip, I thought I would share a couple of tips with you.   If you are thinking of traveling from Bradley Airport (BDL) and don’t mind a quick, relaxing, and scenic trip to T.F. Green Airport in Rhode Island, you should really check out fares from PVD.  My wife was able to save $300 on a round trip to the Ontario, California (ONT) airport.  PVD is only 1.5 hours from Hartford and seemed quicker.  As the old saying goes, your mileage may vary.  Another suggestion is to try alternate airports.  These landing spots may be less expensive, more convenient, or both.  The friends she was looking to meet were about 20 minutes east of ONT.   Getting there from LAX when arriving at about 1030 PM would have been a challenge for her.

Responsible Recommendations 

As many of you know, I made a BIG SWITCH to T-Mobile for cellular service with my wife back in March.  The initial reasons I joined was because of their cheaper / possibly free international service for a trip she was taking to southeast Asia and because of the reports I had read from a plethora of sources about how good the coverage had gotten in recent years.  5+ years ago T-Mobile was truly a 3rd rate carrier.  I’ve shared that the experience has been mostly good and the financial perspective got even better about 4 months in when we were able to sign up for the age 55+ plus plan (2 lines for $70 including taxes and fees, with unlimited everything).  This was half what we were paying with Verizon.  Given that I have so many clients that could benefit from a plan like this, I could have pumped them hard and made good money marketing TMO to you.  I did not jump on that opportunity because I wanted to give my experience more time.   More recently, I have noticed some shortcomings.  When helping a client far from downtown Glastonbury (near Portland actually), I had no service.  When taking the smooth, rural, Route 165 into Rhode Island I had no service for about 3 miles.  Additionally, last week I had about 3 dropped calls in the Hartford area.  It was a new development.  After extensive conversations with TForce (customer support), I found out that there are tower upgrades going on in the area and they should be completed by mid-November.  I did not have any more dropped calls outside of those 3 days, so I’m inclined to believe what I was told.   So here is where I stand with T-Mobile — as far as my client base is concerned:  If you want to save money with T-Mobile, you can go to a T-Mobile store or I can certainly help you.  However, there are potential limitations.  One reason to keep your Verizon or ATT service is the reliability of the towers.   Considering the country as a whole, Verizon and ATT have a much higher percentage of towers with fuel powered backup in the case of power outages and natural disasters than T-Mobile.  At times, you just want the call go through. While we are spared from a lot of the worst weather, you never know when a “2011 Snowpocalypse” will hit us again.

Spooky Phone Calls

Are you getting more scam phone calls?  I have two clients that may have been called by fake or moonlighting Comcast representatives the other day.  “Hi, I’m calling from the Cable Department.”   Good thing I was there.  We hung up.   I want to make sure you can recognize a scam call.  On Monday morning, I received a call on my business line saying that my Social Security Number is being suspended.  Hmmm, I feel so scared now.  I might be in big trouble. NOT!