Friday, March 27, 2009

Farecast, Shermans Travel and the IRS

Deal-publisher Shermans Travel's e-mail popped in this morning, offering me a week in London for six nights from $789 courtesy of VisitBritain and Globus & Monograms.

Farecast's e-mail had popped in 20 minutes earlier, notifying me of a Las Vegas deal for $44 per night. (Turns out the $44 deal was for a 2-star hotel. Listen, Farecast, do I look like 2-star material?)

The deal-makers and discounters are having a field day, as I wrote in Travel Weekly a few weeks ago.

But, now, the economy is in such a state that even the IRS is getting into the act, promising taxpayers with huge offshore accounts that their penalties would be reduced if they voluntarily start to pay federal taxes.

Deals, deals, deals.

Unfortunately for me, my 117 offshore accounts seem to have dried up years ago.

And, speaking of Farecast's $44 per night hotel rooms, MGM Mirage and DubaiWorld seem to be close to a bankruptcy filing in regards to their $8.6 billion Tamara AudiCity Center resort and casino project, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Alas, later in the day the Wall Street Journal reported that MGM Mirage indeed made a payment and apparently came to the project's rescue. So, that bullet has been dodged for now.

Meanwhile, even Google, having "over-invested in some areas in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time," announced it was axing nearly 200 "roles" from its sales and marketing team.

You gotta love marketing-speak: These weren't jobs and paychecks at Google. No sir. They were "roles."

Yes, last night I blogged about some new roles that might be added to spur a Twitter Summer Travel Stimulus Plan.

C'mon, with the way things are going, we'd better do something fast.

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