About Expedia:   Expedia, an online travel agency which is making travel agents obsolete, gives consumers everything they need for researching, planning, and purchasing a whole trip. The company provides direct access to one of the broadest selections of travel products and services through its North American Web site, localized versions throughout Europe, and extensive partnerships in Asia. Expedia offers value to customers with different needs such as the family vacation or business travelers arranging a quick jaunt for profit. Expedia provides travelers with the ability to research, plan, and book their comprehensive travel needs. Expedia-branded Web sites feature airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rental, cruises, and many other in-destination services from a broad selection of partners.     Expedia.com is a subsidiary of Expedia Inc.  Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Expedia Inc. was founded as a division of the corporate conglomerate, Microsoft in the fall of 1996.  Expedia was purchased by TicketMaster in 2001.  Other subsidiaries include Egencia, previously known as Expedia Corporate Travel, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, and TripAdvisor.  Expedia.com shares the market niche with Orbitz.com, Priceline.com, Travelocity.com, and Kayak.com.     Expedia.com offers the consumer many options in searching for and purchasing travel packages.  The website, with its user friendly layout makes planning a vacation a cinch even for the most technophobic of potential travelers.  A click on the website reveals a breakdown of options as:  Home, Vacation packages, Hotels, Cares, Flights, Cruises, Activities, Deals and Offers, Maps, Business Travel, and Rewards.  The consumer can also search by Destination which gives a comprehensive listing of Cities both domestic and foreign.  Some of the regional destinations include:  California, Hawaii, Pacific Northwest, Texas, Southwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Florida.  The categories are then broken down further from there. The consumer can also search by trip type.  While the possibilities are seemingly endless in theory, the site has broken down trips into the following types: Adventure, All-inclusive, Beach, Disney, Golf and Spa, Luxury, Mountain, and Romance.  This writer was intrigued by the Adventure category and a click on that option revealed a list of “10 to know: Daredevil Adventures.”  What would a daredevil do on vacation?  Well, if he were letting Expedia.com choose for him, he could have the option of a kayak, bike and hike vacation in San Diego, CA, a Ziptrek Ecotour at Whistler-Blackcomb in Whistler, British Columbia, a shark diving adventure in Nassau, Bahamas, a Richard Perry Driving experience in Orlando Florida, a Bali’s Temples and Monke Forest Day Tour in Bali, Indonesia, and Canopy Eco-Adventure in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, an H1 Hummer Adventure in Phoenix, Arizona, a Cavern Adventure in Reykjavik, Iceland, a Daituna River Rafting trip in Roroua, New Zealand, or a Dull day Tour of the Simatai Great Wall in Beijing, China.  The possibilities are endless, but that doesn’t stop Expedia.com from trying to enumerate the consumer’s choices.     Expedia aims to bring the consumer everything they are looking for in one convenient place.  They are aiming to provide personalized  service, the most cutting edge technology, and the greatest amount of vacation packages, hotels, flights, rental cars, cruises, and in destination activities such as theater, scuba diving, swimming with the sharks and/or dolphins, hiking, biking, diving, gambling, sight seeing, as well as other attractions and services.  Expedia boasts its Best Price Guarantee which makes a promise to offer its consumers the overall lowest rates available on the internet for any kind of travel, thereby making it the biggest and most far reaching resource for consumers looking to book their trips online.    TripAdvisor, one of the partners of Expedia now makes it possible for Expedia consumers to select the best airline seats.  SeatGuru has now also partnered with TripAdvisor and is known for compiling flyers’ reviews of their seats on most Expedia.com flights.  The reviews, broken down into three separate categories, include Good Review, Poor Review, or Mixed Review.  For example, a good review might state the presence of extra legroom due to a bulkhead not extending all the way across the row of seats.  A poor review might include information about limited legroom in certain seats on certain flights due to the fact that there is an equipment box taking up the room that might otherwise be considered legroom.  A mixed review might include the information that there is extra room, but its location to the bathroom makes it less desirable.  A little bit good, a little bit bad.  Mixed.   Expedia also features a rewards program.  What site would be complete without one?  It’s free, flexible, and easy.  When the consumer signs up for the rewards program, he or she is automatically the recipient of “Thank You” points.  As the consumer travels, he or she will automatically early ThankYou points for the hotels, packages, cruises and anything else he or she may book on the website. Once the consumer reaches 1000 points, he or she can redeem them for travel with no blackout dates or merchandise from the Thank you store.  Member earns 1 point for every dollar he or she spends on eligible travel. The consumer can earn points every time he or she books their eligible travel.  The consumer can use his or her points on any flight, at any time, with no “blackout” dates.  The consumer can also use his or her points to purchase merchandise.  To sign up, the consumer need only click the Join Now button on any page on the website and simply follow the easy instructions.  The consumer will have to create an Expedia account if he or she does not already have one.  The consumer does not have to be a citizen of the United States, but does have to have an American accent.  Uh, that’s address.  The consumer must be 18 years old to join.  But that’s about par for any course, wouldn’t you say?  For Elite Plus members, Expedia will waive any fees should the consumer decide to change his or her trip.  They can also receive up to five times the amount of Thank You points just for being an Elite Plus member.  They also have access to a priority customer service number.  When regular customer service just won’t do.      

06/28/11: Summer has come, and undoubtedly parents are busier than ever with activities and sports occupying all of their free time. After three months of driving to the beach, acting as a shuttle to other kids' houses and coming up with children's activities, fall is a welcome respite. In the winter, most daydreams probably involve a warm, sandy beach and a cool drink in the hand. However, by the time summer is over, fantasies will involve relaxation and time to yourself. There are many activities that can be embraced in September, once there's time for them again, and it's important to be able save money while pursuing them. Here are some guides to help you look forward to your post-summer downtime so that you'll be ready to relax with some low-key activities once the kids are back in school.

Purchase gifts for friends
This may seem like a hectic sort of activity. After all - most people's gift-buying time is either spent frantically running around at the last minute or slogging through massive crowds during the Christmas season. However, with a little bit of thought and some creativity, getting gifts for friends and loved ones is a fulfilling and engaging act.

The first place to start is by thinking about those individuals who mean a lot to you. Who would you like to thank for being your friend, and which folks are hard to imagine missing from your life? Once you've composed a list, think about each person for a long time. How has their presence improved your life, and what would improve their lives? More than anything else, keep in mind those things that you know make them the happiest. From there, search the internet for online coupons and promotions to save money on the presents that will be worth all the effort. Nothing lights peoples eyes up more than the perfect just because gift.

Update your electronics
There are many tech-savvy people who always have the latest gadgets. From audio systems to televisions to computers - all have been optimized for maximum performance. However, the rest of us are usually content to keep using something until it becomes obsolete or until it no longer functions properly. With downtime comes the ability to go through an entire house and catalog the various components that are sorely in need of an upgrade.

Make two separate lists. First, log every appliance or electronic component in your house in order of its age. The second list should be ranked by how important an item is, or by how often you use it. Compare these two lists to get an idea of how crucial it is to upgrade to sleeker, faster gadgets. For instance, your stereo may date to when Bill Clinton was president, but your DVD player has aged more rapidly and is used to watch movies more often than the stereo plays hits. After you've come up with a realistic budget for your electronic upgrades, go online to shop around. More than likely, if you search for discounts and promo codes you'll be able to save some money.

Research a hobby and pick one
There's possibly nothing more frustrating than having a lot of free time without having some activity to occupy it with. While all of these organizational chores can fill one's day, the ultimate task is to plan for free time in the near future. With the rise of the internet has come a wealth of information and money-saving techniques, so if you can pin down a few areas of interest, it shouldn't be difficult to find some craft or talent that can be honed into a time-filling activity.

Determine what your true talents are. If you consider yourself artistically motivated, think about some crafty hobby that ends with the creation of an item or work of art. These can include building miniature models, building ships in a bottle, or even learning more about electronics and making machines from scratch. If you consideryourself more on the organizational side of things, there are complex games such as Risk or bridge that are not only fun and stimulating, but can be cause for a social gathering.  

Cheaply redecorate your house
Many people (especially those folks who spend a lot of free time around the house) would love to redecorate their homes. However, a lot of homeowners stop themselves before they even begin because they fear how much it will ultimately cost. There are many ways to completely overhaul the look and style of an entire home with a small budget and,ac for the most part, it can end up looking as good as an expensive renovation project. It is important to remember that the most important part of redecorating is that it means changing the atmosphere of a room, rather than everything in it. With a few small elements added, a couple of little things subtracted and the color and organization altered, it can feel like a completely different place.

The first element that a low-cost redecoration should change is color. Not only do people see color first, but it continuously affects the subconscious mind. Green is a tranquilizing color, red is a fierce and aggressive tone and blue is a relaxing hue. The easiest way to immediately change the feel of a room is to replace its color scheme with a contrasting one. This is most easily accomplished by painting the walls, but it can also include a cheap throw rug and a few knit blankets on the backs of couches and chairs. Afterwards, a new end table that brings together a rearranged layout will complete the total transformation of a room that is now more comfortable and interesting simply because it is different.

It's also important to look for deals online when beginning a cheap redecoration. Search the web for Home Depot Promotion Codes and save $5 on purchases of $50 or more.

Trick out your car
Many people are car enthusiasts and can tinker with the different parts of an engine for optimum performance. The rest of us may enjoy being in our cars and driving quite a bit, but we don't know the first thing about making them run better. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to have fun customizing an automobile. Rather, it's the gadgets and little things that end up being tweaked.

One of the most interesting modern inventions that helps a driver operate a car is the on-board computer. At some point, traditional GPS devices became so much more versatile and added the ability to play music, check email and even watch videos when not in drive mode. Items like this will immediately transform the on-the-road experience for anyone behind the wheel and can make an old car seem fresh off the assembly line.

The decorative accents in a car can also have a big effect on how drivers perceive their vehicle. Seat covers that are customized for certain makes and models can instantly shave years off of a car's apparent age. Organizers that fit between bucket seats can add cup holders, change slots and space for a smartphone or mp3 player. Even something as simple as new floor mats will make a car seem newer for a short time.

Plan a vacation for the future
Free time is excellent for enjoying oneself, but it is also good to be productive. However, there are tasks that accomplish both of these things at once. Planning a vacation is one solid example. Getting everything just right and hunting for deals on airfare, rental cars and hotels requires a lot of patience and diligence, but it can also be incredibly fun. After all, you'll catch yourself daydreaming about hitting the open road or touching down on that island paradise with good friends and family members the entire time you're planning.

It's also fun to plan a vacation because you can start from complete fantasy and work at it until the trip is realistic and affordable. First, make a list of all the places you would ideally like to go - with absolutely no limits to your imagination. Obviously, things like climbing Mt. Everest or taking a submarine ride to the bottom of the Marianas Trench aren't really feasible. However, even something as complicated as traveling around Europe for a month can be a good jumping-off point. With your ideal vacation in mind, thoroughly research everything that would be necessary to make it happen.

Of course, after a while, it will become clear that unless you win the lottery, it isn't going to happen. At this point, you'll want to start trimming things off. The least important areas to explore or things to do are the first to go, with a core of crucial activities and sights remaining at the end of the process. In this way, though you might not be going on a dream trip, you've still found something affordable and realistic. Using travel websites, promotion codes, discount coupons and search engines, it is completely realistic to have a wonderful and cheap vacation. All that's necessary is that you put the time into your research and, most importantly, have fun!  

Using Expedia Coupon Codes: To activate the listed promotion codes, simply copy and paste the promotion code listed into the box on the merchant's site. Codes typically offer things such as modest discount and some have a free shipping code. There is usually a button that will let you update your cart with the code entered so you know it works. Because almost all of our Expedia promo codes are submitted by our visitors, we cannot assume any responsibility for their accuracy or validity. By indicating if a code worked or did not work, you help visitors down the line know in advance if they can expect a code to work.

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