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 Plan Weekend Getaways to Chase Away Those Post-Holiday Blahs One of the best things about the holiday season is the intense activity it brings as we celebrate with friends, family and work mates. It’s a time of bright lights and colorful decorations. For many of us, a very different scene could begin on January 2, 2003: a general slowdown, often accompanied by inclement weather that can produce a serious case of the post-holiday blahs. Instead of twinkling lights, the dominant color of the first weeks of the New Year is too often blue. One antidote for this mood swing is the Last-Minute Weekend Getaway, a complete change of scene, a new place with different experiences. And it's easy and fast to arrange, by clicking on our interactive travel Web site, which offers hundreds of getaway choices every day. Just browsing the Web site now will lighten your mood and start you dreaming about ways to fill the weekends that come after New Year's. Or you can plan a mini-vacation for this coming weekend or the one following. Easy, Fast and Tailored to You You can be almost completely spontaneous if that’s your style – even making your arrangements early on the day you want to leave. Or you can work with as much as a 14-day lead time. The site lists available getaway packages for the coming weekend or the following one complete with flight times from your city of origin and back again. Advice@American Express decided to look at the site to see what was available for the weekend beginning December 12. On the home page titled Travel and Entertainment there are two places to initiate vacation research, either for extended trips or weekend specials. Choosing the Weekend Getaways option, we selected New York as our departure city. In a few seconds, brief descriptions of 353 packages appeared. Two hundred twenty eight of the packages offered air and hotel arrangements for one price. Another 107 were labeled “Flight Plus,” indicating airfare plus a destination activity or additional service on arrival, for example, a rental car or dinner at a posh restaurant. There were 17 possible trips in the third, “Hotel Plus,” category, one of which featured an architectural tour of Chicago. Eight Categories of Weekend Packages After looking over the complete menu of packages, we decided to modify the search by sorting trips into eight different categories: sun and beach, ski, holiday shopping, kids/family, international, Vegas/casino, luxury and top sellers. The last category featured 62 choices to key destinations from coast to coast. According to the Web site, weekend getaway packages feature a wide range of options and prices, with airlines and hotels that are some of the travel industry’s most trusted brands. Your purchase will be final, and there are no refunds, exchanges or changes allowed once you make your booking. December 12, 2002
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