Finding the Best Air Fare
You just missed your connection and you need to kill seven hours before the next flight with an available seat. You can do what we do and head for the nearest airport bar. (We love airport bars.) Or you can enjoy a fine meal. (Then you can head for the nearest airport bar.)
Terminal food is no longer terminal. Yes, it’s still overpriced (because where else are you going to go?). And yes, most of it is still so bland you eat it just because it’s in front of you. Or so wincingly awful you wonder what they were thinking in the corporate kitchen (Southwest tuna wrap, anyone?). But these days the fare in many airport restaurants is actually good.
If you travel a lot you know this already. But you may not know where to find the best food while you’re waiting for that flight that’s been indefinitely (infinitely?) delayed.
Here’s where. Joe Brancatelli, who runs a website for business travelers called Joe Sent Me, just published his 2012 guide to the best places to eat in the airports of America. Helpfully, Brancatelli has a list of the top restaurants in big airports and a list of the best restaurants in not-so-big airports, like Boston, Phoenix and Cincinnati.
Or check out the airport dining guide from Eater.com, which suggests the best restaurants at the busiest airports in the U.S. And Barcelona, for some reason. Probably because the hipsters at Eater.com want everyone to know they’re so cool and go to Barcelona all the time. (We hate hipsters.)
Fat people have skinnier paychecks. Here’s another reason to forgo that flaccid Sbarro pizza slice when you’re stranded at the airport: Obese workers earn less. The Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed average annual incomes in 2008 and found that salaries of corpulent people are significantly lower. The extra pounds weigh more on the paychecks of hefty women, who earned an average of $5,826 less than normal-weight women. (Need another reason to diet in 2012? Obesity also causes brain damage.)
Q&A: Why do companies use QR codes? You’ve seen them, those digital Rorschach blotches that are now printed on everything from Taco Bell boxes to tombstones. (No, we’re not kidding.) But you may not know what to do with them.
A lot of people don’t. Even college students can’t figure out how quick-response codes work. You’re supposed to scan them with a smartphone. But in a study by youth-marketing research firm Archrival, 80 percent of college kids couldn’t figure out how to do it. Frustrated, 75 percent of the students said they were “not likely” to scan a code in the future.
What’s more, a recent survey by comScore found that just 6.2 percent of the total U.S. mobile audience scanned a QR code in the month of June 2010.
So why do companies persist in using them? Probably because they see other companies doing it. And who knows? QR codes may turn out to be the next big thing in marketing. Or they may turn out to be the next “Follow us on Twitter.”
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