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How to Get a Refund When Travel Goes Awry

Non-refundable airline tickets, forfeited hotel room deposits, cancellation fees on rental cars — for travelers, the spate of snowstorms this winter has been costly, and January’s not even over yet. But even as flight cancellations mount, travelers have more recourse than they may have thought.

As airlines cancel flights in anticipation of storms to avoid the costs of delays, travel delays is only going to get worse, experts say. Already in late December and early January, an estimated 16,000 flights were cancelled. In all of 2010, there were 25% more flights cancelled than in 2009, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. These cancellations do more than snarl air traffic. They create a snowball effect for consumers who then may face tough hotel, rental car and cruise line cancellation policies, says Tom Parsons, CEO of BestFares.com.

As a result, many travelers have turned to travel insurance.

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Tags: Travel, Travel Goes

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Is Quora the Next Red-Hot Web Startup?

With Web sites, as with bands and restaurants, few things feel as good as discovering the next big thing before it gets big. If you were on Twitter back in 2007, for instance, you got in when the service still felt like a cool private clublong before Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and millions of their admirers moved in. If you belonged to Facebook before mid-2004, you were already used to being part of an elite class: Only students at Ivy-League schools and Stanford were eligible for membership.

Today, there’s Quora. Founded by two former Facebook bigwigs and opened to the public in June of last year, the question-and-answer site isn’t yet a household name. But it has a feeling of hip exclusivity and impending greatness that’s reminiscent of early Twitter and Facebook. Silicon Valley uberblog TechCrunch is already covering the service so obsessively that the comments on its Quora posts are rife with pleas from readers begging it to take it down a notch.

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Tags: Web, Web Startup

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First Direct launches transactional banking app

First Direct has become the first UK bank to introduce a transactional banking app for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch .

The app, which has launched on the Apple App Store, enables first direct customers to check balances, view the last 20 account transactions, make payments and transfer money between accounts .

UK customers will now be able to make transactions via their smartphone . While Natwest, RBS and Ulster Bank all have dedicated iPhone applications, these provide only a simple form of online banking such as letting users check their account balance and view a mini-statement.

Matt Colebrook, chief executive at the bank, said: “This is about making the banking experience simpler and quicker, allowing our iPhone enabled customers to access key features of our internet banking whenever they want and wherever they want. Read all post…

Tags: App, Banking App, Transactional Banking, Transactional Banking App

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Why You Shouldn’t Buy an iPhone — Yet (Deal of the Day)

Verizon subscribers have been a stalwart bunch. While AT&T ( T ) customers flaunted their iPhones the last 3.5 years, Verizon subscribers countered with claims of network clarity and Droid superiority. But now that their iPhone drought is over, the very loyalty that has kept them with the company for so long might backfire and hit them in the wallet.

Some 9 million current Verizon subscribers are expected to upgrade to the iPhone when it becomes available — representing 75% of the iPhones Verizon ( VZ ) is expected to sell over the rest of this year. But that move comes with plenty of upfront costs, from buying all those apps again to the early upgrade costs of up to $750.

Even so, those otherwise rational, patient Verizonites will buy anyway, says “Buyology” author Martin Lindstrom, a branding consultant who has studied the effect of marketing on the brain: The same qualities that have made current subscribers loyal to Verizon make them prime targets for the cult of Apple.

Turns out, it’s not merely a battle of the geeks (Verizon Android loyalists) and the cool kids (iPhone lovers); consumers have a little bit of both in them.

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Tags: Iphone, Iphone Deal

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Apple Announces 10 Billionth App Download

NEW YORK – Apple says that its app store has hit the 10 billion downloads mark.

The milestone, announced on Apple Inc.’s website Saturday, arrives as the company’s hugely popular smart phone is likely to become even more popular with the addition next month of Verizon Wireless as a carrier.

The company has sold tens of millions of iPhones since the device launched in 2007 and continues to expand the use of apps with its iPad tablet computer.

Its app store has drawn an army of software developers hoping to piggyback on the company’s success.

The store now boasts more than 300,000 different programs that can be used on the iPhone or the iPad.

Apple says it is giving the 10 billionth person to download an app a $10,000 gift certificate to its iTunes store, which now offers movies and TV shows along with digital music files.

Tags: App Download, Download

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