Survey reveals expensive locations

Survey reveals expensive locations

Montauk, located on the eastern end of Long Island, N.Y., is the most expensive destination in the United States this summer, according to a recent survey conducted by TravelMag.com.

The survey pitted the considered destinations against each other based on the minimum price travelers will have to pay to stay in their cheapest available double room, on average, during the month of August.

Averaging $316 nightly for its least expensive double room, Montauk sits on top of the rankings. Only a few dollars cheaper is Saratoga Springs. Also located in New York, this popular resort takes the second spot on the survey with an average overnight price tag of $312.

Martha’s Vineyard, an island located eight miles off the Cape Cod peninsula in Massachusetts, rounds out the Top 3 with an average rate of $284 per night for its most affordable double room.

Also prominently placing were Nantucket, Falmouth, Provincetown and Boston. Also included in the Top 10 are Montauk’s neighbor East Hampton, Rehoboth Beach in Delaware and California’s Santa Monica.

Geography quiz

Q. Into which sea does the Balkan Peninsula extend?

A. The Mediterranean. It includes the countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and the European section of Turkey.

Airline pays out ‘bug bounties’

In a first for a U.S. carrier, United Airlines has paid out “bug bounties” to cybersecurity experts who found and exposed weaknesses in the airline’s website.

Two cybersleuths were each paid 1 million loyalty reward miles for uncovering gaps in the airline’s Web security.

The Chicago-based carrier announced it would pay out the bounty in May, a few weeks before the latest of several technical glitches grounded flights for nearly 90 minutes.

United officials say the “bug bounty” program was an idea that the airline borrowed from technology companies in Silicon Valley that also offer rewards to anyone who can identify cybersecurity gaps.

At United, the bounties are paid on a sliding scale based on the severity of the security gap, with 1 million reward miles paid to whoever can find an opening that allows someone to execute computer codes at the United website from a remote server.

Forecast predicts travel spending

Despite recent economic turbulence, China business travel will increase by 61 percent over the next 5 years, from $261 billion in 2014 to $420 billion in 2019. That increase is greater than the increases in business travel growth in the next 8 largest countries combined, including the U.S., Germany, India, U.K., Indonesia, France, Turkey and Japan.

The findings are part of an annual travel forecast released recently from the GBTA Foundation – the education and research arm of the Global Business Travel Association, which details business travel spending in 75 countries across 48 industries over 15 years.

Overall, the GBTA BTIT Outlook – Annual Global Report & Forecast found that global business travel spending will hit a record $1.25 trillion in 2015, a 6.5 percent growth over 2014.

Growth will remain strong through 2019, with business travel projected to grow 6.9 percent in 2016, 6.0 percent in 2017, 6.4 percent in 2018 and 5.8 percent in 2019.

Combined dispatches