A giant roadside beetle and RV park belie the world-class quality of this Colorado Springs bug museum's collection.
Turning off of Colorado Highway 115 at the oversized model of the Giant West Indian Hercules Beetle, and driving back through the recreational vehicle campgrounds, one could be forgiven for expecting a certain amount kitsch at the May Natural History Museum. But beyond the gift shop and the Tiki warrior gods lie case after case exhibiting nearly 8,000 specimens from the extraordinary collection of James May, a British second-generation collector who traveled the world searching for rare, exotic, and beautiful insects.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of species of butterfly, moth, beetle, centipede, spider, scorpion, and more, arranged tastefully, even elegantly, in an immersive serpentine maze of framed white cases. The scale of the collection is impressive on its own, but at each case one is impressed as well by the remarkable quality and condition of its specimens, and above all, its variety. The carefully-written labels indicate that the bugs were gathered from locations as far flung as Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and Papua New Guinea, and several varieties were discovered by May for the very first time.
The RV park and museum were opened by in 1947 by James' son John May and is run today by his grandchildren.
I have a confession to make -- my favorite part of mistakes fare is the adventure of it all, and not the actual fare.
A couple of nights ago American published a ~$450 roundtrip business class fare between Washington and Beijing. Most people probably surmised it was a mistake. But the DOT does have a prohibition on post-purchase price increases, which on the surface seems to protect consumers even in the case of mistake fares.
Is the spirit of the DOT regulation to "protect" consumers in the case of "obvious" mistake fares? Of course not. But in practice it seems to, at least as of now. Why? Because when you create laws, you have to draw a line somewhere, and that line can sometimes be very pro-consumer.
So what I enjoy the most about these mistake fares is the dialogue that comes out of them. And I think this fare has been an especially interesting one, because it was about as straightforward as we've ever seen. You went directly to the airline's website, and the fare displayed. There was no "trickery" involved.
The post Three Approaches To Mistake Fares, And Why They’re All Valid appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
With United’s new revenue-based frequent flyer program for earning miles from flying, you earn miles based on the price of your ticket and not based on the distance you fly when traveling on United. The ‘break-even’ price to earn the same miles in 2015 that you would have earned in 2014 is a ticket that […]
The post Where Should You Credit United Flights to Now That They’re Awarding Fewer Miles? appeared first on View from the Wing.
If you live in the US nowadays, the single best way to earn points is through credit cards. There are two components to maximizing the points you earn through credit card spend:
-- You want to maximize the points you earn for acquiring a new card
-- You want to maximize the points you earn for your everyday spend
While I often have rundowns of the best credit card sign-up bonuses, I figured I'd compile a list with the best bonuses you can earn on your credit card for everyday spend, based on the category in which you spend the most money.
Like all things in life, you have to crunch the numbers to see what makes sense for you. In other words, based on how much money you spend in each general "category" you have to decide how many cards it makes sense to acquire for the category bonuses they offer.
The post Best Credit Card Category Bonuses appeared first on One Mile at a Time.