Jetsettersblog

Emirates Business Rewards, the airline’s loyalty program for small and medium enterprises (SME), will offer its customers double reward miles throughout March, highlighting the airlines commitment to supporting SMEs.

For every dollar spent on travel with Emirates and booked via Business Rewards in February and March, the company will be awarded four Business Reward miles, rather then the standard two.

These miles can be redeemed for free flights on Emirates services worldwide, including any of the four U.S. gateways –

New York (JFK), Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO) and Houston (IAH).

This offer is available to all new and existing Business Rewards members globally. SMEs remain one of the greatest contributors to the UAE’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with the UAE Ministry of Economy recently announcing it will be investing in the development of SMEs across the emirates this coming year.

For more information, visit the banner at right.

Travel Impressions added 13 new hotels in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles. In San Francisco, the six new properties include St. Regis San Francisco, Fairmont Heritage Place Ghirardelli Square, InterContinental Mark Hopkins, InterContinental San Francisco, Clift San Francisco and The Westin St. Francis.

Roundtrip airport/hotel transfers and roundtrip hotel/pier transfers are now available as part of the San Francisco vacation packages.

The three new hotels in San Diego are Hotel del Coronado, L’Auberge del Mar and Hotel Indigo San Diego Gaslamp Quarter.

Four new properties in Los Angeles include L’Ermitage Beverly Hills, The London West Hollywood, W Los Angeles Westwood and Holiday Inn Santa Monica Beach at the Pier.

Travel Impressions offers optional tours in Los Angeles highlighted by visits to Hollywood, Beverly Hills and homes of movie stars.

To promote the new California hotels, Travel Impressions is offering three-night packages with hotel accommodations and hotel tax. Bookings at San Francisco properties also include roundtrip airport/hotel transfers.

Sample prices quoted per person double occupancy, for travel April 1 to May 22, are as follows: San Francisco — The Westin St. Francis from $339, Clift San Francisco from $455, InterContinental San Francisco from $469, InterContinental Mark Hopkins from $499, St. Regis San Francisco from $669, and Fairmont Heritage Place, Ghirardelli Square from $809; San Diego — Hotel Indigo San Diego Gaslamp Quarter from $349, Hotel del Coronado from $459, and L’Auberge del Mar from $519; and Los Angeles — Holiday Inn Santa Monica Beach at the Pier from $355, W Los Angeles Westwood from $445, The London West Hollywood from $455, and L’Ermitage Beverly Hills from $709. Airfare is available from gateways nationwide and can be added to the cost of the hotel package.

For more information, call 800-284-0044 or 631-845-8000, or visit www.TravelImpressions.com

Kimpton’s Hotel Palomar Los Angeles-Westwood is offering the Sweet Tax Relief package for stays throughout the month of April.

As part of the package, the hotel will pay guests’ room tax, as well as the tax on a meal at Blvd 16.

In addition, the package includes treats such as Payday, 100 Grand and Sugar Daddy candy bars and late check out when available.

Package rates start at $139 per room, per night.

For more information, call 310-475-8711 or visit www.hotelpalomar-lawestwood.com  and enter PTAX in the rate code box.

The Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno, Nev., is offering spring room packages starting at $39 per night.

From April 15 through June 30, guests can book a standard room starting at $39 and get the second night free and receive a $15 credit that can be used for bowling, the health club, FunQuest, dining or free play.

Guests may also choose to stay a third night for free and receive a second $15 credit.

Visitors can upgrade from a standard room to a luxury suite inside the Summit at Grand Sierra Resort for $50.

Each suite comes with a butler’s pantry, suede furnishing and marble bathrooms. Guests be at least 21 years old and present a valid ID to redeem.

For more information, call 800-648-5080 or visit www.grandsierraresort.com  and use offer code SPRING.

The Millennium Biltmore has announced an Easter package for the night of April 3.

The package is priced from $259 per room, double, and includes Easter brunch for two, valet parking and a Biltmore coffee table book.

By itself, the brunch costs $55 per person age 12 and older and $25 for children ages 4 to 11, excluding tax and gratuity. It will be served April 4 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

To book the package, call 213-624-1011. For brunch reservations only, call 213-612-1562. For general information, call 866-866-8086.

The fifth annual Fashion Week El Paseo in Palm Desert, Calif. (Palm Springs area), which takes place March 22 to 28, will feature a new component: Fashion, Food & Wine.

More than 50 participating merchants will hold in-store events such as trunk shows, informal modeling, fashion seminars, hors d’oeuvres and refreshments.

The event will pair fashion design with food and wines. Among the individual events will be the Shops on El Paseo Trunk Show; El Paseo Fashion’s Day Out with music, wine, hors d’oeuvres and demonstrations; the Runway Bar El Paseo Fashion Show, featuring designs from 15 top El Paseo stores; ASID Project Runway, featuring ASID-member interior designers with celebrity judges Cheryl Tiegs and Kathy Ireland; Men’s Night, featuring the men’s line of Jamie Paul Holahan;

fine dining and premium wine tasting, featuring 10 celebrity chef demonstrations, 35 of fine dining restaurants from throughout Southern California, and more than 40 premium wines and champagnes purveyors;

and the Designer of the Week Fashion Show.

For more information, visit www.fashionweekelpaseo.com

Golf Course Home at PGA WEST

Palm Springs, CA – With its warm, sunny weather, rolling green golf courses and tennis courts that invite leisurely days, Palm Springs has long been a favorite retreat. Now, someone could enjoy a permanent place in that getaway dream for the price of a single round of golf, thanks to the Second Annual Palm Springs Dream Home Raffle™.

For a $100 ticket, one lucky person could win a $575,000 luxury 3-bedroom home on the exclusive Arnold Palmer Course at PGA WEST™ in La Quinta, CA, or $500,000 cash. It’s winner’s choice.

The Palm Springs Dream Home Raffle benefits DesertArc, a Palm Desert-based nonprofit that has worked for 50 years to enhance the lives of the developmentally disabled.

DesertArc serves more than 600 clients in the Coachella Valley and Morongo Basin, with programs that include vocational training, job placement, independent living support and more.

The Grand Prize is a stunning 3-bedroom, 3 ½-bath 2400-square-foot luxury home overlooking the sixth tee of the Arnold Palmer course in the Laurels neighborhood at PGA WEST. It features a gourmet kitchen separate dining nook, a spacious Great Room with fireplace, media niche and wet bar, 12-foot ceilings in main living space, a detached casita with a golf cart garage and a 2-car garage. The floor plan and patio space features magnificent views of the lush green fairways and surrounding Santa Rosa Mountains.

The raffle also features monthly early drawings for up to $10,000 cash. There are 150 additional prizes in all, worth more than $130,000.

There are also special prize drawings for multiple ticket buyers and those who refer friends.

This important annual fundraiser helps us replace much needed operating funds that we’ve lost through cutbacks in government grants and other sources of funding,” says Dick Balocco, Executive Director of DesertArc. “This has proved to be an exciting and successful fundraiser for our organization.”

A limited number of tickets will be sold, with a final entry date of May 11, 2010. The Grand Prize drawing will be held on May 15. Ticket holders do not need to be present to win any prize.

For additional information about DesertArc, visit www.DesertArc.org.

For photos please visit http://bit.ly/9KHQnw.

To purchase tickets for the Palm Springs Dream Home Raffle, or for detailed information including prizes, raffle rules and how to enter, visit www.PalmSpringsDreamHomeRaffle.com  or call (888) 771-7784.

Tahiti Legends and Air Tahiti Nui are offering the Ultimate Tahiti Experience.

Starting at $170,000 per couple and valid for travel June 14 to May 31, 2011, this travel-like-a-celebrity experience kicks off with VIP airport handling and first class (Poerava) roundtrip flights from Los Angeles to Papeete on Air Tahiti Nui.

The first five nights of the 13-night package are spent in a luxury villa on Motu Tetaraire, a completely private nine-acre Rangiroa island with no other inhabitants except the wait staff. Next, it’s three nights sailing lagoons on a customized course aboard the Roa, a privately chartered 77-foot motor yacht. Then it’s off to St. Regis Bora Bora, where the 2009 movie “Couples Retreat” was shot, for five nights in the resort’s 15,000-square-foot Royal Estate, where Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban honeymooned.

Travelers will take a scenic helicopter ride from Bora Bora to Taha’a, the “Vanilla Island” for a private tour of Vanilla Valley to pick their own vanilla beans before returning to the St. Regis Bora Bora for a three-course gastronomic vanilla tasting menu created by Executive Chef Phillippe Egalon at Lagoon, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant.

On the Private Lagoon Cruise, guests circle Bora Bora aboard a private 23-foot Cap Camarat with a Polynesian guide, stopping to snorkel in coral gardens alongside manta rays. The day is topped off with a motu barbeque picnic lunch with Champagne.

The Luna Sea Tour is a half-day deep sea fishing excursion aboard the Luna Sea, a 34-foot Black Watch.

Deep warm-water canyons just offshore provide the opportunity to catch blue and black marlin, wahoo, mahi mahi and other game fish.

Guests then dine on their catch during a private sunset dinner on the beach.

Rounding out the package is a couples massage and Illuminating Black Pearl Facial at St. Regis Bora Bora’s Miri Miri Spa, plus a dinner for two at Bora Bora’s Villa Mahana.

Travelers on the Ultimate Tahiti Experience will receive private transfers and meet and greets as part of the VIP handling throughout.

All meals and most hotel activities are included, in addition to the noted excursions above.

For more information, call 800-200-1213 or visit

www.tahitilegends.com

or www.airtahitinui-usa.com

United Airlines has announced the schedule for the airline’s first-ever nonstop service to the African continent, with once-daily service linking Washington with Accra, the capital of Ghana, beginning June 20.

To promote the new service, United is offering special fares for travel between June 20 and Aug. 29.

Sample discounted fares to Accra are each-way based on a required roundtrip purchase and tickets must be purchased no later than March 22, 2010. Additional taxes and fees apply.

Sample fares are Washington Dulles, $706; San Francisco/Los Angeles, $879; Denver, $865; and Chicago, $738.

“Star Wars Weekends,” the annual sci-fi fest that transforms Disney’s Hollywood Studios, will take place on weekends from May 21 through June 13, 2010.

Characters, including wookiees, droids, ewoks, bounty hunters and jedi, will roam the streets, making the studios “Star Wars Central” for guests of all ages.

Also featured in special meet-and-greet opportunities are characters from the animated film and TV series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” The weekends’ festivities will mark the last for the Star Tours attraction in its current form; later this year, work will begin on an innovative, 3D enhancement to transform the attraction into Star Tours II.

The Jedi Training Academy, one of many interactive entertainment experiences at the theme park, takes place on the main stage and allows young guests to learn from a Jedi Master before testing their newly acquired skills in a battle with Darth Vader.

Also featured is the chance for fans to purchase one-of-a-kind “Star Wars” memorabilia, “Star Wars” games, special “Star Wars” parades, star conversations and autograph sessions with famous “Star Wars” actors (celebrity lineup will be announced at a later date).

Event activities are included in theme park admission.

For more information, visit www.StarWars.com