Matt Lauer; SWA fare sale; New Virgin America flights; Paris budget tips; TabletHotels on Facebook

Good morning travelers! Where in the world is Matt Lauer today? Any guesses? Tune into the “Today” show.

AIRLINE NEWS | Instead of bad news, we have good airline news today. Southwest Airlines is having a seven-day advance booking sale. Purchase your tickets by May 1 for travel May 8-31. (Blackout dates are May 22, 23, 26). The cheapest flights out of Los Angeles (LAX) are $48 each way (pre-tax) to Oakland (OAK), San Francisco (SFO), San Jose, (SJC), Phoenix (PHX), Sacramento (SAC) and Las Vegas (LAS).

Also, Virgin America is adding flights between:

* Washington Dulles (IAD) and Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO)
* New York Kennedy International (JFK) and LAX, San Francisco (SFO)
* San Francisco (SFO) and Seattle-Tacoma (SEA).

If you fly these routes regularly, you’ll be happy to notice a few more departure options. Additional flights will be rolled out bit by bit throughout the summer.

EARTHQUAKE NEWS | Move over Reno, the earthquakes are heading up toward Humboldt. A 5.2 magnitude earthquake hit an area 11 miles southeast of Willow Creek in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. But that wasn’t the biggest one in the last few days. Check out the Earthquakes in the Last Week map.

WEB TRAVEL | HotelChatter tells us that Tablet Hotels has joined the Facebook fun.

EUROPE | Are you going to Paris or France this summer? Here are 10 budget-friendly tips for enjoying Paris from Los Angeles Times staff writer Susan Spano.

— Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel Deal Blogger

[Photo: Clemens Bilan/ AFP/Getty Images]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 12:01 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Good Morning, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.