Roundup: Is there decent food near LAX? Cheap biz-class tickets to Australia; finding award-winning travel blogs

Good morning, travelers. Where are you traveling in 2009?

Travel Deal | For those of you seeking business class deals - there’s a great one out right now to Australia. United has fares from Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD) or Melbourne (MEL)  starting at $2,367 each way when they usually cost more than $8,000 round-trip on a good day. What’s the catch? You have to book 90-days in advance. I found a flight (May 27-June 3) for $4,578 round-trip, including taxes. Grab flights midweek to get the lowest prices. Deadline to book is Feb. 17.

Local | Budget Travel’s This Just In taps a topic well worth reading — and holding onto for future use —“Finding decent food near LAX.” The post is a roundup of links to other news items, but the LAX food link pointing to the the 99 Cent Chef is worthy of the rest of us to put in our two cents. My husband who often has business lunches near LAX enjoys Truxton’s, which is only a mile away. What about you?

Travel Blogs | Voting is open for the 2009 bloggies. This year, travel was added as a category and there are five finalists including Camels & Chocolate, Gridskipper, Traveling Mamas, Travellious and Without Baggage. If you’re hungry to add even more geography-related sites to your blogroll, check out the finalists for the regional categories including best African weblog, best Asian weblog, best Australian or New Zealand weblog, best European weblog, best Latin American weblog and more.

Travel Contest | CheapoAir launched a $500 travel giveaway Monday. In 200 words or less, tell them where you want to go, what you’d do and why you are worthy of winning $500 travel bucks (gift certificate on CheapoAir.com). Deadline is 11:59 p.m. Feb. 1. Winners will be announced Feb. 2.

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

[Photo: Hope Hamashige]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 9:30 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Airline travel, Business Travel, Contest & Sweepstakes, Deals, Good Morning, Los Angeles, News, Tips & Advice, Pacific & Australia. 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.