There’s a fare sale at Qantas that’s worth noting if you’re planning to travel to Australia in 2010. Through January 29, round-trip business class fares from the U.S. are among the cheapest available from the airline in the last 10 years. The major restriction: you’ve got to plan ahead and purchase at least 50 days in advance.

The least expensive round-trip fares start at $4,439 between Los Angeles and San Francisco to Sydney and Brisbane. Fly from New York to either of those cities, and the fares start at $4,943.

Read more »

Will there be wireless Internet available on your next American Airlines flight? Until today, there hasn’t been a surefire way to find out before arrival at the gate. With only 165 planes in the fleet enabled, it’s been a guessing game at best. But today American Airlines announced a nifty little wi-fi widget that will tell you whether your flight offers the service up to 24 hours before departure.

Innovative seats outside of first-class cabins have been buzzed about for years now, but more and more airlines are actually rolling them out this year. Late last month, Air France rolled out special seats that recline without invading other passengers' space to its Premium Cabin, and, over the weekend, Continental sent the first of its planes outfitted with the airline's new business class seats into the skies. What's so special about them?

The National Business Travel Association's forecast for 2010 business travel, released to the association's members this week, expects average rates and fares for U.S. domestic air, car and hotel travel to fall between 1 and 8 percent next year, with hotel rates expected to experience the highest decreases.

One wild card, of course, are new fees that airlines may decide to implement. If new fees appear, they could raise airfare costs by as much as 3 percent in 2010.

Like many hoteliers these days, we're intrigued by the idea of the Intelity ICE systems that are cropping up at hotels across the country at hotel such as The Eliot in Boston (pictured), Hotel Duval in Tallahassee and the Westin Imagine Orlando.