Travels with Bricin

5-10 business days?!

I recently unsubscribed from Travelocity's email newsletter. I don't use the information and just delete the email. I clicked unsubscribe, submit... and received the text pasted below. Seriously, 5-10 days business days to remove someone from a mailing list?! What, do gnomes walk a hand-written note to the secret vault in which the scroll of user names are stored.

Your request to unsubscribe from all Travelocity promotional emails has been submitted. This includes any FareWatcher Plus updates; the weekly deals email newsletter -- as well as emails about fare sales, low fare alerts and limited-time promotions. Please allow 5-10 business days for your request to be processed.

If you have any questions or need additional assistance, please email us anytime.

At any point, if you would like to re-subscribe to Travelocity email updates orFareWatcher Plus to watch specific destinations, please log into your account and update your email preferences.

Thank you.

Frustrated with Yelp

I use Yelp.com for restaurants. Or I try to. They launched some time ago in France and I switched from Qype to Yelp. And sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. Bottom line though is there are several areas that the site just gets wrong:

  1. When I type in yelp.com, why does it take me to a city which I don't live in? My profile clearly states I live in Paris. I have visited Seattle. And worse their menu bar along the top even knows that and lists out these cities that I might want to search for something in. No, what Yelp gives me today is Duncanville. No offense to the fine folks in Duncanville but a) I have no idea where that is and b) have never been there.
  2. The search box is pre-filled with "Paris, 75116" which is great since that is in fact near where I am. So I quickly do a search for "pink flamingo" which is a pizza chain in Paris which is supposed to be the best pizza in the city. That's a dubious honor since the pizza here is just so-so, but still... my results are from somewhere in Texas! Guys what is going on here? You actually got the right location for me in your search box but then decided not to pay any attention to it. I can only assume 75116 is the zipcode for somewhere in Texas but this is just ridiculous. I told you I am in France. You even identified that I am in France. And then you ignored this fact entirely.
  3. I checked in at a restaurant in Paris which Yelp had no listing for from my mobile. When I got back to my PC browser I checked all over for any way to find the new restaurant that I had just checked into. I would like to review that restaurant. Nope. Since I didn't leave a Quick Tip I couldn't figure out how to get back to the listing. Searching didn't work either although I suspect this was because it was taking some time to work through the system.

Bottom line is that Yelp appears to work in the US. But  international locales are treated as second class which is a big mistake. There are more people in the EU than in the US. The culture here is even more mobile-friendly and people tend to dine out more.

Kind regards Team Yelp, but there is work left to be done. 

Hurycana Sports: Fail!

P316

My much-worn Garmont boots gave out this morning. Telemark gear is not common in the Alps so we were pleased to find an ad for Hurycana Sports which is just down the road from Argentiere.

So we tramped down through the snow and slop to buy some new boots. I walk in and ask about tele gear and am told "nope, we don't sell that here." Nor do they rent it.

So I wondered if I was crazy and double-checked their ad. Yep, false and misleading guys. Glad we later discovered Otavalo Telemark in Chamonix which is an awesome shop and in fact sells telemark gear.