[Travelandtourism] Conference Call with Matt SloskyofSocialflights.com last night

Wed Jan 11 17:06:05 UTC 2012

I do hope you will listen to the recording of the teleconference last night that was sent to the list, Matt does go into what socialflights does.
And how it works, for myself going to convention from NY to Dallas is way to much money. 
Leading the Way in Independent Travel!

Cheryl Echevarria
http://www.echevarriatravel.com
631-456-5394
reservations at echevarriatravel.com

For daily updates read our blog at
http://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com

> From: mbaldwin at gpcom.net
> To: travelandtourism at nfbnet.org
> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:56:01 -0600
> Subject: Re: [Travelandtourism] Conference Call with Matt	SloskyofSocialflights.com last night
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Yes, I did try the find a flight form on their home page. The issue I ran in
> to was the city or airport could not be found. Today though, it is able to
> find it. I am just after an estimate. If it is way out of our price range,
> there is no need to consider it any further, but if it is close, then it
> will take some more thought.
> Driving will cost us about $1500, flying commercially would cost about
> $2,000.00, plus the car rental and frustrations of 2 stops. And flying with
> three kids and etc. The Airport I would need to go to is about 175 miles
> away as well.
> My time and stress level is worth something to. If I can get a direct flight
> from a closer airport, and be there in a few hours, I am willing to pay for
> it, to a certain extent.
> 
> While writing this, I did hear back from Matt. I was a little surprised on
> the cost though. I figured maybe 5-6 thousand dollars, but it was closer to
> $40 thousand.
> He did say for long stays like ours their service was not really cost
> effective. I hope that does not discourage others from trying them out. Our
> vacation is going to be about 3 weeks long in total with going to Orlando
> from Nebraska, then to Richmond VA, then back home.
> 
> I am going to email him back with a few other options to see if we can get
> the cost down. I am assuming from his quote, that plane is ours for the
> duration of the trip, that is why it is so expensive.
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: travelandtourism-bounces at nfbnet.org
> [mailto:travelandtourism-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Peter Donahue
> Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 10:18
> To: NFB Travel and Tourism Division List
> Subject: Re: [Travelandtourism] Conference Call with Matt
> SloskyofSocialflights.com last night
> 
> Hello Cheryl and everyone,
> 
> I sent him information about our Non-Visual Web Accessibility Initiative. He
> said he would forward it to their Web team.
> 
>     For Michael did you use the "Create a Flight" form on the Web site. That
> is primarily for obtaining estimates for trips using different aircraft
> types and numbers of passengers. Again this is just for obtaining rough
> estimates of what your trip will cost. Cheryl and us tried it too and it
> works fine with screen readers. You will need to contact them via e-mail or
> by phone to get exact quotes from their air charter operators. Chances are
> Matt himself will respond to your inquiry but they have other "Social Flight
> Attendants" who can also obtain this information and answer any other
> questions you may have.
> 
>     Unless things have changed there was a captcha one had to deal with when
> creating an account. To say the least it was horrible! Mary has perfect
> hearing and she couldn't understand the image characters being read. The
> best way to describe it is like having to talk to someone in a crowded room.
> 
> I'm sure we'll take this up with them in the coming months and suggest an
> alternative to that captcha assuming it's still in use. There are other ways
> to kill spam bots without locking out potential customers or in this case
> potential social fliers.
> 
>     Thanks for the kind words. There are two other lo-cost air charter
> services I can introduce to our division one of which offers a
> four-passenger jet for $999.00 per hour on certain days and in particular
> markets they serve. Really!! JetSuite Air bills  itself as "The Southwest" 
> of private jet charter services. Visit their Web site at: 
> http://www.jetsuite.com for more information.
> 
>     Greenjets has been in operation for several years. Like Social Flights
> Greenjets sells seats on private jets in particular markets and also sells
> empty legs in markets where per-seat pricing is not available. Visit their
> Web site at: http://www.flygreenjets.com for additional information.
> 
>     The face of private jet charter is changing and becoming available to
> more individuals. I felt that we as an organization needed to be sure blind
> persons wishing to fly privately would also have access to these services
> hence my suggestion to Cheryl that we invite Matt from Social Flights to
> hold a phone conference with us. I could write lots more on this subject but
> I need to leave in a while to take Johnny to the vet and get some groceries.
> 
> All the best.
> 
> Peter Donahue
> 
> 
> 
> Peter Donahue
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "cheryl echevarria" <cherylandmaxx at hotmail.com>
> To: "travelandtourism" <travelandtourism at nfbnet.org>; "Matt Slosky" 
> <matt.slosky at socialflights.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 8:49 AM
> Subject: Re: [Travelandtourism] Conference Call with Matt Slosky
> ofSocialflights.com last night
> 
> 
> 
> Well Peter Donahue and Matt have been working on these issues, they are well
> aware of it.
> Peter, have you mentioned to Matt of how the NFB can assist, Matt and
> Socialflights.com to update there website.
> Thank you for the feedback Michael. Would have loved you on the call last
> night thought to have asked these questions.
> Mind you they do not have all the codes, and they are not the 3 letter codes
> that we travel agents use, they are smaller airports, not major ones, I had
> to ask and e-mail them to add ISP, which is Islip, NY, but they had East
> Farmingdale, which is a airport for smaller planes and not the commercial
> airlines.
> 
> Leading the Way in Independent Travel!
> 
> Cheryl Echevarria
> http://www.echevarriatravel.com
> 631-456-5394
> reservations at echevarriatravel.com
> 
> For daily updates read our blog at
> http://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com
> 
> > From: mbaldwin at gpcom.net
> > To: travelandtourism at nfbnet.org
> > Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:41:56 -0600
> > Subject: Re: [Travelandtourism] Conference Call with Matt Slosky 
> > ofSocialflights.com last night
> >
> > Sounds like it was a great call.
> > I actually contacted social flights the other day about pricing 
> > something for us for our upcoming vacation. I have not heard back yet. 
> > But if we can fly and not have to deal with the crap from the TSA and 
> > commercial flights, that would be great.
> > I will try to keep everyone posted about it.
> >
> > So far I am not impressed with their website. I feel it needs some 
> > work, but there is at least no captchas when trying to send a general 
> > contact to them, which is what I had to do. There system did not 
> > recognize the city or airport code I wanted to fly out of. Then I 
> > found a place that had a drop down list of all the cities, Jaws was 
> > unable to open the drop down list and scroll through the options. This 
> > needs to be worked out on their end I believe.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: travelandtourism-bounces at nfbnet.org
> > [mailto:travelandtourism-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of cheryl 
> > echevarria
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 7:51
> > To: travelandtourism; Matt Slosky; Echevarria Travelblog
> > Subject: [Travelandtourism] Conference Call with Matt Slosky 
> > ofSocialflights.com last night
> >
> >
> > Good morning all:
> > What a great time we all had with Matt Slosky, COO, Chief Operating 
> > Officer with Socialflights.com, we were hoping for a better turn out, 
> > but I am guessing people were busy.  I am also going to forward this 
> > to NYAGDU, here in NY, since we had a few guide dog users from NY on 
> > the call last night.
> > I just want to say thank you to Peter Donahue our Board Member, for 
> > introducing us to Socialflights.com.
> > This service may not be good for everyone, or fit your pocketbook, but 
> > we are also going to hopefully be educating some of there operators as
> well.
> > Matt, is all about learning about the National Federation of the 
> > Blind, he also mentioned that he has a therapy dog and knows the laws 
> > that his dog is not a service animal.
> > He will always be a friend of the travel and tourism division, and 
> > hope to have him back in the future on our calls.  It has been 
> > recorded, Mary Donahue our Secretary will be taking notes off the 
> > recording last night and hopefully, Peter, will be able to download it 
> > to our website for others to listen to.
> > It was a great success our first guest call, ever.  We are hoping in 
> > Dallas to get him or a few operators to come to our meeting at the 
> > convention but we will see.
> > Now, to the members of this list and the division.
> > We want to hear from you, it is nice to have a division, many of us 
> > belong to one or two of them maybe more.
> > So, we want to know, what you would like us to focus on, myself, and 
> > some of my officers who are travel partners, have connections in the 
> > industry to do this type of call in again. I am in talks with Andrew 
> > Garnett of Special Needs at Sea, his company does wheelchairs, 
> > scooters, oxygen, plus his company also did the braille for the 
> > Norwegian Gem, that I took a group on a tour of back in October.
> > So his company does a lot of different things for the disabled community.
> > Also, I have Cathy Vazquez with NCL, and I can have her come on as 
> > well, or possible one or two our my tour suppliers from different 
> > areas of travel.
> > So, we need to hear from you, our members.
> >
> > Leading the Way in Independent Travel!
> >
> > Cheryl Echevarria
> > http://www.echevarriatravel.com
> > 631-456-5394
> > reservations at echevarriatravel.com
> >
> > For daily updates read our blog at
> > http://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com
> >
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