What It Was Worth

When telling people about my transcontinental train trip to Worldcon this year, and very common question was, "How much did it cost?" Of course, it cost me a bunch of Amtrak Guest Rewards points, but they want to know how much cash money. I don't know how much, because I didn't pay money for it, just points. So, in order to have some figure to give to people, I worked out how much the trip would cost for comparable dates next July. (You can only book about 11 months ahead, so I can't put in August dates.) This would be about the least-expensive "bucket" of fares.

Prices are for two people and include no discounts. We would have been eligible for the 10% NARP discount or the 10% AAA discount, but those only apply to the rail fare, not the room charges, and most of the cost is in the rooms. Prices shown are the total rail + room cost.

( Details by leg of trip )

Total: $4,658 before any discounts, which would probably not exceed $200.

What we paid: Just under $400 (remember, we got the NARP discount) and 120,000 AGR points.

2009 Site Selection Business Meeting Video Posted

The video of the 2009 Site Selection WSFS Business Meeting held Sunday, August 9, at Anticipation is now online. If you have difficulty viewing the video through Vimeo's online viewer, you can download the video (WMV format) to your machine using the link in the lower right corner of the video's web page.

This meeting received the official results of the 2010 NASFiC and 2011 Worldcon Site Selection and received the first reports from the newly-seated committees. In addition, the meeting held Question Time for the 2010 Worldcon, Aussiecon Four and a short presentation from bids for the 2012 Worldcon.

This is the third and final video file of the 2009 WSFS Business Meetings. The earlier recordings are the Preliminary Business Meeting and the Main Business Meeting.

This information is not secret. Feel free to pass it along to anyone else you think might be interested. You can quote this message entirely if you wish.