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Vacation Condos Out West: The Later You Buy, the Less You Pay. Plus, An Exclusive Discount Code Good This Weekend for Rentals Over the Next Year

If you owned a grocery store and had a surplus of foodstuffs nearing their "sell by" date, you might be inclined to host a sale, right?

Well, Steve Barsh and his wife owned a couple of condos in Park City, Utah, and when they'd offer them to rent, they'd lower the price if they had difficulty attracting renters.  Then Steve had the idea to bring that philosophy to a larger business.  So he contracted with companies that manage blocks of luxury condominiums in tony places including Aspen,  Breckenridge and Keystone resorts in Colorado, Park City in Utah (below), and South Tahoe in California.

The result is a web site begun just a few weeks ago, Packlate.com, that offers up condos whose rental prices drop as the rental dates draw nearer.  And they continue to drop until someone nibbles or the owner takes it off the market.

And when Christopher Elliott and I interviewed Barsh today on our syndicated radio show, "Rudy Maxa's World with Christopher Elliot," he made an offer to our listeners he said I could share on my blog.  All this weekend, if you go here and type in the code "MAXA," Packlate will tell you two hours before new, lower prices are posted on the web site.  That gives you a headstart in getting a deal.  And you can book for anytime in the coming year.

There are bargains such as a two-bedroom, two-bath condo that sleeps eight in Mountain Village, CO, that normally rents for $360 a night but--as I write this--is on offer for $205 a night, a 43% savings. There are luxury properties in Incline Village, Steamboat Springs, Telluride, Vail, Aspen and elsewhere. 

And the good news is that Barsh plans to begin including similar properties elsewhere in the country.

JetBlue to New Yorkers: Welcome Aboard for $10 If You Book By Tonight

You've got 'til midnight tonight, Central time, to snare a promotional, $10 fare on JetBlue for travel Tuesday (March 9th) and Wednesday (March 10th) from New York's JFK airport to any of JetBlue's first ten cities it served when the airline began 10 years ago.

Those cities include Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, West Palm Beach, and Fort Myers, FL.  Also included are Buffalo and Rochester, NY; Oakland, CA; Burlington, VT; and Salt Lake City, UT. 

The last-minute promotion, just announced, is in celebration of the airline's tenth birthday.  On Wednesday, JetBlue will use Twitter to announce more giveaways for New York-area customers.  And there will be new offers every month during this year.

As I write this, the airline's web site is experiencing "technical difficulties" that I'm guessing are the result of this announcement.