How to spend a penny
Buzz, the low-cost airline, is offering 5,000 seats to its new French routes -Rouen, Caen, Brest and Tours - at 1p each way plus taxes. Half will be available in April, the rest in May.
The airline is also offering 20,000 seats at £19 each way, including taxes, to all its routes in France - the others being La Rochelle, Poitiers, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Toulon and Dijon.
Bookings must be made online at buzz.co.uk between today and Monday, April 1 for travel Monday to Thursday only in April and May.
AA revival
American Airlines (08457 789789 aa.com) has announced the resumption of a further 49 flights each week from five UK airports to nine North American gateway cities for the summer.
These include Birmingham to Chicago daily and the seasonal reintroduction of Glasgow to Chicago and two more daily flights from Heathrow to JFK and Chicago. Economy passengers on American have seats with a 34-inch pitch.
The other Oz
A new brochure from Bridge the World called Discover the Other Oz looks at holidays in the northern territory and south Australia. For further information 0870 4441716, discovertheotheroz.com.
Backpack heaven
The Independent Hostel Guide to Britain and Europe has just come out. This, its 11th edition, features nearly 300 hostels, otherwise known as Backpackers. It is available through bookshops for £4.99 or, for £1 extra to cover p&p, direct from the publishers: Backpackers Press, Speedwell House, Upperwood, Matlock Bath, Derbyshire DE4 3PE (01629 580427).
Party on
According to research from cahoot, the interactive bank, the top five destinations for stag and hen parties are as follows: London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Dublin. The research also revealed that 90% of participants do not bother to take out insurance, and that the most frequent mishaps include lost credit cards, missed flights, impromptu hospital visits, mislaid passports and lost cameras - with incriminating evidence, no doubt.
£20m view of Britain
Advertising agency BMP DDB has just been appointed to run a £20m international TV-led multimedia and PR campaign to win visitors back to Britain this year. It will promote British heritage, countryside and cities, with a particular focus on Royal Heritage during this golden jubilee year.
This week, the government announced a £3.6m grant to the English Tourism Council to boost the development of an online tourism network and enable the lastest local tourism information to be made available everywhere.
Notes and queries
An exhibition of portraits of the Queen is running at the Bank of England museum in Bartholomew Lane, London EC2 until June 27. The Queen's portrait has been on banknotes for 42 years, the 1960 £1 note being the first to include the portrait of a reigning monarch. On Wednesday there will be demonstrations of hammered coinage. Open 10am-5pm. Admission free.
