With all the canceled flights hitting travelers this week due to increased security inspections, I thought it would be a good time to highlight some past posts I’ve written about handling unexpected flight cancellations:

Call Airline, Then Stand in Line

Passenger Strategies for Canceled Flights

At the end of the day, there is no magic solution when a flight suddenly gets canceled. Whenever I’m stuck in that situation, I have a three-pronged attack:

1. First, I call the airline immediately with my re-booking request

2. While still on the phone, I hustle to the customer service/re-booking desk

3. Lastly, I embrace distraction. They won’t get you on the next flight, but a traveler should never underestimate the soothing power of some trashy magazines, a laptop, airport nachos and - let’s get real here - draaanks in the terminal’s watering hole.

Upon perusing new-ish mapping site MapJack for the first time, I was pretty much blown away. Sure, the site only covers a bizarre coupling of cities right now - San Francisco and Chiang Mai, Thailand - but its imaging technology allows you to enter addresses or points of interest, locate them on high-resolution photographic maps and maneuver right up to the front of buildings, pan left and right, turn in circles, zoom in and out and easily switch to nearby vantage points marked on the maps by blue dots.

I was able to easily read building numbers, street signs and even the friggin’ credit card stickers on the doors of several local businesses. Not bad. It’s a cool tool on so many levels, but for travelers, it offers an easy way to view the area a particular hotel is in or the kinds of shops in a certain neighborhood you’re planning to visit on your next trip. It can also give armchair travelers a candid view of popular tourist destinations like Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco or Three Kings Square in Chiang Mai.

I’m not sure how often they update the images, but looking at several spots in San Francisco that I know well, they’re quite current despite not being in real time.

The company is working to make maps of the following destinations available soon:

* Lake Tahoe

* Yosemite National Park

* Pacifica

* Palo Alto

* San Jose

* Las Vegas

One word of caution: make sure you have a few minutes to spare before you start playing around with MapJack. I got sucked in and - bam - there went the morning.

This weekend, it’s time to spring forward. On Sunday morning at 2 am, US clocks officially hop forward one hour for Daylight Saving time. Remember to set the correct time before you hit the pillow on Saturday night - especially if you’ve got a flight to catch on Sunday!

Some unsuspecting guests at Disney’s Pop Century Resort were recently bilked out of close to $11,000 after handing over their credit card numbers to phone callers pretending to be resort employees. Luckily for the guests, Disney refunded the money. But news of the scam is a reminder to travelers that - as the old adage goes - when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If a person claiming to be a hotel employee calls your room and requests a credit card number for any reason, tell them you’ll be happy to clear up the matter in person with a visit to the front desk. There’s absolutely no reason a hotel employee should need to take your credit card number over the phone when you’re a current guest.

Credit Card Scam Hits Unsuspecting Walt Disney World Resort Guests

If you fly Delta often, you may want to keep Delta’s Best Fare Guarantee in mind. The mountain of ifs, ands or buts associated with these kinds of policies usually keep me from taking advantage of them, but I’m not everyone. With a little sleuthing, this might save you some cash and earn you a $100 voucher towards your next flight.

Here’s how it works:

- Book a ticket on Delta.com

- Find an identical itinerary (same flight number, travel dates, cabin class, etc.) on another web site (Orbitz, Travelocity, etc.) that’s going for at least $10 less than what you paid on Delta.

- You can either a) cancel your Delta flight with no questions asked, as long as you do so within 24 hours of your original purchase or b) submit a claim to Delta that, if validated by the airline, will land you the fare difference and a $100 Delta travel voucher.

Like I said, it’s a bit complicated. Especially the “validation” part. But for anyone who regularly books Delta tickets, it might be worth your while to compare Delta.com fares with those on competing sites to see if you can test the policy.

If you’re going to be in New York this weekend and you love travel, consider checking out the New York Times Travel Show, a veritable smorgasbord of travel information from resorts, hotels, spas, cruise lines, tour operators, tourist agencies and adventure travel companies from around the world. Along with vendor booths and live entertainment performances representing a vast array of cultures, the show features a Taste of the World Pavilion filled with international cuisine and cooking demonstrations, a Spa Pavilion offering sample treatments and discounted packages at spa resorts, travel author appearances and special travel deals offered to folks brave enough to book their next vacation on the spot. And with travel experts Rick Steves, Arthur Frommer, Ian Wright and Stephanie Abrams - among many others - leading seminars, the show offers a rare chance for face-to-face learning from leading peeps in the industry. Cost: $15.

Picture it. You’re on vacation, contentedly minding your own business. Suddenly, you turn and realize you’re sitting at the table next to Nicole Kidman. Or maybe you look up from your beach towel just as Cameron Diaz plunges into the waves with her surfboard in tow. And like any self-respecting celebrity-obsessed, tabloid-reading traveler, you do what travelers do best: you whip out the camera. You snap away like a paparazzo beside a red carpet.

Do that, as a recent Wall Street Journal story The Rise of the ‘Citizen Paparazzi’ points out, and you’re likely to end up with more than some shots to dangle in front of your envious friends. These days, you could end up cold, hard cash. Read the article to find out how travelers are selling their vacation pics to companies who thrive on celebrity photography. Not that we needed the WSJ to tell us that regular citizens are the new celebrity photogs of the day, but the newspaper tends to say everything so much better than everyone else….

Avis is offering up to 10 free tracks from eMusic when you rent a car from one of its U.S. locations. I took advantage of a similar offer from Avis a while back - the songs came from iTunes - and while it doesn’t make much sense to rent a car from the company just to get this deal if you can find lower rates elsewhere, it is a nice perk of renting directly through the company if you’re already planning to do so.

To receive your free music, you have to register for an Avis Wizard number in advance, then use that number when you make a rental reservation. Rent a car for one to four days, and Avis will email you a code - good for 30 days only - to download five free eMusic songs. Rent a car for five to 10 days, and you’ll get 10 free songs.

eMusic tracks work on the iPod and Zune. Really the only catch is that eMusic exclusively carries independent labels - and that may be an added bonus for many of you. Just don’t go in thinking you’re going to get the latest JT track.

Rent on Avis and Get Free Music

AT&T has launched an effort to warn iPhone users of the high charges they may accrue when traveling abroad. Sure, the phone automatically works outside the United States, but that doesn’t mean it’s cheap. In fact, as AT&T makes clear in a letter I received yesterday, simply opening an email with a 5 megapixel image in it while you’re traveling internationally could easily cost you $40. And with the dollar being what it is (i.e. lame), American travelers abroad need all the help they can get. Am I right?

If you travel abroad frequently, then it makes sense to pay for one of AT&T’s Data Global Plans ($24.99 or $59.99 per month). But if you’re only getting outside a few times a year, it’s probably more sensible to just curb your phone use while you’re away. In the PDF doc below (it’s a large file and may take a second to load), AT&T outlines steps travelers should take to prevent astronomical charges. For example:

- Turn off data roaming function (and you need to have the latest iTunes software on your computer to do this, apparently)

- Turn off auto-checking for emails

To learn more, check the doc below:

iPhone International Calling Charges

More often than not, articles that purport to offer travel tips are really just filler stories offering up a bunch of common sense knowledge. But Heather Eng’s Budget Travel story Psst! Broadway Tickets For Cheap had some advice I’d never heard before. Granted, I’m no theater buff, so maybe this is the most obvious tip in the world for a regular Broadway show-goer, but I’m copying it here because I think it’s a really worthwhile piece of travel advice for anyone headed to NYC who wants to catch a Broadway show:

Crack the codes

When you’re buying tickets online, the major agencies — Telecharge and Ticketmaster — ask for a promotional code, which can shave between 25 and 50 percent off the face-value price. You can find one of these codes by visiting Playbill, TheaterMania, and BroadwayBox.com. These sites list promotional codes for many shows, including blockbuster productions like “Hairspray.” Playbill and TheaterMania are more comprehensive but require registration. BroadwayBox.com posts a more limited number of codes, but you won’t have to cough up any personal information.

Insider’s tip: If you buy directly from a theater box office, where you can also use a code for savings, you will avoid the fees that Telecharge and Ticketmaster slap on the tickets they sell online.