Virgin: 20% off flights through Feb. 15 with promo code.

Planning to travel this winter? You can get a discount code from Virgin America and save 20% off your flight. The first 50,000 to sign up will be emailed a promo code, which you can apply to a flight between now and Feb. 15 (I'm assuming the holidays are blackout dates, even if they weren't already full).

Avoid the holiday travel craziness and go in January when things quiet down — and get cheap.

Tanga: 1-year Budget Travel subscription, $1.99.

It's been a while since we've seen a Tanga magazine deal, but they're always good, and this is no exception: $1.99 for a 1-year subscription to Budget Travel! Sounds like a wise investment to me... and you can order up to 3 years at this rate. Just use promo code BUDGET when you're checking out.

Bon voyage!

Free Oprah's Lifeclass Journal & a sweepstakes.

This is more of a contest, I suppose, but there is a freebie attached to it, so I think it counts enough to post. Sign up to get a copy of Oprah's Lifeclass Journal - I can't tell if it's a blank book embellished with quotes or a "journal" that Oprah has supposedly "filled" with her life lessons. But either way, there are a million of 'em, so hurry and get yours. You can also enter to win a fabulous trip for two to Atlanta to be part of Oprah's first life class event thing, all expenses paid!

I say go for it. In fact, let's make a deal - if you win, you take me, and if I win, I'll take you. Sound fair?

JetBlue fare sale starting at $29 each way - today only!

JetBlue is having a fare sale today only for travel through December 15. You'll want to check the fine print and make sure your dates are covered, but it's a great deal if you're willing to travel on non-peak days!

"Offers valid 8/16/11 only (until 11:59 p.m., the earlier of ET or local, or while supplies last) for travel between 9/6-12/15/11. (Blackout Dates: 10/6-10/11/11 and 11/18-11/28/11). Fares not valid for flights on Fridays or Sundays."

Free admission to U.S. National Parks today.

Happy first day of summer, everyone! Today, you can celebrate the warm weather with free admission to U.S. national parks. Many of our 394 national parks are free all the time, but over 100 of them are waiving their fees for today.

If you're lucky enough to have the day off today (or called in "sick"), get out and enjoy some nature for free!

Southwest 40th anniversary fare sale: fares $40 and up.

Southwest is celebrating their 40th anniversary with a big fat fare sale, now through June 23. Tickets start at just $40 each way! 

You must fly between August 23–November 16, but if there's some summer/fall travel you've been longing to do, check out the fares and cities soon...

L.A.: Free Metro 3-day bus pass.

L.A. County residents, the 3-day free pass offer from Metro is back! Just fill out the request form to get your free pass in the mail. Good for Metro bus and rail travel all over L.A. County for 3 days - sounds like a deal to me...

JetBlue fare sale starting at $39 each way, through Jan. 13.

Itching for a winter getaway to somewhere warmer - or just somewhere away? JetBlue is having a fare sale this week, with fares starting at just $39 one-way. They never seem to have any great destinations out of Seattle, but I guess we're not a big hub for them. If you're flying out of Boston or NYC, though, you've got options!

13 free iPhone city-guide travel apps from Lonely Planet.

Lonely Planet has an early Xmas present for you... 13 city-guide travel apps, absolutely free (normally $9.99). Even if you're not going to one of these places right now, if you think you might in the future, it's worth the free download, since you'll have access to it forevermore. Here are the cities:

• Amsterdam
• Berlin  
• Copenhagen 
• Dublin  
• London  
• Moscow 
• Munich
• Paris 
• Prague  
• St. Petersburg  
• Stockholm  
• Vienna  
• Warsaw

If you're an Android user, they have Android versions for a mere 99 cents, too.

Tanga: Budget Travel subscription for $4.

Tanga has another fine magazine deal today... get a one-year subscription to Budget Travel magazine for only $4 with promo code TRAVEL. If there's one thing I don't need, it's yet another magazine stuffed into my mailbox each month, but $4 is pretty hard to resist. Especially if it will save me money on travel! That way, it's practically an investment.

Information: Find hotel freebies through new Priceline feature.

Travel website Priceline.com has a new feature sure to appeal to freebie-lovers - now you can search for hotels with specific freebies!  They've always listed complimentary amenities in the product pages, but now they've organized their site so that you can do a search for a particular freebie (e.g., free breakfast). More info:

Most consumers will probably search by location. Type your destination into the white box next to "find my deal" on the Priceline.com/freebies page. Enter Atlanta, for example, click "free breakfast," and 20 choices pop up with details on the offers. Click on the "see dates" feature on the right for a calendar.


You can also filter results by a particular freebie....The new Priceline feature has a total of 10 freebies to choose from: free breakfast, free parking, golf credit, spa credit, room upgrade, resort credit, kids stay free, free nights, hotel extras and instant discount.

My favorite feature in a hotel is a cheap price, but if you really care about in-hotel gyms or free parking, this could be a useful tool for narrowing down your options.

Free magazine subscription through US Airways miles.

US Airways is offering an interesting reward on their miles program... when you join through July 31 using promo code NM15, they'll instantly give you enough Dividend Miles to cash in on your choice of magazine subscriptions. You can see the prize options here, once you sign up and validate your email.

Some good subscriptions include Entertainment Weekly, W Magazine, and Details, but it will take about 48 hours to post the miles to your account, so hang in there and be patient.

KEXP contest: Free trip to Austin City Limits.

I don't normally post contests on the HTN, but this one is both Seattle-based (though open to all U.S. residents) and pretty cool, so I'm making an exception. Seattle's KEXP, 90.3 FM, is offering a trip to Austin City Limits this October! The package includes round-trip airfare, lodging, and 3-day event passes for two adults, and there are some great bands performing this year.

You can enter by sending one standard-size postcard per household, with your name, address, email address, and both day and evening telephone numbers, to:

KEXP Austin City Limits Flyaway
113 Dexter Ave. N
Seattle, WA 98109

Good luck!

Free vanilla lip balm when you enter for a Hawaiian vacation.

Want a Hawaiian vacation? How about an organic vanilla lip balm? Well, you can get at least one of those when you enter Veria's "H.O.T.T. Hawaiian Vacation" sweepstakes. That stands for "Hot on the Trail Hawaiian adventure," which includes two round trip tickets, three nights' accommodation, and a fresh, locally foraged H.O.T.T. dinner for two.

Winners will be chosen on July 15, so if you like tropical getaways or moisturized lips, sign up soon!

$10 JetBlue nonstop flights, today and tomorrow.

Feeling crazy? Wanna call in sick tomorrow and fly somewhere for $10? Check out JetBlue's promotion, where they're selling off all nonstop flights May 11 and 12 for $10 each. Heck, for that price you could fly somewhere just to have lunch and come back.

Tickets will no doubt go fast, so hurry on over if you want to fly the cheapie skies!

JetBlue: Fare sale from $29.

JetBlue is having another fare sale starting at $29 one-way. There's not much here for Seattleites, although you can fly to Boston for $129 each way, but take a look if JetBlue has more of a physical presence at your local airport than it does here.

Travel: One-way car rentals for cheap.

This is new to me, but it's kind of a neat idea: car fleets need to move their fleets from winter vacation destinations and spread them out for the summer travel season, so they're offering cheap one-way car rentals if you pick-up or drop-off in the Pacific Northwest or Arizona. Rentals are as low as $1/day (not including taxes and fees) when you book by May 31.

Of course, you're basically doing them a favor by transporting their car across the country, but if you're looking for a spring getaway, it could be a fun road trip to drive from, say, Seattle to SF and then hop a cheap flight home.

(Courtesy of the Seattle Times)

Feeling lucky? Tons of contests through Woman's Day.

Okay, contests and sweepstakes aren't really freebies, but they are free to enter and you could win a fabulous prize. More importantly, there is NOTHING out there in freebie-land today, so I'm posting this in case you'd like to turn your luck around.

Woman's Day is a magazine you probably don't read, but they always have tons of contests on their website - and now they have even more, in partnership with other publications. Scroll about halfway down the page, and that's where they start. There's designer jewelry, a bunch of all-expenses-paid vacations both domestic and international, fragrances, home stuff, and more. You usually have to click through to skip one or two "featured offers" in order to enter, but it's all free and you don't have to sign up for anything. And you can enter once per day. Someone's got to win, and it might as well be you!

JetBlue: $10 fares if you travel 3/9 or 3/10.

JetBlue is celebrating its tenth birthday with $10 fares! The catch is, they're departing out of NYC to a handful of locations, and you have to book today and fly tomorrow or Wednesday, 3/9 or 3/10.

"Flights included in JetBlue's 'Thank You fare' promotion go from the airline's home base at New York's John F. Kennedy International airport to Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando, West Palm Beach and Fort Myers, Florida; Buffalo and Rochester, New York; Oakland, California; Burlington, Vermont; and Salt Lake City, Utah."

Apparently there are more tenth-anniversary sales and specials to come, so follow them on Twitter to get the scoop.

Contest: Win a 2-night round-trip package on the Victoria Clipper.

I don't think I've ever posted a contest announcement here, but I just happened to stumble across this one and thought it was worth posting for Seattleites. Victoria Clippers is having a photo contest for your best pictures of Seattle, Victoria, and the Victoria Clipper itself. Winners in each of those three categories will get two round-trip tickets on the Victoria Clipper plus a gift bag, and the grand prize winner gets a two-night vacation package, champagne breakfast, and gift bag.

You can read the full rules here, but basically they want a hi-res JPG that captures the essence of each city. So if you've got a Seattle picture you're proud of, why not submit it for the heck of it? Entries are due by Feb. 28, so start snappin'!