hotairballoonist

If you are looking for a balloon ride there are many questions you may have. We have found one of the best Question and answer pages on the web. There is a company called Thompson Aire balloon rides in Florida. They have a Frequently Asked Questions page that is simply fantastic. Keep in mind many of the questions and answers are tailored for their location and may not apply to other balloon ride operations or companies but the page will give you a HUGE insight to the questions you did not know you wanted to know. Have a look. Thompson Aire Balloon Rides Frequently Asked Questions page.

There is no such thing as a cheap balloon ride! Look out for the ticket sellers, Sky Ride, Soaring Adventures, Groupon, Sportations, Adrenalin 360, Bilateral, Thrilliant, Rush Cube and many more are just ticket sellers. Many of these companies have never been in a balloon. Many of the people hired to answer the phone have never been in a balloon and NONE OF THEM even OWN a balloon. Things to look out for. Are they the pilot? Do they have a pilot you can talk to? If they don't have a pilot you can talk to HANG UP. If they offer to have a pilot call you back then ask them to do so. Do they want money up front? If they want money up front be very weary, Do you stop at the grocery store on the way home and give them $200 just in case you want to go shopping this weekend? This is a weather dependent service. If you pay in advance, they may have your money for MONTHS before you get to fly. Unless you are Purchasing a Gift Certificate to give to someone you really should not pay in advance. Is the deal way cheaper than in other places. What are they cutting out to be so cheap? People like Groupon will sell you a cheap ticket in hopes that you will forget about it and never redeem it. Here is what they tell the balloon ride provider. "Yes you will get less money than what it costs you to fly these people but you get to keep the money from 20% who will never redeem". This theory has destroyed many companies because the redemption rate has been nearly 100%. Imagine selling 1000 tickets for $40 less than what it actually costs to fly the people. You don't have to be a brain surgeon to figure out that is a $40,000 hole in your bank account. When the company goes out of business you are left with NOTHING. Another way to lower cost is to have massive size balloons. There are balloons that are so big they carry 20 to 24 passengers at one time. By doing this they can lower the cost of the ride but consider a couple of things. First do you really want to share your special, bucket list event with 18 strangers? Second, the bigger the balloon the harder it is to fly. Just like driving a boat. It is easier to navigate a John Boat than it is to drive a Cruse Ship. So be very weary of a cheap balloon flight. Where do they fly? Where are your launch locations? What area will we fly over? They should be able to give you some details. Yes the balloon flies with the wind and every day is different but.... If they are a real balloon ride operation they should be able to give you some details on their flying area. If they can not you are dealing with a ticket seller and not a real balloon company. Where do they meet the passengers? If they respond with "It depends on where you choose to fly". Be very suspicious, you may be dealing with a ticket seller. Most balloon companies will have a specific spot they will meet the passengers. The meeting spot could be a hotel, park, buisness or some specific location you can look up on a map. How else are you going to get your balloon ride if there is no location to meet the pilot and ground team. If they can not give you a specific location to meet then you are likely dealing with a ticket seller. Do a web search on the phone number. A great way to determine if you are dealing with a ticket seller is to do a Google Search on the phone number. We have found a couple of what looked like balloon companies that had over 350 websites with the same phone number an the record holder was over 550 websites. These sites offer balloon rides in hundreds of areas around the country where there are NO BALLOONIST'S AT ALL. After they STEAL your money they will then tell you that you must drive 200 miles to the nearest provider. Dont believe us then do a search for this phone number 800-611-1298 and see what you get. That's right about 350 locations! Does that sound real? Or better yet, there are no balloonists who live or fly in Fargo ND. Do a search for balloon ride in Fargo ND and guess who you find. RUN AWAY FAST.. All over the United States balloon ride operators are refusing to take the vouchers from these ticket sellers. The ticket sellers owe thousands of dollars to providers and cant pay them. This is causing many actual balloon companies to refuse to fly these tickets. So if you are not careful you will purchase a ticket you can not use! You will also have a horrible battle to get your money back. So do a little research up front and save yourself from a horrible experience. GOOD NEWS You are right now in the perfect place to find a real balloon ride. HotAirBalloonist.com is a Balloon Resource for the general public! You can find Balloon Rides by going to the Member Map and zooming in on your part of the country. The Pins in the map are color coded. Yellow Pins are balloon ride operations, Green pins are Balloon Festivals and so on. Just zoom in on the location you wish to fly and click on a pin. A Pop up will open with information on the service provider in that area. You can also use the Balloon Rides forum to find providers listed by state. There is also a Balloon Events calendar where you can find festivals all over! HotAirBalloonist.com was designed specifically so the General Public can find real Balloonist's all over the country and soon the world. Remember, Tell them you found them on HotAirBalloonist.com If you have found this article to be helpful please make a donation to the site or get a "General Membership" for as little as $20 a year. Are you a Balloon Ride Operation? Join us! Create your own advertisement about your balloon rides here on HotAirBalloonist.com. Here is a link to a Members page in the Arizona Forum of the Rides Category. Follow this link to get an idea of what you can create for yourself. Here is a link to the membership details page, about what a Ride Operators membership has to offer. Remember we will verify that you are a real operator, but if you are, become part of our network. A Balloon Ride Operator membership is only $45 a YEAR! If you sell one flight you have paid for your membership and still receive all the the other benefits of the site.

Bob Ehlinger 7741 S Eudora Ct Centennial (Denver) , CO 80122 (303) 796-9632 (720) 234-3571 (cell)

Emelia Bernava MD (609) 693-0044

Do you take photos or video of your passengers in flight? Do you have articles you have written that you would like to sell online? How about drawings or "How To" videos? What about power point presentations? Would you like to sell your files online? Here is how you can do it. First you need to go to the store and purchase an Equipment Sellers Membership. Don't forget to check the box Save Card on File at checkout so you don't have a lapse in your membership. You can click here to get a Monthly or Yearly membership. How to upload files and get PAID for them. A couple of quick points before we get started. First if the file size is HUGE you will have a hard time getting it to upload. You need a real good connection for large files. 10MB no problem. 30MB, you may have to try twice because your server may time out. 60MB will be real tough unless you have a REAL FAST CONNECTION. So please try to minimize the size of your file if at all possible. You will need a Screen Shot. This is a photo that you use to represent your file. I make mine about 800 Pixels wide. They can be a small version of your first slide in a power point or an Icon of some sort or even a photo. Know where this is on your computer so you can upload it. When a purchase is made there is a transaction fee and a commission %. Add this into your price so in the end you get the amount you want for your download. The Transaction fee is .50 cents and the commission fee is 7.5%. If you want to sell an item for $10 you will want to add .50 plus .75 cents for a total of 11.25. You must be logged in! Sales will be deposited in your account online. You can check your account credit at any time you are logged in. Just click on your name at the top of the page. Then click “Client Area” On the left side of the page you will see links, click on “Account Credit” Here you can see the balance in your account and request a payout of funds from the system. Your membership fees will be deducted from this account. Any time your account is over $25 you may request a payout. A check will be sent that very day to the address associated with your account. When a purchase is made the system will notify you by email that a purchase of your item has been made. This system will work for Photos, PDF files, Power Point and many other formats. Please make sure you are uploading into the proper forum for your item. If you are selling photographs of your passengers in flight or a video of the flight please let us know so we can create a Sub-Category just for you in the proper category. So how do we upload (Step by Step) Log in. Use your user name and password to log in. Check the box REMEMBER so next time you won’t have to type anything. Navigate to the Download Center using the Navigation bar at the top of the page. Navigate to the proper section in the Download Center. Once you are in the category that best fits the item you are uploading click on the brown Upload File button on the right hand side of the page. The first two steps on the UPLOAD page is your actual file and your screen shot. Click on Click upload flies and select your file from your computer. Then click on Upload Screenshot to upload your Icon or photo that represents your file. Next we need a title for your file and a description of what is in or of the file. The other boxes in this section are optional. At the bottom of this section you will find a section called “File Type” this is where you can select to be paid for the file. If you check the "Paid Box" another box will open asking what amount you would like to charge for the file. You do not need to use any symbols just numbers. 11.75 or 19.95 or 250 or any price you want the system to charge someone before allowing them to download the file. Last but not least hit the “Add Submission” button and POOF your file is loaded. In many cases we require a moderator to approve new files but that is usually done in minutes. That’s IT! Just a few steps and your file is now available for purchase to the whole world! As we mentioned this file download program works for Photos, Files, Drawings, Jpg, Gif, PNG, PPTX, PPSX, PDF, GPX, KML, MP3. MPEG, and many more. You can upload Photos, Movies, GPS files, Power point and more. If for any reason the system Rejects your file let us know what type of file it is and we will program the system to accept it!. Once you have done this process a couple of times it will become very easy. Remember we are always ready to help you! You can begin to use this process immediately once you have purchased the "Equipment Sellers Membership" So what are you waiting for? Start selling online RIGHT NOW! Jeff A Thompson Info@HotAirBalloonist.com 407-421-9322 (Call or Text)