WASHINGTON — At least two frequent fliers will be getting a good deal on holiday travel and accommodations this Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin and Pecan, the turkeys whose lives were spared at the annual Thanksgiving presidential pardon Wednesday, will fly first class on United Airlines to Los Angeles, where one of them will be grand marshal in Thursday's Disneyland Thanksgiving Day Parade. The pair are then scheduled to take up residence in a specially constructed turkey house in the amusement park's Frontierland.

"In recent weeks, I've talked a lot about sprinting to the finish," said President George W. Bush, surrounded by festive pumpkins and cornstalks in a Rose Garden ceremony. "Yet I've assured these turkeys they will not be trotting to their finish."

The turkey pardon is a White House tradition that dates to the Truman administration. This year's duo received their names after a vote on the White House Web site. Runners-up included Roost and Run and the Yam and Jam.

"This is an election season," Bush said. "So it is fitting that the names of these two birds were chosen through the democratic process."

Pumpkin and Pecan, the bird that the president joked was being held in an "undisclosed location" in case "the main act chickens out," hail from Ellsworth, Iowa. They were chosen from more than 4,500 candidates based on their strut, waddles and personality.

In years past, the pardoned turkeys were sent to Frying Pan Park, an animal sanctuary in Virginia, after the White House ceremony. Since Disneyland requested the birds for its 50th anniversary in 2005, however, they have been sent to California.

Hoisted onto a yellow-clothed table in the Rose Garden, the 45-pound Pumpkin obediently endured being petted by the president and a gaggle of school children.

After giving thanks to the troops, the American people and his family, including his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, who is doing well at a Houston hospital following surgery for a perforated ulcer, the president left the ceremony. He is expected to spend the Thanksgiving weekend at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.

The menu will include cranberry sauce, buttered mashed potatoes and free-range roast turkey.

"He wasn't pardoning all turkeys, just those two," White House spokesman Carlton Carroll said.