Finding my eVoice in a dot-com world
I’m such a pushover. For weeks now, a publicist that I’ll call Davida (because that’s her name) has been hassling me to write something about her client, a new unified messaging startup called eVoice. I resisted because I’ve never been too keen on all-in-one messaging “solutions” that often end up creating problems for busy travelers. I’ve always felt that if you’ve found what works for you, you’re probably better off skipping the newfangled telephony-based messaging services online.
Who is to blame?
Q: My parents live on a fixed income, social security of a mere $650 per month. They scrimped and saved to get enough money to purchase a round trip ticket via Priceline.com (as it was most economical) and got two tickets to Denver on American Airlines for roughly $250 each.
The airline told them they had [...]
Truth not always a frequent flier
All right, I admit it. Sometimes I bend the truth when I’m traveling. I’ve plugged my headphones into the armrest without paying the $5 in-flight movie fee. When the air host came by to collect, I’d say, “It’s just a noise-canceling headset,” which it is, but that’s not all it can do. I’ve complained about an old back injury when picking up my rental car in the hopes that a sympathetic agent might upgrade the cheapo matchbox car that I ordered. I neglected to mention how old the injury was (almost two decades). In other words, I’ve lied with the best of ‘em.
Hotels two-faced laptop policy
It would be easy to dismiss Jennifer Grace as just another victim of a laptop computer theft. Like the 319,000 other casualties reported by the insurance agency Safeware last year, hers is an unfortunate and agonizing loss. On a two-day visit to a Seattle hotel late last year the Washington marketing executive lost her $3,500 Micron notebook computer in a burglary. Fortunately, Grace was away when it happened. When she notified the hotel’s security department of the theft, she was met with a surprising response.
Their version of the truth
Like so many travelers, Pat Woods distrusts - if not disbelieves - many of the claims made by the travel industry. Can you blame her? On a recent America West flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia via Phoenix, Woods’ first leg of the flight got cancelled. “Not to worry,” the Philadelphia corporate training executive remembers a ticket agent telling her. “You can board a flight leaving a half-hour later and meet your connecting flight in Phoenix.” It turns out the Philadelphia flight was also out of commission - a detail Woods says the airline employee knew but failed to mention.
E-mail? V-mail? It’s all the same to etrieve
Greg Perko’s problem was as common as a cold among the jet set. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stay current with his e-mail while traveling. As a national accounts manager for T-FalCookware in Chicago, Greg found that important messages from clients or supervisors were going unanswered for hours while he was on the road. “I used to have to go to my hotel room, plug in, dial in, download and respond to each message, which easily took an hour,” he says. “But there was no way to do it on the fly, from an airport terminal or while I was traveling.”
Ten things every travel site should avoid
Mistakes are made all the time in the online travel business. A strategic blunder here, a bad investment there. But the first half of this year has seen more than a fair share of flubs by marquee travel brands. These aren’t simple missteps, but full-blown blunders that leave us utterly baffled. What am I referring to? Let me offer a few hints.
Time to ban airline miles?
Oh, the lengths we go to collect our mileage rewards! Carsten Thomsen flew from Austin, Texas, to Orlando, Florida, then did an about-face and returned to Austin on the same day - just to earn the 1,500 miles needed to reach Delta Air Lines’ Gold Medallion status. “I took some magazines and good books along and spent a relaxing day picking the extra miles,” he says.
What will happen to the airline web sites?
United Airlines and US Airways. American Airlines and Northwest Airlines. Delta Air Lines and American Airlines. British Airways and KLM. Seems like every time you check the news, there’s another report of one airline announcing plans to buy another. And while the herd of analysts ponders the consequences of these consolidated carriers to consumers and Wall Street, few if any have bothered to ask about the airlines’ interactive strategies. What will happen to the Web sites? That may be the last thing on the industry’s mind.
The hotel connection controversy continues
“Do the math!” you demanded after last week’s column, in which a hotel manager defended his property’s practice of billing customers for local phone calls. After the first 100 messages or so, I thought it might be a good idea to go back to the calculator. After another 100, I called the biztravel.com office with bad news: watch for a sequel to this connection controversy. Why bad news? Well, I consider my editor to be a very levelheaded person, but nothing seems to agitate her more than running a two-part column.
Bumping fools
Q: I love being bumped from oversold flights. The rewards are just too great to pass up. I recently was offered a $1,000 travel voucher for being bumped from a Los Angeles to Washington flight and to wait 12 hours.
I was wondering if there was a way to predict or know which flights are often [...]
Lose the chocolates, keep the phones
The knock on my door at the Tampa Marriott Waterside couldn’t have come at a worse time. I was on the losing end of an argument with an editor on my cell phone, and despite having a room on the 20th floor, my signal kept fading. “I’m here to turn your bed down,” the voice in the hallway interrupted. “That’s OK,” I answered. “I can handle that myself.”
The other side in the connection controversy
There are two sides to every story. At least that’s what they teach you in journalism school. Stephen Burroughs, the general manager of the Holiday Inn Select Atlanta Airport South, gets the unenviable task of representing the other side in our perpetual debate about hotel connection fees this week. It’s unenviable because we’ve been through so many columns on the issue that I’m tempted to call this feature “The Travel Connectivist” from now on.