Airline reform takes off
It’s time to rein in the airline business before it really takes us for a ride. Deregulation didn’t work. Whether you’re a free-market capitalist, a middle-of-the-road moderate or a Big Government socialist, you’ve gotta admit that we’re no better off now than we were two decades ago, when the Carter administration loosened the federal government’s grip on the airline industry.
Airline tickets get a makeover - slowly
Paper airline tickets were supposed to all but vanish a few years ago, replaced by electronic tickets that exist only in an airline’s reservation system. But ticketless travel didn’t happen the way everyone thought it would. E-tickets offered a number of challenges, including the potential for fraud and issues of interline transferability (that’s the ability of a virtual ticket to be accepted on another carrier). But one of their biggest barriers to acceptance was the fact that we still live in a paper world. In other words, pulp still rules.
The $123 key
Q: In July I rented a car from Hertz in Montevideo, Uruguay. While trying to start the car on the first day of the rental the “electric” key simply broke apart when I put it into the ignition.
Their Punta del Este office came out to rescue me, but now Hertz is charging me $123 for [...]
MessageClick’s big-time wakeup call
Is MessageClick the latest roadkill on the information highway? That’s what it looked like last week for the New York unified messaging services provider. I’d gotten an e-mail on Friday from Bill McCue, the site’s publicist, asking if I wanted to write a column about the company. Sure, I said. McCue then sent me a password. I tried to access the site with it, to no avail. “The username/login doesn’t seem to work,” I e-mailed him back.
If inexpensive is your theme…
When it comes to a theme-park vacation, timing is everything. Take it from me. I lived in Southern California for four years and South Florida for another three before understanding that. I’ve covered the travel industry for more than a decade - and conducted my fair share of interviews with park publicists who insist there isn’t an off-season for amusement parks - and you have to believe me. Timing is everything. And folks, the time is now.
Celles looks beyond travel agents
Last April, this column profiled a new company called the Celles Maritime Adventures Club that was three months away from launching. But the Key West, Fla., start-up’s plan to sell customized trips on luxury yachts through an exclusive network of travel agencies hit a snag this summer. Seems the retailers weren’t very keen on peddling the high-end cruises. “Nothing happened,” says David Koontz, who together with business partner Michael Kilgore had banked on the agency distribution channel. Now, two months after setting sail, Celles is changing course.
Cell contracts anger travelers
How does Cellular One become Cellular Two? Ask Kent Withrow, and he’ll tell you the unbelievable story of multiplying carrier contracts. The Austin, Texas, software designer recently inked a one-year agreement for wireless service in Chicago with Cellular One - or so he thought. “I’d been on the plan about 14 months when I decided to move away from Chicago and cancel my cell phone there,” he remembers. “So I called up customer service they said, ‘Oh, you’re on a two-year contract so that’ll be $300 to get out of it.’”
Tishman technology makes hotel hum
To understand the implications of new technology, it helps sometimes to start with the end-user. Peter Miller, who runs a market research company in Boca Raton, FL, recently logged on to the beta version of a hotel Web site for The Ocean Villas at the Westin Rio Mar Beach in Puerto Rico, new property owned by the Orlando-based Tishman Hotel Corp. The resort’s Internet-based virtual “concierge” allowed him to plan everything from his restaurant reservations to tee times online.
Maui mishap
Q: We had a problem with a diving shop in Maui that charged us more money to bring back our gear.
We had rented masks, snorkels and flippers for a weekly rental - all prepaid. I left earlier than the rest of my family and they returned the gear to the shop. Even though the shop [...]
How’s the food up there?
My stomach still churns at the thought of the ham-and-cheese sandwich I ate on a recent flight between Atlanta and Baltimore. The meat was embalmed in a generous layer of mayonnaise. The too-salty potato crisps soaked in a puddle of oil. The soggy lettuce was limp and flavorless. A man named Willie served it with all the enthusiasm of a baggage handler loading a heavy trunk onto a conveyor belt. And that was before I boarded the flight.
Joe made me do it!
I owe a lot to Joe Brancatelli. “The Brancatelli File” practically defined the online consumer travel advocacy column. Joe never stops pushing the envelope of travel commentary, challenging us to think critically about this industry and inspiring me to create features like “The Crabby Traveler.” He’s also responsible for my return to biztravel.com five long years after I helped start this site.
Alternate airports get alternates
It used to be one of the best-kept travel secrets: Use an alternate airport and save money, time and headaches. Jim Mayo, a sales manager from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, thinks nothing of driving two hours south to use Baltimore/Washington International Airport, where he says fares are “dramatically lower” than in Philadelphia. Carolyn Waterman, an Oklahoma City college professor, prefers flying to Ontario International Airport near San Bernardino, California, over Los Angeles International Airport, even though drive times back to LA can be excruciatingly long in traffic.
No winner in delta.com deal
This week’s launch of Delta Air Lines’ new Internet domain name caps a messy four-year feud that involved the Atlanta carrier, a New York consumer finance company and a Cary, NC, Internet service provider. Since going online almost five years ago, the airline had been using the cumbersome delta-air.com as its homepage. It said Delta.com would offer “a quicker, direct connection for its existing Internet customers.” Apparently it wasn’t the only company that felt that way.