Buying a holiday gift for a techno-savvy traveler is a little like getting sued: it’s no fun-and whether you win or lose, it’s expensive. That’s because the jet set is notoriously difficult to please. It tends to like presents that are compact, feather-light, practical and pricey – a tall order for anyone’s holiday shopping list. Think of this column as a pro-bono attorney who hasn’t lost a case, to continue the legal analogy. This week, I’ll review some of the top holiday gifts that won’t make a big dent in your wallet.
From the yearly archives:
2000
Q: I hope you can help make a change in airline service. More often than not, babies on airplanes are screaming at take-off and landing because of discomfort caused by the cabin’s air pressure adjustment.
A pacifier, or better yet, a bottle with liquid in the mouths of these babies will quell much of the discomfort [...]
Blame it on Curacao’s Technicolor coral reefs that stretch as far as the eye can see underwater. Fault Catalina Island’s famous kelp forests undulating in the emerald currents of the Pacific. Or Bermuda’s mysterious shipwrecks, like the Constellation and the Hermes, which look more like watercolors painted in shades of blue than sunken vessels. Then again, maybe it was the Web site that made me take Scuba diving to the next level, figuratively speaking. The Professional Association of Diving Instructors wastes no opportunity to plug its professional programs – in its literature, classes, but perhaps most effectively, on the Internet.
You’ve probably read one too many stories about the digital ‘gap’ – the growing chasm between the wired and everyone else. This isn’t one of them. Instead, consider a different kind of gap: the technological one between travelers and their airline. A recent column about electronic tickets prompted some of you to ask about the emergence of a kind of digital divide between passengers and carriers. Let’s go straight to the debate. In the story which covered efforts to offer tickets and boarding passes you could print yourself, I asked if you preferred e-tickets to paper tickets.
Q: I think we know why people want Priceline to sink. How about giving us little choice in departure times or the ability to back out when we have too little information? Or better yet, how about giving us a little bit of confidence that Priceline’s actually giving us the lowest fare and not just [...]
There’s no feeling like scoring a “slam” – hooking a trout, snook and redfish – in the seemingly endless saltwater flats of Florida’s west coast. One minute you’re distracted by an Osprey soaring above the perfectly calm sea as the fishing line floats in the shadows beyond your flat-bottom boat. The next, the water is boiling with an angry game fish fighting to free itself of your rig. Of course, the excitement is somewhat tempered when it’s not you, but your fishing buddy, who pulls in the coveted threesome (within the first few minutes on the water, no less) leaving you to catch a sorry collection of catfish and mangrove snapper the rest of the morning.
If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you take with you? I’m not asking for the fun of it. Tell me about the technology you can’t live without, and you’ll be able to ditch the superfluous gadgets, programs and accessories that weigh you down on the road. I’ll go first, and then it’s your turn. Ready? The cell phone. The simpler, the better.
Last week’s column about departure taxes drew a strong reaction from readers. Jack Hollis noted that Taiwan no longer charges departure fees at the airport immigration area. “I just flew in and out of Taipei and I was not asked nor required to pay any such levies,” he noted. “Just thought you would like to [...]
Is ByeByeNow about to go bye-bye? It depends who you listen to. Insiders and former employees describe a company in disarray, with an out-of-control cash burn rate, low staff morale, and bookings that are “way below” expectations. The numbers – or lack of numbers – suggest the critics may be correct. The Pompano Beach, Fla., vacation travel retailer has laid off nearly half its employees since this summer.
To the untrained eye, the recent tiff between the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) over a proposed top-level domain for travel may look like a territorial fight between two industry bullies. But those of us who have been around for a while see more than mudslinging. We see an opportunity to hone our business strategies. How’s that?
This column frequently zeroes in on the lack of common sense among software developers, wireless carriers and computer manufacturers, to name just a few of its most recent targets. And deservedly so. There’s a deficit of good judgment among many of our leading technology corporations, and business travelers are often the victims of it. But consider, also, the flip side – road warriors who leave their brains at home.
When your most high-profile customer is under siege by government regulators and repeatedly forced to postpone its launch, what do you do? If you’re ITA Software, emerging from the shadow of Orbitz’ latest pullback is as easy as closing a comprehensive software licensing deal with the Airline Tariff Publishing Co., the world’s largest distributor of fare information. The agreement, which was reached today, calls for the Cambridge, Mass., developer of airfare shopping technology to provide its software for Airline Tariff Publishing’s fare construction application suite.
Q: I keep getting nailed in Taiwan with a departure tax. Every time I leave, they squeeze me for about $500TD (about $16).
They only accept payment in local money. Problem is, I turn in all of my local money before I check in to the ticket counter and they want payment in local currency, and [...]
Kalan Clark didn’t want to pay a lot for a plane ticket to visit her sister in Phoenix. She logged on to the Internet but couldn’t find the kind of deal she was seeking. “I visited Travelocity and a couple of airline Web sites to see what I could find,” says the Des Moines, Iowa, marketing manager. “But the best I could get was a fare of about $350. I thought I could do better.” She could.
A few days ago I got an e-mail that from a company called eGroups. Its Web site isn’t marketed to travelers, per se, but it manages e-mail discussion lists that are used by a fair number of them. I know of at least 2,000 because I use eGroups to host my weekly newsletter, Elliott’s E-Mail. I’ll get to the content of the note in a second. First, a little context: In my last column, I described some of the Internet’ s limitations when it comes to travel. I claimed the Web would neither reduce nor eliminate our need to travel, and I described the online world’ s inability to improve travel.
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