Falling stars in Puerto Vallarta
Q: We just returned from a five-day vacation at an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We booked it through Travelocity after thoroughly researching our options.
I am a little bit of a hotel snob (I like a clean room), so we had narrowed our search to “four-star” properties or better. In Puerto Vallarta, Travelocity offered [...]
The 411 on 511
The 511 system, created by the federal government in 2000, delivers traffic, weather and tourism information directly to a telephone. At least it is supposed to.
No room at the inn
Q: A few months ago, I booked a room through Expedia at The Inn at the Opera Hotel in San Francisco. It was a special deal and required that I pay $531.16 — the full amount — in advance.
On the day I was to arrive, I called the inn to confirm my reservation. They [...]
Airline spinoff questions
United Airlines and Delta airlines are trying to solve problems with Ted and Song, the low-cost offspring of the traditional carriers. Both have been flying for some time now and both have shown some growth. But would the new startups be profitable on their own?
Not kidding around
As a professional carpenter, I take pride in being able to fix almost anything. But as this Ms. Fix-It discovered on a recent flight from Houston to Los Angeles, not everything can be repaired.
A pricey car rental in Paris
Q: We rented an Avis car in Paris more than a year ago. After two days, we decided to extend our contract by a week, and were offered a rate of 220 euros.
When we returned the car, we were presented with a bill for more than 800 euros. We were sure it was a mistake. [...]
Our backs are killing us
So just how uncomfortable is the average seat in economy class? Ask a business traveler like Richard Wong, who endures countless hours in steerage class, and it is clear that conditions in the back of the plane have never been worse.
Billed, and then a bit more
The average corporate traveler is overcharged $11.35 a night, according to a new analysis of more than one million hotel room rates by Corporate Lodging Consultants, a provider of lodging-management services based in Wichita, Kan.
Ticked off about lost tickets
Q: I recently bought two plane tickets from New York to Florence, Italy, through Hotwire. After I entered my payment information and finalized my order, Hotwire said that it could not issue e-tickets but that it would send paper tickets by overnight delivery. But I never got the tickets.
The customer service representatives I spoke [...]
A bolt out of the blue
After a daylong planning meeting with the heads of our cable channels, I chartered a small boat for a private cruise of New York Harbor. While we sipped our drinks at Chelsea Piers, I noticed that the skies were darkening. “Is everything O.K.?” I asked the captain of the vessel, the Pearl Necklace, just before our group of nine boarded.