From the monthly archives:
The hotel “bed wars” are over. But are business travelers the winners? Most frequent travelers would probably say they are, citing the remarkable evolution of hotel beds from the no-nonsense affairs of the late 1990’s — just mattresses, sheets and bedspreads — to the superpremium sleep “experiences” of today.
In case you are wondering what happened to this Web site last year … I just needed a little time to think about this whole travel writing, blogging and commentary thing that I’ve been doing for more than a decade. In 2004, a few of my friends approached me about creating a new Web site, Tripso. It meant I that would have to stop publishing my personal Web site for a while.
Here’s what you need to know about me. I’m a writer. I specialize in covering the travel industry. When people ask me who I’ve worked for, I have to turn the question around, for simplicity’s sake. Who have I not written for
I know what you’re thinking. Just what the world needs — another blog. Good thing this isn’t a blog, least not in the conventional sense. Sure, it may look like one, considering that it’s a personal journal published on the Web. But it is not a blog the way most of us have come to think of one.
His family’s cruise on the Norwegian “Dream” misses two ports of call. But is the cruise line giving him a full refund for the port taxes that he now doesn’t have to pay?
The $280.60 airfare from Sioux Falls, S.D., to Oakland, Calif., is a real bargain on Cheapseats.com. But when Jane Christianson checks in at the airport, she discovers the agency was supposed to have sent a paper ticket, which it never did. She is forced to spend $850.30 on a new ticket – and now Cheapseats.com is balking at a refund. What’s going on?
Our rat terrier, Winchell, used to travel with us everywhere we went – on family vacations, business trips, even on tour with Van Halen. When we moved to Maui, we didn’t think twice about taking him along.
Customer service, so the conventional wisdom goes, is the first casualty of an airline bankruptcy filing. And for certain airlines, notably those with intractable labor disputes, that may still be the case. But it is no longer universally true.
An Internet search for full-time business travelers who write Web logs produces astonishingly low numbers, considering the eight million Americans whom the Pew Internet and American Life Project say publish a blog.
A few days before checking in at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, Virginia Gomprecht gets bad news: There’s no room at the inn. The hotel makes reservations for her at a nearby property, but Gomprecht has recently had hip surgery that limits her mobility, and she wants the hotel to honor its reservation. Does it have to? And what if it doesn’t?
Tony Landler bids on a Priceline room, and much to his delight, he is “upgraded” to a resort. But his joy turns to anger when he discovers the property charges a $10-a-day “resort fee” and that there is no opting out of it. Or is there?
Elmo saves the day on the plane.
Several companies are rushing to provide technologies that could open up the fast lanes almost anywhere for any motorist with a credit card.
Back in the olden days (like, um, two years ago), if you made a reservation with an online travel agency, airlines, hotels, or car rental agencies would treat you like any other customer. No longer.
Hotels are upgrading their gyms. And guests are feeling the pain.
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