Iden and his friend Carly hang out after the St. Luke’s Christmas show.
December 2007
If you’re hoping to score an upgrade on your next flight, here’s a list you might want to check out. I asked my friends over at ExpertFlyer to pull the ten most-requested city pairs for upgrades. (By the way, check out the end of this list for a special offer for readers of this blog.)
Denise Reed calls Delta Air Lines to get a price quote for a flight between Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Memphis. Or so she thinks. A few days later, she gets a bill For the flight. Now Delta won’t return her money, saying its tickets are nonrefundable. Is Reed out of luck?
Follow the crowd. That’s right, stand in that long line at the airport. Buy the same ticket everyone else does. Book the happenin’ hotel, the popular cruise. Go on, vacation with the masses. The conventional wisdom on traveling — which is not to do what everyone else is doing — is often wrong.
Which travel blogs inspire me to travel, and to write about it? I’ve already weighed in on the most influential blogs of the year and hotel blogs worth bookmarking. But a lot of you have asked me which sites I read just for the fun of it (in other words, because I think they’re really good). Here’s your answer — my very own list of travel blogs that inspire me.
Airlines are constantly looking for new ways to make money, but their favorite trick is imposing a surcharge without us even knowing it. Allegiant Air, with its sneaky $8.50 “convenience fee” for flights booked on its site, comes to mind. But now two major carriers, US Airways and Continental, have joined the fun, according to to a respected travel analyst.
Just when I thought I had seen it all — and after nearly two decades of consumer advocacy, I thought I had — I’ve encountered two clever hotel surcharges that appear to be new. Greedy hoteliers, take note. Travelers, be warned.
Here’s an interesting exercise. Take a random airline contract of carriage from a few years ago — say, US Airways’ 2003 contract — and compare it to the current, post-merger legal agreement between the carrier and you. Notice any differences? (There’s an easy way to do that: just copy both documents into Microsoft Word and merge them.) Oh boy, check that out.
Fifty-four people. That’s how many motorists die per day on America’s roads over the New Year’s weekend, according to new federal traffic safety data. During the Christmas holiday, it’s 45 a day (normally, it’s 36 daily fatalities). Most of these deaths are completely preventable. But does anyone care?
OK, so my year-in-review column is not the feel-good article you were hoping for. Then again, it wasn’t the feel-good article I was hoping for, either. Still, this is is the season for hope. In this week’s issue, I’ve got stories and blog postings about how how travel was improved in small ways, whether it was a hotel booked through Hotwire, a promising new travel blog or a traveling Santa with a cause. And there’s more good news: I’m wrapping up my fundraiser this week (I can’t stand long fundraisers, anyway). Happy holidays!
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has a report this morning that says passenger airlines enjoyed their most profitable third quarter in nearly a decade. The major carriers had profit margins of 8.8 percent, was a 3.4 percentage point improvement from a year ago. But can the good times last? Unlikely.
The kids pose for their Christmas photos. Kind of.
Grandpa and Iden do their best rendition of “Deck the Halls.” Hard to get into the holiday spirit when it’s 80 degrees outside!
It’s harvest time in Clermont, Fla.
Air travel is affordable. The nation’s roads have never been safer. And hotels offer more amenities than ever. Given all that, you would think travelers would be a grateful lot. They aren’t.
Elliott is consumer advocate 
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