Rule No. 1: Travel is no fun. Really. If you think it’s all about smiling stewardesses attending to your every whim, friendly hotels offering fawning service, and romantic sunsets on the beach, it’s time for a reality check.
December 2007
Cheryl McClure reserves a room at the Hampton Inn in Asheville, N.C., and is offered an $81-a-night rate. Then the hotel has second thoughts and changes the rate to $149 a night. Can it do that? And what, if anything, does a “confirmed rate” get you? Should McClure cancel her hotel stay, or can the Hampton Inn be persuaded to honor its first rate?
Early December is an ideal time to visit the St. Petersburg and Clearwater area, which calls itself Florida’s Beach. I was fortunate enough to speak at a convention on St. Petersburg Beach last week, and while most of the rest of the country was bracing for snowstorms, the temperatures there were in the mid-80s and we had the place practically to ourselves. Here are four reason to check out Florida’s West Coast now.
In what it admits is a “shameless act of self-promotion,” FareCompare.com will announce today that it is sending its very own Santa on a fun-filled trip to all 48 contiguous states, starting this weekend. Why? “We want to highlight what’s right and what’s wrong with the airline industry through the eyes of a holiday icon,” says FareCompare’s chief executive, Rick Seaney. Isn’t a 12-day, 25,000-mile trek on 66 flights enough to make Santa a little … cranky? Of course. That’s why they’re calling him Grumpy Santa. Here’s an exclusive interview with Michael Federico, who will soon be channeling Kris Kringle’s darker side.
Read the terms of service on your cards carefully. Otherwise you could end up with a couple of $50 charges on your account for no apparent reason. That’s what happened to Paul Shields when he used his AAA debit card to pay for gas in San Diego recently. His story is a cautionary tale for anyone who pays with plastic, and underscores the importance of reading the fine print in your cardmember agreement.
The cruise contract — the legal agreement between you and your cruise line — is always worth reviewing before you set sail. But at least one cruise line is making its passengers sign the contract before they board. And if they don’t? No cruise.
The latest Air Travel Consumer Report suggests passengers are deeply dissatisfied with airline service. In October, the Transportation Department received 1,096 complaints from consumers about airline service — that’s 74 percent more than the 629 complaints received a year earlier, and 22 percent more than the total of 895 filed last month.
Ah, the things travelers must endure! The lies (fraudulent airline schedules). The cheating (a government that’s in the industry’s pocket). The stealing (cruise lines helping themselves to more of your money for “fuel”). But fortunately, I’m here to sort it all out for you. And to bring you brilliant insights on airline food, missed connections and hotel blogs. Details are in this week’s issue.
Travelers have been pelted by a barrage of fees, levies, surcharges and extras for years. But just when you were convinced that the travel industry had thought of it all, it comes up with yet another clever way of separating you from your money.
On her way from Dallas to Kauai, Marlene Kelley lands in Phoenix to find that her connecting flight to Hawaii has already left. But no one notified her about the schedule change, and now she and her husband are sent to Los Angeles to catch another flight to the islands. What does her airline and travel agent owe her for the runaround — specifically for the night she had to spend at an LAX hotel?
If you believe everything you read, you’ll welcome today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Transportation that it has effectively ended the problem of chronically delayed flights. Following an investigation earlier this year that resulted in 183 frequently-delayed flights being written up by the DOT, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced that “tough scrutiny and a willingness to impose serious penalties have caused the airlines to correct these chronically delayed flights.”
It turns out Spirit Airlines, the “ultra” low fare carrier that bloggers love to hate, is also ultra tasteless. Its latest fare promotion uses a naughty acronym — MILF — to get our attention. And that’s exactly what it’s done.
Here’s a nice shot of the Don in the morning. The kids like to call it the Pink Beach Hotel. Combining three shots at different exposures makes the hotel look almost … orange.
Iden enjoys a stroll on the beach at the Don CeSar in St. Petersburg Beach, Fla. Even though it’s December, it feels a lot like July here.
