Has the travel industry gone too far to accommodate nonsmokers? Don’t laugh. In my latest MSNBC.com column, yours truly (a committed nonsmoker, no less) asks the question.
From the monthly archives:
June 2009
We spent Father’s Day weekend doing “guy” things and testing the new iPhone 3Gs. Both of these videos were shot on the new phone.
JetBlue’s customer service reputation trends toward the extremes. It’s either really good, with friendly flight attendants, superior onboard amenities, generous legroom and many other customer-friendly practices. Or it’s really bad (think passengers stranded on the tarmac during an ice storm or grandmothers being threatened with arrest for videotaping other passengers). More often than not, though, JetBlue does right. Hopefully you won’t have to use these names.
Kids in first class. Should we or shouldn’t we? And if so, when? Allow me to state my completely unbiased opinion right up front. No. We should not. At least not mine. Here’s why.
When a blizzard bears in on St. Cloud, Minn., Bonnie Polk asks a manager at the Ramada if she can cancel her reservation. Yes, she’s told. But a few days later, her credit card is billed and the hotel refuses to give her a refund. Is she out of luck?
Steve Kaufer is the founder and chief executive of TripAdvisor — a site that made headlines recently when it warned that some of its hotel reviews might have been manipulated. I asked Kaufer about the site, the credibility of user-generated reviews, and the future of social media.
Hertz has a better-than-average reputation for customer service, although recent efforts to collect new fees from its drivers have made a dent in it. Still, the company does far better than many other car rental companies.
You’d think reports of superior customer service from an airline like United would be random — a one-off for a carrier that consistently gets inferior scores. Maybe not.
Who are the most influential Twitter users in the travel business? That’s an easy question to ask, but a hard one to answer. Here it goes, anyway …
But it is right, according to the car rental industry, which is doing everything in its power to prevent the passage of a new law in Wisconsin that would raise car rental fees from $2 to $18 per rental to fund mass transit projects, and giving the Badger State the highest car rental taxes in the nation.
As the airline industry toasts its on-time performance record, I report on the price we pay for arriving “on time” — or early.
When it comes to customer service, Disney is often held to high — some would say unreasonably high — standards. As someone who lives in Orlando, I’ve seen it firsthand. People come here expecting everything about their theme park experience to be absolutely perfect. When it isn’t, I hear about it.
We headed over to Florida’s West Coast this weekend, where we explored the islands around Port Charlotte.
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