Author Archive: John

Stupid Travelers

Stupid people are everywhere. Just look around and you will see that oh, about 90 percent of the population is a solid 30 points below you on the Stanford-Binet. And nowhere is that more true than when you travel. It never ceases to amaze me how clueless people can be. It seems that each day brings another chuckle to our staff with the silly, insulting, inane and plain old stupid questions. Last week, for example, in response to my column on why the airlines don’t get it, I received the…

An Open Letter To The Airlines

Dear Gerard, Gerald, Glenn, Gordon, Douglas, and Bruce, As we approach the holiday season, I want to wish you all a wonderful holiday and extend my most sincere wishes for your survival. I realize that the past several years have stressed you out in the ivory towers and I am afraid that you may have lost sight of the big picture. So as a favor – call this an early Christmas present – I’ll help you put the big picture into perspective. You fly planes. You are not in the…

One Fine Mess

Fine print is all around us and the travel industry leads the pack. While the terms and conditions are always available somewhere, they rarely are clear and concise. More often than not, they are so onerous and restrictive that the consumer does not have a fighting chance. Once again, when it comes to the tiny print (or that terms and conditions button) the best advice seems to be – buyers beware. Take a recent ad for Northwest Airlines’ holiday fares, for example. Lansing to Washington: $59. But the small print…

Don’t Get Screwed

Your travel agent just bolted with your money. Your cruise line sold your cabin to someone else. Your tour operator went belly up, and there’s no chance for a refund. Over the past six months there have been dozens of news stories highlighting the “shady” travel industry. No one can dispute the fact that some travel agents did abscond with some money, Carnival did oversell several sailings, and several tour operators simply ceased operations with little more than a padlocked front door. But how can you protect yourself? To steal…

The Travel Agent From Hell

You’re stuck in Orlando as yet another hurricane takes aim at Florida. The airport is closed and the best advice you can get is to sit tight and hang with the locals because you can’t extend your hotel reservation. Not that it matters. Your “garden view” room actually looks out on a concrete pad that holds the dumpsters. Congratulations. You may have the travel agent from hell. Let me be perfectly clear about this: If you handle your own travel arrangements then you have only yourself to blame when something…

Who’s Next? A Chapter 7 Oddsmaker

Which airline is going out of business first? No network carrier is immune to a bankruptcy filing – or a liquidation – but some are less immune than others. (And if they don’t go out of business, then they’ll at least get an extreme makeover.) Conventional wisdom says US Airways will be toast soon. Some of the travel trade bulletin boards look like Vegas odds sheets predicting the day it stops flying. But I don’t think that calendar is in print yet. US Airways is in a really bad situation…

What If My Airline Folds?

These aren’t the best of times to be an air traveler. US Airways’ chairman has said that in the event of a second bankruptcy filing there’s only a one to two percent chance the airline would survive. And his airline just filed for Chapter 11 protection. Delta is grasping at straws to stay afloat. United is still mired in bankruptcy with emergence nowhere in sight. American has been disturbingly quiet. ATA is looking to default on a government loan. Northwest is busy making – and then unmaking – ludicrous pricing…

Smoothe Move Northwest!

Last time you walked into a bank to deposit your paycheck, were you charged extra because you dealt with a person instead of an ATM? When you bought a magazine at the bookstore, were you slapped with a “service fee” because you purchased from an employee instead of its Web site? No, of course not. But that’s not true if you’re booking a ticket on Northwest Airlines. Starting next month, it’s going to cost you an extra $5 if you call Northwest. If you book through an agency, you’ll pay…

Newton’s Law of Travel

During the past few weeks I’ve read many articles with the tips and tricks on how to get the best deal on airfare, hotel rooms, car rentals, and leisure vacation packages. But be careful what you ask for – and who you ask. As a travel agent, I can’t help but think of Newton’s Third law of Motion: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” While Newton was right on, he was not in the travel industry and those opposite reactions (mostly unseen by the consumer) can…

Travel Agent? Or Double Agent?

A travel agent used to cost nothing to use. Not anymore. When airlines eliminated commissions paid to travel counselors, agents began charging service fees. And by and large, customers went along with it, in part because the fees implied that the agents were now working for them. Exclusively. But that’s not true. Service fees never really replaced the revenue from the airlines. They just supplemented it. The question is – and it’s a question most agents may not want you to ask – does this create a conflict of interest?…