Travels With Jane

Baggage fees: What's the real cost?

Flying in from Boston last night, I found the real cost of baggage fees appears to be what many had feared: Time, not money.

Carrying on luggage has been the preferred method for savvy travelers for several years, since baggage loss and delays became more common. But with new fees for checking bags -- on American, it's $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second, unless you're a high-level mileage program flier -- nearly everyone seems to be trying to cram their entire wardrobe into the overhead bins.

At least that was the case on my flight last night. The result was predictable: A longer-than-usual boarding procedure, cranky passengers, and a flight delay.

So you have to wonder: Is American actually picking up any additional revenue by charging that $15? And what about the losses incurred by those delays? You have to figure that the longer a flight a delayed, the more it costs the company.

What's your experience been since the new charging rules went into effect? Have your flights been delayed? Are you paying the $15 to avoid the overhead-bin squeeze? Please comment below.

AA flight reductions; Miami minimally affected

American Airlines has just announced flight reductions taking place in November. Some were announced previously -- a byproduct of increased fuel costs, says the airline.

One of the changes: Five AA flights and 37 American Eagle jet departures at chronically delayed LaGuardia Airport will be eliminated. The company press release didn't indicate which routes would be affected; expect more detail in tomorrow's Miami Herald.

Meanwhile, here's what the company announced:

• American/American Eagle will stop flying from these airports: Oakland, Calif.; London Stansted; Barranquilla, Colombia; Albany, N.Y.; Providence, R.I.; Harrisburg, Pa.;  Samana, Dominican Republic and San Luis Obispo, Calif.

• The company will reduce the number of flights from Chicago, St. Louis and Dallas

Look now for fall deals to Europe

In the past 24 hours we've seen two good deals for fall travel to Europe -- a signal that if you're thinking of visiting this autumn (when prices are expected to be cheaper than in summer), now might be the time to book.

On Air France, book by July 8 for travel Sept. 1 - Oct. 29. For instance, Miami to Munich is $335 each way, Miami to Brussels is $378 and Miami to Valencia is $342. Taxes cost about $55 each way.

British Airways is offering packages including air and hotel from Miami that start at $1,079 per person, double occupancy for three nights, and $1,271 per person for six nights. Book by Aug. 7; travel Sept. 4-Oct. 22. The catch, of course, is that those pesky government fees are extra, and those generally add around $200. This deal is offered only on the phone; 877-428-2228.

Wherever you may be heading in Europe, ask about dollar-fixed prices for hotels. Though the dollar has been relatively stable (though grim) against the euro, trading around $1.56, many European hotels are offering prices fixed in dollars. We've generally found the best deals this year on Hotels.com.

Is disabled access on ships good enough?

Reader Elise Kugler sent this note, which we've excerpted here.

My husband and I intently read your Weekend Cruising article in The Miami Herald on  Sunday, June 1, 2008. The article is great, however I feel that you should be aware of a very important fact, often overlooked until it pertains to the party involved.

My husband is handicapped due to a stroke he suffered almost twelve years ago and currently receives dialysis. He is paralyzed on his right side and uses a cane to walk short distances. Steps are difficult for him, especially in unfamiliar places.  With his limitations, we must have an accessible room, primarily  for the bathroom facilities whether on a cruise or in a hotel.

With that said, we have explored weekend cruises from Miami and/or Fort Lauderdale, as he can have his treatment Friday morning, leave on a cruise and return Monday, to return for dialysis. For us a four night cruise is not an option. The three night is perfect for us.

My husband and I have cruised extensively over the years and never realized the difficulties for handicapped individuals until we needed a handicapped accessible cabin. Most ships for the particular weekend (3 day) cruises only have inside cabins that are for passengers with disabilities - if you want an outside cabin with a balcony - they are non-existent.  Not even the suites including mini/junior etc. have walk-in showers.

Please be aware of the following:

• Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas has two Superior Oceanview cabins that are accessible, but none with a balcony, as previously noted. We have sailed on this ship.
• Norwegian Cruise Line’s Sky does not even have an accessible outside cabin.  Please note, they just introduced this ship here after being refurbished.
• Imperial Majesty has no outside cabins that are accessible.

It truly is a shame that many in the travel industry feel that travelers needing handicap accessible rooms should be satisfied with the lowest cost room available. I would encourage them to travel with a special needs person to understand our frustration at times.

I can appreciate her situation. I never realized how difficult it might be to travel or even shop with someone with limitations until my aging mother began spending much of her time in a wheelchair.

This past week, we ran another story about a weekend cruise, with a bit more information about accessibility.

Do cruise ships do enough for passengers with disabilities? Have you had an experience, good or bad, traveling with someone with disabilities? Please let us know about it by commenting here.

Mileage change update

A sharp-eyed commentor noted that we've got an item wrong in the post below. The $150 co-payment for flights from North America to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru or Venezuela is for upgrades from economy to business class -- not an economy class ticket. (You still have to put up the 15,000 miles for the upgrade.) The changes to American Airlines' frequent flier program go into effect Oct. 1.

Mileage trips just got more expensive

Given all the other grim news in the airline world, you had to know it was coming.

Beginning Oct. 1, the number of miles required for frequent flier tickets on American Airlines will increase. (You can still get tickets for travel in the next year at current levels if you book before Oct. 1.)

The real ouch: If you book an economy ticket with miles between North America and Colombia, Ecuador, Peru or Venezuela, you'll have to pay an additional $150 "co-payment.'' If you live in South Florida, you'll probably do better to wait for a fare sale...especially since you usually need to book award tickets at good 6-10 months in advance to get seats.

And as of June 21, you'll pay also $5 processing fee to book an award ticket online.

Most of the increases are for peak travel periods and "anytime'' miles. For instance, an "anytime miles'' ticket from North America to Europe rises from 100,000 miles to 120,000 miles. Milesaver tickets during peak periods from North American to the Caribbean and Mexico rise from 30,000 miles to 35,000 miles. Here's a comparison chart. 

And with all the cuts in service, you can pretty well guess that getting anything other than an "anytime'' seat is going to require plenty of advance planning and multiple calls to the airline.

If there's any good news here, it's that the miles required for an advance-booked domestic ticket stay at 25,000.

Well, and at least they haven't killed the program altogether. Of course, it's said to be worth $1 billion per year in fees to American for co-marketing arrangements with other companies. Don't want to  kill the goose.

Now, while we're on this subject, both The Husband -- who's a gold flier -- and I  (platinum) -- have noticed that AA's award agents have gotten, well, snippy as of late. Have you had the same experience, or good ones? Tell us...just comment below.

Use those hotel points!

I've always been a big saver (and yes, user!) of airline frequent flier points. Though air miles are likely to become harder to use with the latest air service cuts, as the economy slows it may actually become easier to use your hotel points. (Once those rooms are built, companies need to fill those beds.)

For a traveler like me, hotel points programs haven't been much use. My trips don't usually take me to places where I'm likely to find a chain hotel, and when they do, I'm usually testing out a different brand every night.

But two years ago, when gas prices were merely outrageous rather than excruciating, I drove across the U.S. Most of my lodgings were roadside or small-town motels. Because I liked them well enough, and because I could earn points, I stayed mostly in Choice Hotels, including Sleep Inn, Comfort Inn, Clarion and Quality.

This summer, The Husband and I will have a few nights in Copenhagen before we leave on a cruise. Hotel prices are about what you'd expect in a major European city in a time of unfavorable exchange rates: Painful.

But what about those Choice points? I hunted around and found a Comfort Inn that's well located -- and was "cheap'' enough that I could get one night with my existing points. So I'd buy one, get one free, right?

Then I realized that the program allowed me to buy enough additional points for a second free night for about half of what it would cost to buy one room night. Now that was a no-brainer.

Result: Two nights in Copenhagen for $70.

Is there a lesson here? Don't ignore those hotel points. Even if you don't use the same brands often, the points can add up.

Best places to get really sick on the road

Blame it on Letterman, but everybody loves a list. And everyone seems to have one.

My e-mail box here is flooded with lists: The top family destinations, top national parks, top tips for saving money (alas, nothing new there, at least on that particular list.)

Here comes a Top Ten list that's decidely out of the norm: The best places to have a medical emergency. This particular list comes from Global Medical Monitor MEDEX 360°m, created in partnership with Harvard Medical International. MEDEX (www.medexassist.com)  sells travel medical insurance, so it's hook is that you should always check your own medical policy to be sure it covers you when traveling.

Even with the commercial angle, this is an interesting list. According to the company's press release, the monitor "provides analysis from regular, onsite 300-point evaluations and MEDEX "credentialing'' of the quality of medical care and health facilities in 237 countries around the world. Reports are created on specific locations to help travelers prepare for trips and make informed health and safety decisions when abroad.''
 

So here's the deal: When you have a medical emergency on the road, this is where you want to be:

• 1. Ireland
• 2. United Kingdom
• 3. Switzerland
• 4. United States
• 5. Singapore
• 6. Denmark
• 7. Austria
• 8. Belgium
• 9. France
• 10. Germany

Travel costs: Bad news -- but bargains!

Yes, there's both. On the airline front, MORE new fees (this is mostly other airlines' following American's lead on increasing baggage fares.) And this just in from Tom Parsons, a long-time airline industry watcher and publisher of Bestfares (www.bestfares.com):

On several international routes, the fuel surcharge compared to last summer has more than doubled on most routes.

Fuel surcharges to London have taken the biggest hit. Last summer, the fuel surcharge to London was $130 roundtrip from most U.S. cities. Today, from Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington (DC), Atlanta, Miami and Houston the fuel surcharge is $302 roundtrip.

We've also seen the fuel surcharges to South American cities including Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile triple since last summer.

Yup, you got it right, that's nearly a triple of the fuel surcharge to London.

On the plus side: We're seeing excellent hotel deals throughout the country, and especially in Florida and the Caribbean. And yes, you can even get bargains on luxury lodgings.

A few days ago I spoke with an exec at Hotwire.com. That's an "opaque'' travel site, which means you don't know the name of the hotel when you book it -- just the neighborhood and the star-rating.

That arrangement always seems a little too dicey for my personal comfort. But Clem Bason, the Hotwire exec, told me that this year, the site is seeing a rarity: 4.5-star hotels at discounted prices.

In mid-August, mid-week, we found a 4.5 star in Palm Beach for $209 per night and a 5-star on Singer Island for $174. (If you know the area well, you can pretty much guess what these are.)  In Cancun, a 4.5-star was going for $132 during the same period. In business cities like San Francisco, weekends are deal time:  a weekend search for mid-August in San Francisco brought a 4.5-star in Union Square East for $142 and a 4.5-star in the Embarcadero area for $156.

Yes, top hotels are discounting heavily. And even if you don't know for sure whether you're booking this one top hotel or the next, do you care if you're getting a bargain?

What do you think? Just click to comment.

What is a deal?

A reader of the Miami Herald sent in a letter-to-the-editor complaining that deals featured recently in our Travel section weren't really deals, at least to her.

She raises an interesting a point. Technically, speaking, these are truly deals, representing 40-70 percent off each hotels' high-season rate.

It comes to this, I figure: One person's deal is another's impossibility. Our goal is to serve a broad range of readers, some wealthy, some not. And while $200 per night for a hotel is out of the realm for some people, if it's in lieu of some other trip that would also involve airfare and several nights of lodging, one night at $200 might not be too bad. On the other hand, if you've lost your job or you're making just above minimum wage, $200 may be out of control.

So you tell us: What are you willing to pay for a hotel room in a major U.S. city or tourist area? Take this poll or comment below.

What do you think about iPod tours?

A colleague recently asked about iPod tours for his weekend getaway to Charleston. The tourism spokeswoman there called around to her visitors' centers and was told that they get few requests for iPod tours. People want the personal touch, she was told.

But is that true? Not for everyone, obviously. Travel expert Rick Steves has several free downloadable tours on his website. The city of Philadelphia offers audio tours on portable CD players. A Google search brings up dozens of companies offering MP3 tours around the world.

And now, Princess Cruises is offering what it calls Grab an iPod and Go tours to European ports including Amalfi, Athens, Barcelona, Cannes, Capri, Corfu, Dubrovnik, Florence, Lisbon, Monte Carlo, Mykonos, Pisa, Portofino, Rhodes, Rome, and Sorrento.

So, what's your take? Do you want tours you can download onto your MP3 player? And are you willing to pay for them?

Tell us by commenting below.

Air ticket trauma? Tell us

Is that cheap air ticket you bought weeks ago in jeopardy?

A friend found out hers was. Last January, she and her husband purchased discounted tickets for a summer trip to Montana during an air sale. Last week, the airline alerted them that their schedule had been changed. The original schedule they had purchased was still available for sale online -- but at a vastly higher price.

My friend's take: The airline was switching her to a less convenient routing because she was in a cheap seat, so the company could get higher fares on the more convenient routing. Of course, the airline told her it was happy to refund her deeply discounted ticket.

Three rungs up the supervisor ladder in reservations -- and a reminder that a ticket-in-hand is a legal contract -- resulted in the originally ticketed schedule staying in force. But if my friend had been less persistent, or less savvy, she might have found herself flying to Montana on a five-stop.

Have you had similar problems? We'd like to know for a story we're researching. Please comment below and send me your e-mail address at jwooldridge@MiamiHerald.com.

A fab deal to China

I've been going to China since 1985, when I was a backpacker and China first allowed independent travelers in the door.

A lot has changed since then, and if you're an experienced independent traveler, you can handle China on your own. But if you're not....or don't want the hassle...here's an extraordinary deal:

Book by July 2, and a 10-day trip to Beijing and Shanghai, including air from San Francisco, is $899 per person, double occupancy, for travel November 2008 through April 2009. (Add $100 per person if you're traveling from New York, which we all know is a cheaper reach from South Florida.) www.smartours.com.

Have you been to China? Share your experience; comment below.

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copyright photo: JANE WOOLDRIDGE for The Miami Herald

Fares up 186 percent from Miami-ouch!

This just in from Bestfares.com:

"Planning to fly nonstop from Miami on routes served by a low-cost carrier offering one-stop or connecting service may cost you as much as 186% more than those same nonstop flights that you paid for last summer" - says Tom Parsons, founder and CEO of BestFares.com, a discount travel website which launched in 1995.

"One of the biggest increases we have seen in airfares for nonstop flights out of Miami is to Minneapolis. Last summer during the first week of June 2007, the lowest published nonstop flight on American Airlines was $188 roundtrip. This year if you purchase this same nonstop flight, you will be paying $538 roundtrip. That's an increase of $350 or 186% higher.''

No wonder we're all thinking of vacationing in the Sunshine State. For more on vacations here in South Florida, see our special issue in Sunday Travel on June 8. It will be in The Miami Herald and also at our website.

Do you have a suggestion for how airlines can keep fares lower in this times of high oil prices? Or what the goverment should do to lower oil prices? Or a suggestion for a close-to-home vacation? Comment below.

Sunshine guarantee? Yup

You know how it is: You head out on your hard-earned and pricy vacation, only to find wretched weather. As a tourist, you really don't care that the locals are suffering from a five-year drought and desperately need the rain. in.

Some places resort to divine intervention. In Bali, when there's a big convention, local weathermakers are brought in to dance away any chance of rain. And in Irian Jaya -- now called Papua New Guinea -- I watched a weather-clearing ceremony performed by a man with a boar tusk in his nose. (It worked.)

Priceline.com has come up with an easier method. The site has just announced Sunshine Guaranteed Vacation Packages to 100-plus destinations in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean and Europe.

The idea is simple – if rain ruins your vacation, Priceline will refund your airfare, hotel, rental car, and any tours or attractions purchased.

The details: You have to book by July 17 for travel between July 1 and Sept. 7. The guarantee applies to vacations between 3 and 8 days long. The guarantee kicks in if it rains .5 or more inches per day on half or more of the days in your vacation.

Of course, there are some other caveats; check full details.

Included on the list are some notoriously rainy places -- London, San Francisco -- and summer-storm prone Hawaiian islands, South Florida, the Bahamas, Aruba and St. Thomas in the U.S.V.I. Ketchikan, Alaska -- famous for its liquid sunshine of that can measure almost 200 inches per year -- is not on the list.   

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PHOTO BY JAY CLARKE / THE MIAMI HERALD: Ketchikan on a sunny day.