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| Fifty years ago, Arthur Frommer published Europe On 5 Dollars a Day and revolutionized the way Americans traveled.?These days, more than 20 million readers turn to him for the best in travel advice (you may have noticed my posts about their "Hot Spot" trip contests if you're a regular reader).Here's what Arthur had to say today:Apr 23, 2008 Help!The penalties and fees added to airfares are becoming a serious matter, and should cause us all to take the train wherever possible You may want to bring an electronic calculator to the airport, to tote up all the fees, surcharges and penalties that airlines have recently added to their basic airfares.The pricing picture is worsening with every passing moment, and it's important that you act in advance to head off the possibility that some of these fees may badly affect your own travel budget.Let's start listing them: just three days ago, United Airlines raised the penalty to a hefty $150 for changing reservations once made, and it's likely that other airlines will soon copy.Your own response: think carefully about committing yourself to a flight, and adhere to those plans once they are made.United, U.S. Air, and five other copycats scheduling their own announcements for next week, are now charging $25 one-way, and $50 round-trip, for checking a second suitcase.They are also increasing the penalty-per-pound on the excess weight of the one suitcase you do check with them; people avoiding the second-suitcase penalty by stuffing all but the kitchen sink into the first suitcase, will learn the errors of bringing heavy wardrobes with them when they travel.Your only recourse: learn to travel light.Repeat: learn to travel light.U.S. Airways has announced a new "Choice Seat" program to begin May 7, whereby travelers will be charged an additional $5 per flight for an aisle or window seat in the first several rows of coach. |
| U.S. Airways has announced a new "Choice Seat" program to begin May 7, whereby travelers will be charged an additional $5 per flight for an aisle or window seat in the first several rows of coach.Your response should be: take the train wherever possible, don't subject yourself to cattle car-like conditions in the air.Fuel surcharges on many trans-Atlantic airlines are now hovering close to $200.Numerous airlines are charging $10 extra if you make your reservations by telephone rather than on the internet.Curbside check-in fees at Delta are going up to $3 from $2.Airfares themselves are rising by at least $10 almost every week.And finally, United Airlines is adding a Saturday overnight stay requirement to nearly all their discount fares, thus effectively blocking their use by business travelers determined to return home quickly from their short business trips.In Europe, fees like these would cause most of the population to yawn; they possess a rail alternative for most of the trips they contemplate.We don't have such options.We are paying the price for our failure to maintain a viable rail system in the U.S. We are also jamming our airports, and overburdening our air traffic control system, with hundreds and hundreds of daily flights to close-in destinations that should be serviced instead by high-speed rail: between Los Angeles and San Francisco, for instance, between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, up and down the east and west coasts of Florida, between Washington, D.C., New York and Boston, from New York to upstate New York.If these city pairs possessed high-speed rail, we could eliminate hundreds of daily flights and ease conditions at our badly-overstretched airports.Remember that when you vote this November on those members of Congress who have almost playfully opposed additional appropriations for Amtrak.source |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 July 2008 )
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