travel
Over at Elliott.org a reader has sent in a screenshot from a recent attempt to book a discounted hotel room in Venice. The price was supposed to be $375 a night marked down from $537. It seemed like a good deal until he saw the taxes and fees...
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scheduling
Continental thought 82 minutes was plenty of time for Chris to catch a flight connecting in Newark from Washington to Delhi. It might be, but Continental's own data show that the Washington flight arrives late 96% of the time by 103 minutes on average. Chris wanted to switch to an earlier flight so he could make the once-daily plane to Delhi, but Continental wouldn't let him switch unless he paid a $250 change fee. Unsatisfied with the answer, Chris hung up and kept calling back until he got the answer he wanted.
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fees
If you've been avoiding the big
travel websites because of their booking fees, you might want to reconsider. Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia have all stopped charging airline booking fees until May 31.
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travel
Reader Mike has lots of frequent flier miles that he'd like to cash in with Continental
Airlines. As he found out, this is extremely difficult. Here's an email he sent to the CEO of Continental, Larry Kellner:
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vacations
American Airlines told Justin that they could not accept his American Airlines credit card due to a bug in their spiffy new booking system. Justin wanted to charge a trip to Disney World on the card, which unlike standard credit cards, is supposed to work exclusively for purchasing tickets with American Airlines.
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airlines
SF Gate has an interesting consumer story about a passenger whose flight was rebooked by American due to "schedule changes" and, despite their attempts to verify that he did/or did not need paper tickets, was charged over $500 dollars at the gate for not having them.
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orbitz
We're not saying the rest of you are dumb, but when physicists from CalTech can't manage to make travel arrangements without getting stuck with hundreds of dollars in "change fees," there might be a problem with the website. And by problem we might mean "scam." And by scam, we might mean, "policies designed to increase fees by being deliberately confusing and overly restrictive." In this case, Sean, a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, was trying to book a new ticket with money from a credit on a previously canceled ticket, which is much harder than identifying the unified field theory.
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complaints
Reader Adam L's most unsavory experience at a Santa Cruz Travelodge this week included:
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complaints
Even with Orbitz's notoriously inept customer service - behind that facade of campy commercials and flash games, there's...more facade - this is a new one. Reader Missdona booked a room at the Bellagio hotel last week. Yesterday, the price dropped $20. She tried to lock in the lower rate but was unable to online and the phone people consistently put her on long hold only to disconnect her or refused to help. She decides to cancel and book with the hotel direct. A phone rep tells her that cancelling will cost $25.
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expedia
Here's an interesting phenomenon, Dave writes in about his experience buying a flight through Expeida.
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Consumerist
Orbitz Worldwide, Travelocity and Priceline.com users can now book flights on JetBlue. [BusinessWeek]
