Volunteer, Get A Free Day At Disney

A day of volunteering could get you a free day at a Disney park in 2010.  Disney will give one day’s free admission to one of its parks in California or Florida to 1 million people who fulfill the terms of the volunteer promotion, according to the Associated Press. There are more details from Disney here. Disney’s promotion offering free admission on a customer’s birthday continues through the end of 2009.

Connecticut: The Cheaper Pit Stop

When it comes to hotel prices, Connecticut ranks 18th among the states although it borders the most expensive (New York), the second most expensive (Massachusetts) and the fifth most expensive (Rhode Island) states, according to the Hotel Price Index just released by Hotels.com.

I know. I was thinking the same thing. Rhode Island has a hotel? (C’mon, I’m kidding Ocean Staters. You got all the good beaches, so you can take a joke.)

Connecticut’s tourism authorities never tire of ignoring my suggestions for slogans, but I think this calls for another attempt to stop those tourists passing through between New York and Boston.

Connecticut: When you’re almost there, it’s cheaper here!

Some Puzzling Hotel Billing Errors

I caved to my Internet addiction and ordered 24 hours of access from a hotel in Washington over the weekend, but when the bill was slipped under the door I found that I’d been charged for two days.

Never mind that the $12.95 daily charge  is ridiculous, the equivalent of $388 a month. I wasn’t going to pay it twice.

I called the front desk to complain and the clerk promised to remove the charge. No questions, no argument. When I checked out, an amended bill was waiting for  me.

It brought to mind my husband’s experience in Indianapolis. When he checked out there was a charge for parking. Except he didn’t have a car. Oops, sorry sir. We’ll just take that off the bill.

Here’s what I’m wondering. Are hotels making more “mistakes” on room charges lately? And if they really are mistakes, are the hotels undercharging as often as they are overcharging? Or is something else going on?

Standing Up To Rude Travelers

If you’ve ever been frustrated by the rudeness of strangers, you may enjoy this New York Times column by a guy who reports standing up to it. His best story: calling a woman who was annoying everyone on a plane to interrupt her loud phone conversation.

How To Get Stranded Passengers Off Planes

Last year I flew from Istanbul to Kayseri, Turkey, on an MD-80 and when we landed the passengers got off on two portable stairways, front and rear, boarded a bus and rode to the terminal.

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Irony In Our Nation’s Capital

My sister, my niece and I were entering the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington today behind a man wearing a T-shirt with an anti-immigrant message and the words “No hablo español.”

It seems to me that a white man entering a museum devoted to the history of the original inhabitants of this continent wearing a T-shirt that insults immigrants must have an extremely well-developed sense of irony. Or none at all.

The guy held the door open for me, so I said, of course, “gracias.”

Later that afternoon I thought of that guy again. I was reading names like Jose Ruiz Jr. on the Vietnam War Memorial. I wonder whether Mr. No Hablo stopped by and read all the Hispanic names on that wall.

Do You Want A Seat With That?

None of the fees, inconveniences and cutbacks that airlines have imposed over the past several years have made me cut back on flying. But the new fees to reserve seats might do it.

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Firing Housekeepers Damages Hyatt’s Reputation

The blowback over the firing of 98 housekeepers from three Boston-area hotels continues to singe the Hyatt chain, the Boston Globe reports.

The governor of Massachusetts is threatening a boycott, union groups are hopping mad and some organizations are canceling contracts with the chain. On Thursday, 200 people were arrested outside the Park Hyatt Chicago in a demonstration of support for union negotiations there and of the fired housekeepers in Boston, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The housekeepers earned $14 to $16 an hour, hardly an extravagant wage in Boston but at least they got health and retirement benefits. They were replaced with subcontracted workers who reportedly earn $8 an hour with no health benefits.

Hyatt said in a press release that it has been forced to make some very difficult decisions.” One has to wonder whether these difficult decisions relate in any way to Hyatt’s bid to go public.

Anyway, we customers have some decisions to make, too.

Airlines Charging Credit Card Fees To Customers

Arthur Frommer points this morning to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald about airlines in Australia adding charges for using credit card fees to book flights.

I’ve been wondering when this attempt to push consumers away from credit cards would talk hold in the travel industry. United Airlines is already trying to push fees onto travel agencies, although not yet directly onto consumers. And plenty of retailers outside the travel industry are encouraging customers to pay with debit cards, checks or electronic bank transfers.

In Australia, according to the Herald, airlines aren’t just assessing the fees on consumers, they’re inflating the charge far beyond what credit card processing costs them.

The trouble is that when consumers, caught between the banks and the airlines, give up the convenience of using a credit card they also give up the security that goes with it. You can’t contest a charge against a debit card if the merchant fails to deliver.

Kind of nice for the airlines.

FBI Mines Data From Travel Records

Do you mind that the FBI has obtained thousands of records about customers of the Ramada Inn, Days Inn, Super 8, Howard Johnson and Hawthorn Suites chains or that it wants wider access to billions of records of airline itineraries, including personal and financial information about passengers? If not, you definitely don’t want to read this article from Wired.com.