The Travel Industry Gets A Little Personal

The travel industry seems to be getting mighty interested in our personal lives lately. And by personal I mean sex.

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Video: Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park

I posted a photo of Bridalveil Fall in my Yosemite photo gallery a while back, but it takes a video to show how it got its name:

I clipped the video just before a guy in a baseball hat walked in front of it and started shouting back at his family. It was amusing but it wouldn’t be fair to leave it in because I’m quite certain he hadn’t noticed my camera.

This video was shot, by the way, with my inexpensive, trusty and slightly battered Canon PowerShot SD450 atop a Gorillapod tripod.

The End Of First Class As We Know It?

There’s an interesting piece in The New York Times this morning about the future of first class. 

It suggests, among other things, that more airlines may consider an intermediate class between economy and first class, along the lines of United’s economy plus. Which I hate because I blame it for squishing the leg room in the back of the plane beyond the limits of human endurance.

It’s always worth pointing out that Southwest Airlines has not suffered tremendous losses in revenue from travel in premium classes because it never had premium classes to start with. Just sayin’.

Profiting From Ignorance About Currency Conversion

I was just reading Chris Elliott’s highly entertaining analysis of the schedule for the annual Ancillary Revenue Airline Conference, which is where nickel-and-diming is celebrated as a high art.

One of the seminars that Chris mentioned really caught my eye: “Profiting from Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) — Paul K. Ackermann, Vice President, Head of Sales – North America, Travelex”

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Iowa Town ‘Arresting’ Tourists

I don’t know what I think about the town of Kalona, Iowa, which is pulling over cars with out-of-state license plates and offering free mini-vacations to the occupants, as the Associated Press reports. I just don’t know.

Does Expedia Owe You Money?

If you booked hotels through Expedia between January 10, 2001 and June 11, 2008, you should have received email notification that you’re eligible for a class-action settlement.

Expedia is accused of hiding its own fees, claiming they were taxes. Although the company has not admitted doing anything wrong, it has agreed to refund about $120 million to consumers.

There are some exceptions. If you booked a package instead of a stand-alone reservation, you aren’t eligible for the settlement. You must have been a U.S. resident at the time you booked. And there’s a one-week period in December 2002 that is excluded.

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Luggage Fees Cause Unintended Difficulties

I’ve been thinking about the mess caused by luggage fees as a lesson in unintended consequences. While airlines surely expected that passengers would carry on more luggage to avoid paying fees to check it, I wonder whether they anticipated the level of trouble this has caused.

My daughter was flying cross-country recently, boarding a Delta 757 in Los Angeles, and the plane ran out of overhead storage space before half the passengers had boarded. Flight attendants came through with tags to gate check all the bags that wouldn’t fit under the seats, much to the distress of many remaining passengers, including one being forced to check her bridesmaid’s dress the night before a wedding.

On our recent trip across the country, my husband and I  saw our carry-on wheelies gate-checked, as we expected, for two legs on regional jets. But we also had to check them on the leg from JFK to LAX on a crowded 757, although they were well within the size limits.

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U.S. Airlines: ‘Incredibly Bad’

The Sydney Morning Herald’s travel blog recently proclaimed U.S. airlines to be “incredibly bad.”

At last count, there were 195 comments on the entry, expressing an overwhelming degree of agreement. Some people suggested that a few airlines are better than the rest, namely JetBlue, Virgin America and Southwest.

Most just agreed and added their own stories of woe: dirty planes, bad food, no food, poor service, no service, dirty airports, no entertainment system, endless fees …

Yup. I think they got it.

Hyatt Hotels Fire Housekeepers, Outsource Jobs

Three Hyatt hotels in Boston have fired 100 housekeepers and have outsourced cleaning to a contractor, the Boston Globe reports.

Two of the housekeepers the Globe interviewed had worked at the hotels for more than 20 years each and were earning about $15 an hour, hardly an extravagant wage in Boston, but at least they got health benefits. Other Hyatt employees said the new workers, supplied by a Georgia company, are being paid $8 an hour with no benefits.

Sounds to me like those Hyatt hotels (the Hyatt Regency Boston, Hyatt Regency Cambridge and Hyatt Harborside at Logan International Airport ) don’t care much about their employees. Wonder how they feel about their customers.

Spirit Airlines Continues To Behave Like Spirit Airlines

Spirit Airlines, an industry leader in pissing off its customers, has now pissed off the federal government. The Department of Transportation has fined the company $215,000 and will add another $160,000 if it breaks its agreement to straighten up and fly right, the Associated Press reports.

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