When you’re airfare shopping, attractive prices can vanish in a split second. Just ask Jim Doll, a systems engineer in Atlanta, who recently tried to buy a ticket to San Francisco on AirTran Airways’ Web site. He found a one-way fare for just $130, but by the time he’d toggled over to Orbitz.com to see if he could do better there and then clicked back, the price had changed.
By now I’m accustomed to all sorts of things that can go wrong in booking a room. The room with a view … of the office building next door. The ‘non-smoking room’ with the tell-tale smoky staleness that my asthmatic husband can sniff out, even if no one else can. (PSSST! Hotels, the non-smoking thing is mainly a benefit for folks more sensitive to such things than managers and maids, so a quick re-labeling won’t work). I’ve encountered mix-ups on how many beds are needed, or what floor or amenities a disabled guest requires.
I recently faced a new problem — no heat. My experience in the Land of Lakes was not just a matter of a missing ‘amenity,’ (heat) but also a matter of the near total indifference with which it was addressed.
It’s always fun when I discover something really clever tucked away in a nuts-and-bolts website. Fairmont Hotels, not known as a hotbed of humor, but rather a place where many of the sultans, sheikhs and excellencies of the world choose to stay, has a simple drop-down menu in their reservation form that brought a smile to my face.
Eurail passes these days aren’t what we baby boomers remember from back in the ’60s and ’70s and even the ’80s. I fondly remember when travelers could get on and off trains at will and the biggest decision was whether to buy a 1st-class or 2nd-class pass. Not any more. The world of rail travel in Europe has become much more complicated. Spontaneity has been squashed.
Our transportation system has deteriorated to the levels of the most undependable third-world countries. The USA that once prided itself on on-time transport by air and rail, has slipped into a worsening spiral of schedules that aren’t worth the paper on which they are printed. And the state of customer service is just as catch-as-catch-can as the airline timetables.
Most cruises begin with a plane ride to the port of embarkation, which raises a perennial question: Should you book your air travel through the cruise line or should you book it yourself? Anita Dunham-Potter has some opinions on the matter.