Posts tagged as:

reservations

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Charlie LeochaOur 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.

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Anita Dunham-Potter 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.

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