Travel Blog April Archive

After spending hours yesterday and today planning a trip, I decide to book it via American Airlines. Their webpage was the easist to use and although the not the cheapest flight there was only one hotel needed for connections and not two. The result being that the overall trip cost and time was less.

Ok, time to make the reservation and I should have remebered from before. Since the flight shown was on American Airlines, LAN Peru and Copa/Aerorepublica, American doesn't allow you to make a reservational online and instead says:

Reservations containing one or more flights on airlines other than American Airlines, American Eagle and AmericanConnection must be purchased at time of booking and may not qualify for electronic tickets. Please select Purchase at the bottom of the page.

Now this gets into a stickly situation where they will require these paper tickets to be sent to my office in the United States (half way around the world) as that is where my credit card is billed.

Now the tickets can't possibly arrive by the time the flight is scheduled for. What is the purpose of these paper tickets but to offer frustration?

I just want to make the reservation and then PAY at their local office. Quick, and easy for me, and no hassles for the traveller who obviously won't be travelling with my credit card.

Last time I called reservations the ticket price was much higher. Today, although the 800# for reservations said that there is a $10 fee for make reservations via the telephone, no one actually answers the phone. In my country, the American Airlines office phone goes to voice mail.

So, I can't say how much higher in price the ticket will be making the reservation by phone besides the $10 fee.

Finally, someone answered at the local American Airlines office. The price quoted by aa.com was $704+ $91.10 taxes for a total of $795.10. The American Airlines office quoted $2317 (and I'm not worried whether that was with or without taxes). By my calculation the price for reserving by telephone is about $1522 more than online. I might not be very good at math, but I think that is a whee bit more than $10!

The most important aspect of doing business is providing a viable means for your customer to PAY YOU! I have $800 in my pocket ready to give to American Airlines. All they have to do is let me pay them!

Unfortunate for the investors in American Airlines, my money will be going to their competition this time... and maybe next time!

What is wrong with Travelocity.com?

It used to be that you could use a flexible dates search on Travelocity.com when you were starting from a foreign destination. It often produced silly results because it generally used USA Airlines that likes to route the flights through a US Airport regardless of efficiency.

It did a much better job showing you options for flights originating in the USA with a foreign destination. It was always useful for travel planning trips to Costa Rica.

Now, when you try to search for a flight from the USA to Costa Rica you get: No flight information available.

What you can do:
* Flexible date searches are only available for searches within the US and Canada.
* Try an Exact Dates search.

In my view that makes travelocity pretty pointless to use anymore.

Continental 767-400 goes 5,000 MPH!

Continental Airlines sent me the "spam" I reprint below. I call it spam, as it has nothing to do with MY BUSINESS relationship with Continental (which might include a flight to Costa Rica) which has absolutely nothing to do with China.

Before I decided whether to support their plan or not I figured I'd check out their website and analyze how they do with foreign flights. For example, last time I checked, Delta wouldn't let me book a flight from South America to the USA on their website.

Continental seemed to do ok (but is severly restricted by the cities they serve), I also couldn't figure out if their +/- a couple day option did anything (when starting at a foreign destination).

What I did learn was amazing. Continental will fly a Boeing 767-400 from Rio de Janiro to Houston, Texas (a distance they show as 5,016 miles) in just 1 hour and 15 minutes! See below.

So, I asked their investor relations department for their response.

Why should I support flights to China... when you say a flight from Rio to Houston (over 5,000 miles) is just 1 hr 15 minutes in the air?

I think such assertations is a good reason NOT to support your flights to China or investment in your company!

From $1,187.00
Depart:
6:55 p.m.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (GIG) Arrive:
5:20 a.m. +1 Day
Houston, TX (IAH - Intercontinental) Flight Time:
1 hr 15 mn OnePass Miles/
Elite Qualification:
5,016 /150% Flight: CO92
Aircraft: Boeing 767-400ER
Fare Class: Economy (H)
Meal: Dinner
No Special Meal Offered.
View Seats

Help Continental Secure New Shanghai Gateway
Let us be your carrier to Shanghai=2E=20

We're asking for your help in supporting our proposed new route from New Yo=
rk/Newark to Shanghai, China, beginning spring 2007=2E Competition is g with only one U=2ES=2E airline able to secure a daily flight to and from =
China next year=2E

Show your support for Continental by signing your name to our electronic pe=
tition* that will be submitted to the U=2ES=2E Department of Transportation=
=2E The DOT will base its decision on multiple factors including community =
support and the amount of business the new route will generate=2E

Plus, don't forget to tell your family, friends and colleagues about the
pr=
ospect for Continental's new flight to China=2E

Update 9/9/2006

Continental responds. It was nice to get a fairly quick response. However, it is a bit disappointing that they simply applogize about the incorrect information provided by their website and make no indication they want to correct the problem. Especially since it appears to be a problem not only with the length of the flight, but the route as well. It was not at all clear to me from their website that there was stop.

It should have also been extremely clear (since I cut and pasted from their website) that the problem was with their website and not an agent.

Thank you for letting us know how you feel about our proposal to serve these routes. I apologize if our agent or possibly our website showed that our flight from Houston to Rio, when it is actually approximately 12 hours and 25 minutes with a stop in San Paulo. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Cheryl San Jose

I made the wrong CHOICE

I made a reservation for my wife to stay at a "Choice" hotel in Niagara Falls, New York last month. I used choicehotels.com to make the reservation.

On August 16th, I noticed that my credit card had been charged twice. Once the day before her stay and once on the check out day. I contacted Customer Service at choicehotels.com asking that they resolve the problem.

I am still waiting for a credit for the unauthorized charge. Yesterday, August 31, I did receive a corporate feel good message. The message is actually in response to a survey they sent me. The department sending out the survey was much more responsive than the "customer service" department who flat out refused to help me.

I think the goal of that message is to make the corporation feel. It is certainly not going to make me feed good, as I have still paid double for the hotel.

They are certainly deluding themselves if they believe that charging a customer double and refusing to resolve the problem is a good way to encourage customers "continued patronage".

I made the wrong choice and I hope you don't.

[April 5, 2007 update: Choice Hotels has still not resolved the problem!]

Thank you for taking the time to respond to our recent customer satisfaction survey and for providing us with the additional comments about your stay at the Rodeway Inn at the Falls in Niagara Falls, NY. We do apologize for the incident that occurred at this hotel, as well as the delay in responding. We have forwarded the information and issues you have raised to our field staff who will be addressing them directly with the hotel. Choice Hotels is committed to helping facilitate corrective action and ensuring that appropriate changes are made with the hotel directly. Your comments have assisted us in identifying areas in need of attention, and we greatly appreciate your feedback.

We are looking forward to providing quality accommodations and service to you in the future. Thank you for your continued patronage.

Who wants to start a new airline?

That may be a rethorical question, but it might be one those in the United States who are concerned about customer service and the "energy crises" should seriously consider. It may also be that if one were to examine the success of the Brazilian Airline, GOL they would find the issues with the U.S. Airline Industry are more serious than I will touch on here.

Let's look at some of the things the U.S. Airline Industry wants us to do. First, maybe you are in San Jose, Costa Rica and want to go to Lima, Peru. Pop those locations in a few airline websites and you might find that it just as cheap to fly on a US Airline from San Jose, Costa to Lima, Peru via New York City than to fly a Latin American Airline the same route, but with a stop in Panama City.

Now, as a consumer, an extra 12 hours or so in the air plus a whole bunch waiting in airports is not my idea of a good time! From an "energy crisis" prespective I can't imagine anyone benefits (except maybe the owners of the oil wells), and therefore from an Airline Business prespective it must be a pretty whacked out proposition as well. Yet, it is "business as usual" I think.

The U.S. Airlines seem to lower their prices in porportion to how whacked out your travels will be. The shortest, most direct flight always seems to be the most expensive one. Punish the customer who pays less.

It becomes more difficult with international flights it seems. The various travel websites often don't produce any results (or poor results) when you start with a "foreign destination" (and remember there are more people OUTSIDE the United States than inside).

American Airlines website at first seems to do the best job. The only qualification is that at least one segment must be on American Airlines.

For example, if you try to book a light on aa.com from Barranquilla, Colombia to Miami, you get a convoluted trip that takes you to the Dominican Republic and Jamica. However, if you book a flight from aa.com from Barranquilla, Colombia to most any other location in the United States, you get a nice trip. Barranquilla to Miami and then on to your selected city.

Here's the catch. The flight from Barranquilla to Miami will be on an Avianca (Colombian Airline) flight (under Delta airlines name). The flight from Miami will then be on American Airlines. Good connections, good prices.

You have to understand that Avianca and Delta both issue e-tickets if you book directly with them. Delta also advertises heavily on TV in South America (in Spanish), yet won't even give you prices, much less book a reservation from www.delta.com.

Ok, back to www.aa.com. Time to book the flight from Barranquilla to Detroit. The price, the schedule is perfect. Oh oh! The computer says they will only issue a paper ticket and only mail it to the credit card holders address. This isn't going to work. I'm in South America, my credit card billing address in the United States, and the traveler is in Barranquilla. The trip is less than a week ago and using "overnight" delivery to get the ticket is no guarantee it will arrive before flight time. There is an American Arlines office just down the street so my best bet is to just go there and pay for the ticket.

I call American Airlines, to make sure I get the reservation set before I trundle off to pay for it. The nice lady tells me I need to select "hold reservation" on the website. Nope. There is no such option.

Ok, she checks and the price comes up many hundreds of dollars more expensive (even through aa.com claims there is just a small fee for making your reservations on the phone). The second problem is that they won't issue an e-ticket because part of the flight is on "delta". But, for just $100 more (on top of paying $600-$700 more for the reservation) she can have the ticket sent to be picked up "anywhere".

So there are two extremely bad choices. Almost double the price of the ticket just to get it delivered in Barranquilla, or pay over $100 for overnight delivery to the USA and another overnight delivery to Colombia. I asked the nice lady at American Airlines what would happen if I chose that option and the ticket was delayed in transit. She had no answer for me.

The whole problem here seems to revolve around American not being able to issue an e-ticket for Delta. Aside, why does Delta make it so hard for customers in South American when they do so much advertising here? (I suspect Delta would have been a better choice for the trip, but without any internet reservation service that was out of the question).

Back to the internet. Again to aa.com, as it seemed to be the only site that would show any flights from Colombia to the United States. They had a nice selection of flights from Bogota to Detroit. Those even gave the "hold reservation option" and they would issue an e-ticket. The price, significantly less than the flight from Barranquilla to Detroit. I was able to pay for it with no major project at the local American Airlines office (I had to pay the local tax than came to about 15 bucks).

Avianca has cheap flights from Baranquilla to Bogota. The result is a trip that has almost the identical price as the original flight I found on aa.com (but couldn't purchase), and wastes a considerable amount of time and takes our traveller 400+ miles out of her way, coming and going.

All because American and Delta can't get together on e-tickets. Of course, what is the point of a non e-ticket in this day and age. The real questions is why would any airline make use of any non e-ticket for anything?

I had wanted to plan a 1 or 2 day layover in Miami, but that upped the price way too much (and the cost to the airline for that?). It turned out that the flight to Detroit was missed, because the flight from Bogota was delayed.

The original flight schedule I wanted from Barranquilla to Detroit via Miami (and not Bogota) left sufficient time for delayed flights. The flight from Bogota to Detroit didn't provide for any delays on the way to Miami.

The result? One night in a very nice hotel, and day in Miami, compliments of American Airlines!

Expedia Handles Payment for Hotel With Respect!

I recently make a hotel reservation for my wife to stay in New York City. Although I checked many places on the web, I decide to make the reservation through www.expedia.com.

The main reason was the combination of price and location. Many places were too difficult to deal with (the prices on the web were differnt than when you called, an answering machine to leave a message about availability, etc).

My preference is not to call anyone, but to do it all online.

When I made the reservation, Expedia was abundantly clear that my credit card would be charged the full amount of the hotel reservation the moment I made the reservation. Thank god!

Not only was the charge made immediately to my card, when my wife checked into the hotel there were no hassles. No request for a credit card, no request for a deposit. When she checked out it was just as easy as saying, good bye. No disclosed card numbers, no double charges, just the simple transaction that it is.

One reason I like the instant charging of my card for the full amount is that it avoid problems with credit limits in the future. On a recent trip to Brazil, the travel agency waited weeks and weeks to actually charge my card. Since the total cost of the trip was near my total credit limit, I was unable to use that card for anything until the travel agency charge posted.

I was also worried that if that charge posted too close to the trip date, I wouldn't be able to pay it off before the trip and wouldn't have the use of that card at all on the trip!

Expedia needs a thumbs up for first of all clearly informing their customers how the transaction will be handled and second for actually handling the transaction like they said it would be.

Orbitz and Caravan Motel Release Credit Card Information

Last week I made a reservation for an associate to stay at the Caravan Motel in Niagara Falls, New York. I made the reservation through www.orbitz.com.

The reservation form asked if I was making the reservation for myself or someone else. I selected the someone else option and was prompted for both the guest's name and my name as the credit card holder.

The website and reservation confirmation email implied that my credit card would only be charged if the guest was a no show. Well, actually, it was probably completely ambigious about whether I was going to pay for the reservation or if my associate would be asked to fork over some money when he checked out.

When he checked out, my associate remembers giving the clerk his Visa card. When he got home he was someone confused because the receipt he received was for a mastercard.

That was ease to figure out once we checked the number and discovered it was my Mastercard number. The Caravan Motel was nice enough to give out my full credit card number and expiration date to the guest who was clearly specified as not being the card holder on the reservation.

Orbitz claims to have very rapid customer service on their website: "We'll do our best to respond within 3 hours." Last wednesday, that would be about 4 days ago, I presented this problem to them via the customer service email form on their website and asked, "Is it your normal policy to give people's credit card numbers out to 3rd parties".

So far not a peep from them. The question, I should hope is quiet easy to answer. The answer of course should be absoslutely not! However, maybe the reality of the way they handle customer information is different. The real customer service issue of making me a satisfied customer is much more difficult.

So far, it doesn't appear they want to answer my simple question or offer any customer satisfaction.

New Blog Format

We've updated to a new blog format and the few entries we had will just be cut and pasted in, so the dates will be wrong.