Author: Travel Curmudgeon

July 29, 2015: Never to be at a loss for words or descriptives, US Vice President Joe Biden has described New York’s La Guardia as “third world”! Well he certainly got that right!

LGA, also honored as one of the worst airports in America, is a mish-mash of terminals, confusing entry and exit for both passengers and ground traffic, and operational nightmare with its extremely short over water and neighborhood runways.

July 27, 2015: Well by the looks of this picture from one of their busiest hubs for customer service at around 7:45 am last weekend at their busy DFW hub you wouldn’t think they were even open?

And in view of their second quarter revenue and earnings release over this past weekend — reporting a very profitable quarter profit of $1.7 billion one would think they might “staff up some”?

July 16, 2015: According to the American Association of Retired People (AARP) the best time to book a domestic flight is 47 days before take off… this is based on information from CheapAir.com which analyzed 5 million potential fares. And the best day to book is Tuesday before 3 pm Eastern Standard Time.

For the best deal to Europe they say book 276 days before planned departure – really? The Travel Curmudgeon disagrees – experience says that the more in advance one books the higher the fare – makes sense, planning that far in advance airlines can charge what ever they can get!
The TC’s advice – be vigilant and check fares often – a typical airfare changes more than 70 times – have a price in mind (based on your own research) and book when that price gets close. AARP needs to be more vigilant in their own research!!!

July 15, 2015: Seattle is known as a city of innovation – and cotton candy delivery to Safeco Field baseball fans is no exception.

July 10, 2015: IT’S OFFICIAL: San Francisco now has the highest nightly hotel room rates and has the distinction of being one of the highest priced—if not the highest—places to book a hotel room in the world!

According to my friends at Bloomberg, SF hotel rates jumped a whooping 88% in the last year to $397 a night. The city now ranks ahead of Geneva and Milan—with Chicago and Miami tied for second place here in the US!

VIVA CUBA!!!

Looks like Americans will soon be able to travel “legally” to our nearby neighbor Cuba—just 90 miles south of Miami.

Creative American travelers for years have been able to travel to Cuba—via intermediate stops in Mexico, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, Canada and other international locations. A simple official-looking loose extra page is added into your passport and off you go. A couple of US carriers, JetBlue Airwaysfor instance, have been taking US travelers to Cuba for years—their hook is they are offering an “educational tour or experience” and that qualifies for a travel exemption. Now other travel entities like U.S. Carriers, cruise ships, hotel chains and tour operators are lined up once the approval is granted.

July 8, 2015: Congratulations to our pals at United Airlines for once again shutting down the entire airline with a so called “computer glitch” at their reservations and operations center.

This is the second time this year that United has not only stranded passengers at key airport hubs around the country but also rolled over the problem to include flight and crew scheduling. Even though the problem has been solved, the recovery period will take several hours if not the entire day to bring the system back to normal operations and get passengers, planes and crews moving again. One wonders if this is truly a software glitch for software problem—and if human error somewhere along the bumpy way might be the real culprit?

July 7, 2015: GetMyBoat is a new app that will help you secure a boat rental —claims to be the world’s largest “pier-to-pier” boat rental agency. The San Francisco based firm boasts they have the worlds largest platform for boat rentals — 30,000 boats for rent in over 3,000 locations in 135 countries! There are other apps like Cruzin and Boat Bound — and for the adventurous weekend yachtsman try GetMyBoat. More than 22 million Americans own boats with an average use of 22 days a year — so plenty of available inventory. Make sure you have boaters’ insurance and full coverage from the owner and rental agency. Stand aside Airbnb — here comes GetMyBoat sailing your way!!!

July 6, 2015: Finally — US airline passengers are “mad enough” at airline pricing and have at long last convinced the Justice Department to look into airline pricing.

And to also look at “add on fees” for services like checked baggage, assigned seats and on Spirit Airlines just about everything except use of the bathrooms — well so far they haven’t charged for that! Net profits for US air carriers in 2014 exceeded $12 billion dollars—with American Airlines, Delta, United and low cost Southwest Airlines (sorry not any more low cost—maybe low class?) controlling 80 % of the US market! Delta, American, and United charged combined baggage fees in excess of $2 billion in 2014. US air carriers offer over 2 million seats per day for sale — with a very few —if you can move fast enough — available for frequent flyer use. But fees on free flights cannot add up to over $1000 on an international ticket. At some “hub” airports one airline can control over 80% of all terminal gates.