Last minute not as big as a deal as planning ahead

Many travelers have spent this year planning last-minute escapes, knowing how easy it was to nab a decent hotel rate. But it’s time to rethink that strategy, as business travel rebounds and big city hotels raise rates.

Hotel-discount website Getaroom.com analyzed its data exclusively for Hotel Check-In, and found that a bigger percentage of customers are booking rooms more than 30 days before check-in this year than last year. “The real message to consumers is: Plan as far in advance as you can,” Bob Diener, president of Getaroom.com and a co-founder last decade of Hotels.com.

The shift comes as the major chains including Marriott and Starwood report that travel in recent months – mainly business travel – has started to rebound from 2009 levels.

In the last two months, 17% of Getarooms.com’s bookings were made for more than 30 days before check-in, vs. just 9.4% a year ago. The statistics reveal that “hotels are becoming more strategic,” Diener says. “They’re not discounting in a last-minute panic” as much as they had been earlier this year.

Examples of hotels that a year ago were offering last-minute promotions and these days are offering advance-purchase deals, according to Getaroom.com:

* New York City: St Giles Tuscany Hotels and St Giles Court Hotels (both, formerly W hotels)
* Chicago: Hyatt Regency Chicago, the James Hotel
* Washington D.C.: the Dupont, the Normandy
* Orlando: Walt Disney World Swan/Dolphin
* Las Vegas: Stratosphere
* San Francisco: Hotel Whitcomb
* San Diego: W San Diego

One of the more popular promotions hotels are increasingly running is the limited-time offers, Diener says.

By luring people with far-in-advance deals good for 48 or 72 hours, a hotel is able to fill a certain percentage of rooms with bargain seekers – mainly leisure travelers. Once it has sold enough rooms, the hotel then can raise rates for people who book at the last-minute – namely, business travelers.

“At the end of the day, it is the business traveler who is going to pay more because they don’t have the flexibility,” Diener says. “It’s a total change in how hotels market themselves,” he says. “A lot of people are still accustomed to booking last minute, and they are getting sticker shock.”

Plan ahead and save big with Carefreetrip.com.

SOURCE: USA Today

Travelers willing to bare all

According to a recent TripAdvisor survey, there is one thing staying home more during vacations: clothing. The online travel community asked 22,091 U.S. travelers if they would bare all at the beach and 48% said yes. This is up from last year’s nude beach survey, in which 31% of respondents said they would “love to see and be seen” at a clothing-optional destination.

“Travelers indicate in their reviews that the real appeal of nude beaches has nothing to do with flaunting one’s flesh or checking out the neighboring eye candy,” said Amelie Hurst, a TripAdvisor spokeswoman. “Rather the spaces often benefit from a lack of crowds and beautiful settings that can be enjoyed by any demographic.”

TripAdvisor dedicated one of its recent e-newsletters to the nakation trend, highlighting the top member-recommended beaches for travelers to “strip down to their smile.” Little Banana Beach in Skiathos, Greece, took top nod, followed by resorts in Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Australia, Croatia and France.

“While nude beaches might be less common in the U.S. than in other destinations around the world, the interest certainly appears to be there, with nearly half of U.S. travelers we surveyed appearing quite comfortable in their own skin and willing to bare it all waterside,” TripAdvisor spokesman Brooke Ferencsik said.

Naturally, the American Association of Nude Recreation has been making news as this travel trend grows. In fact, the group — dedicated to rebuffing common misunderstandings of the nudist way of life — hopes the recent news of full-body scanners and Spirit Airlines’ carry-on bag fee will encourage nude travel.

AANR’s executive director, Erich Schuttauf, shed some light on the association’s response to the new fee. “If more air travelers take a stand and a nakation in 2010, it could send a message to the airlines using checked and unchecked baggage fees as a way to charge the vacationing masses more money in this tight economy,” he said. “All you’ll need for the week (sunscreen, cap, sunglasses, shoes and toiletries) can fit in a small carry-on that will fit under the seat, avoiding even carry-on bag fees.”

Business is booming in the northernmost part of Haulover Beach in Miami Florida. It’s Not So Much a nude beach as a ‘clothing optional’ beach. You can wear clothes if you want without feeling uncomfortable about not being nude but sunbathing in the buff is common practice there.

The entire stretch of Haulover beach is a mile and a half long but it’s only the top .4 miles of the beach that is clothing optional. It’s a beautiful beach and visitors can enjoy white sands, good surfing, sand dunes, showers, and picnic facilities.

Although it is a nude beach, Haulover beach is not known for its ‘hot bodies’. It is a great place for ladies to sunbath comfortably topless without feeling like they are being ogled. Haulover Beach is located on Miami Beach between Sunny Isles Beach and Bal Harbour.

It’s nakations in 2010!

SOURCE: USA Today

Spirit Airlines charges customers up to $45 for carry-on

Spirit Airlines began enforcing its controversial plan to charge customers up to $45 for carry-on luggage on Sunday. The airline claims there were few problems with the fee on its first day, though it drew a mostly negative reaction from customers, judging by various media accounts from across the country.

The USA Today is reporting “It’s ridiculous for a carry-on,” Pat Spadafora, a 65-year-old passenger from Florida, told the Press of Atlantic City (N.J.) on Sunday as she waited to board a Sprit flight Sunday.

Echoing those sentiments was Lori Gorzynski, a Spirit passenger flying out of Orlando. Speaking to Channel 13 News of Orlando, Gorzynski also called the fee “ridiculous,” adding: “Why pay for carry-on? They already charge you for your flight. You have to pay for your luggage, to get checked and carry-on, it’s just another fee process.”

And, in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Spirit passenger Nicole Schneider tells WBMF News TV the fee caught her off guard on her Sunday flight.

“Obviously I have to pay it so I paid it, but it will probably hinder my chances of booking with Spirit again,” Schneider told the station.

Schneider added the to WBMF that she’s likely to book away from Spirit in the future. “Airlines like Delta and American, they don’t charge you for a carry-on,” she said.

Still, Spirit defended the carry-on fee, despite the criticism from passengers.

Airline spokeswoman Misty Pinson claims the carry-on fee will help “speed things up” at check-in. The Associated Press writes “Spirit … says it does not expect to profit from carry-on fees directly because price cuts have offset fee gains. But Pinson said that by shaving 6 or 7 minutes off the time that it takes to load and unload a plane, Spirit hopes to be able to add more flights.”

Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza also spoke about the fee Sunday, acknowledging “an understandable number of complaints.” Spirit claims to have offset the carry-on fee by lowering its airfares, though some critics have claimed that is not entirely true.

Still, Baldanza sticks to that assertion, saying that passengers complaining about the carry-on fee may not realize that the airline also has claimed to cut its fares in the process.

SOURCE: USA Today

And the 2010 winner is …

More than 40 airlines from around the world assembled at the World Airline Awards in Hamburg on 20th May 2010 to receive their accolades, which were handed out by Mr Edward Plaisted, Chairman of Skytrax. The award winners are selected by the airline industry’s most important audience, it’s customers. More than 17.9 million air travelers from over 100 different nationalities took part in the 10 month survey, between July 2009 and April 2010. The awards are respected and recognized around the world for being the only truly global, independent passenger survey of airline standards.

Asiana Airlines has been named the winner of the prestigious Airline of the Year Award. With that, the South Korean carrier edged out perennial heavyweight Singapore Airlines, which came in at No. 2. Asian and Middle Eastern dominated SkyTrax’ global top 10 rankings, which did not include a single North American carrier. Australia’s Qantas was the only carrier not from either of those regions to finish in the top 10.

The rest of the rankings: No. 3 Qatar Airways, No. 4 Cathay Pacific, No. 5 Air New Zealand, No. 6 Etihad Airways, No. 7 Qantas, No. 8 Emirates, No. 9 Thai Airways and No. 10 Malaysia Airlines. Canadian airlines took the top spot in two of the three big categories focusing on North America. Air Canada was named the top North American airline, edging out No. 2 Continental and No. 3 Delta. For the best service among North American Airlines, Canada’s WestJet took the top honor to finish ahead of No. 2 Virgin America and No. 3 Alaska Airlines. And, for the best North American low-cost carriers, Virgin America bested No. 2 WestJet and No. 3 Southwest.

Also of interest to North American passengers, the oneworld alliance — anchored by American — was named the world’s best frequent-flier alliance. That vaulted oneworld into the top spot over the Star Alliance, which includes United, Continental, US Airways and Air Canada as its North American carriers.

Winners of other categories:
Best low-cost airline: 1. AirAsia; 2. Air Berlin; 3. Virgin Blue
Best regional airline: 1. Dragonair; 2. Silkair; 3.Bangkok Airways
Most-improve airline:1. Garuda Indonesia; 2. Hainan Airlines; 3. Oman Air
Best leisure airline: 1. Thomson Airways; 2. TUIFly; 3. Monarch Airlines
Best in-flight entertainment: 1. Emirates; 2. Singapore Airlines; 3. Virgin Atlantic
Best cabin staff: 1. Singapore Airlines; 2. Malaysia Airlines; 3. Asiana Airlines
Best airline alliance: 1. oneworld; 2. Star Alliance; 3. SkyTeam
Best trans-Atlantic airline: 1. Virgin Atlantic; 2. British Airways; 3. Lufthansa
Best trans-Pacific airline: 1. Cathay Pacific; 2. Singapore Airlines; 3. Asiana
Best first-class airline: 1. Etihad; 2. Singapore Airlines; 3. Qantas
Best business-class airline: 1. Qatar Airways; 2 Singapore Airlines; 3. Etihad
Best premium economy class: 1. Qantas; 2. Air New Zealand; 3. ANA
Best economy class: 1. Malaysia Airlines; Qatar Airways; 3. Singapore Airlines

The World Airline Awards were established 1999, and based on the annual World Airline Survey. The 2009/2010 Survey included over 200 airlines, from the largest international airlines to domestic carriers, throughout the world. The survey demographics are underlined by more than 100 different nationality of air travelers taking part.

The survey measures over 38 different items of customer satisfaction for each airline’s product and service standards. Assessing the typical customer experience across Airport and On-board environments – from check-in to boarding, while on-board the customers rate seat comfort, cabin cleanliness, food and beverages, in-flight entertainment and many aspects of staff service.

Consumer Reports 12 most-annoying things about flying

Fees and rude and unhelpful staff are the two things that annoy air travelers the most. At least that’s according to a survey from Consumer Reports, which asked 2,000 Americans about their top complaints regarding air travel.

Fees actually took the top two spots among the air-travel gripes. With participants rating the annoyances on a 1-to-10 scale (10 being the most annoying), “luggage fees” topped the survey with a score of 8.4. A m0re general category of “added fees” placed second with a score of 8.1.

The next two gripes involved customer-service issues: “Rude or unhelpful staff” garnered a 7.7 rating from respondents while the inability “to reach a live service rep” drew a 7.6 score.

The survey also returned an interesting result on delays. Respondents actually cited “poor communication about delays” as being more annoying than actual “flight delays.” With that, Consumer Reports says that’s a “message to airlines” to “tell passengers what’s going on.”

The New York Post notes that “complaints about noisy kids rated a mere 4.9 on the scale.” Mark Kotkin, Consumer Reports’ director of survey research, tells the Post: “The thinking was that with a crying baby, what can you do about it?”

Survey results: Top air-travel gripes (on a 1-to-10 scale)
1. Luggage charges (8.4)
2. Added fees (8.1)
3. Rude or unhelpful staff (7.7)
4. Can’t reach a live service rep (7.6)
5. Poor communication about delays (7.1)
6. Seatmates who hog your space (7.0)
7. Flight delays (6.8)
8. People who hog carry-on space (6.7)
9. Long waits at baggage claim (5.9)
10. Long lines for security or check-in (5.2)
11. Puny/no snacks (5.1)
12. Crying babies, unruly kids (4.9)
Source: Consumer Reports

About the survey: The Consumer Reports National Research Center conducted a telephone survey of a nationally representative probability sample of telephone households. 2,000 interviews were completed among adults aged 18+. Interviewing took place fromJanuary 21-25. The margin of error is +/- 2% points at a 95% confidence level.

Nashville flooded and forgotten – Please help!

Keith Olbermann points out that with so many big stories making headlines today, many have overlooked the significant deadly flooding in Tennessee.

Carefreetrip.com will be donating 100% of all bookings revenue for the next two (2) weeks to help with this disaster of a wonderful place! Will you help?

Five airlines not to charge for carry-on

Five big airlines say they won’t charge customers to stow carry-on fees in overhead bins. That news that comes as backlash grows among some politicians on Spirit Airlines’ plans to charge fliers up to $45 to put carry-on bags in its overhead bins.

The five airlines that said they would not add such a fee: American, Delta, JetBlue, United and US Airways. The news apparently came at least partially at the behest of Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, long active in aviation industry issues.

Let’s hope they stick to this. We will continue to watch, especially with the impact of the Iceland volcano.

Warming up for another airline fee

Beginning May 1, coach passengers on American’s domestic flights that last more than two hours, as well as those on flights to Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America, will have to pay $8 for a blanket and inflatable neck pillow. The airline will throw in a $10 off Coupon for purchases of more than $30 at Bed Bath & Beyond stores.

On domestic flights of less than two hours, coach passengers won’t have access to blankets at all. Premium-class passengers on all American flights and coach passengers on longer international flights will continue to get free blankets and pillows.

American (AMR) says the fee is largely a bottom-line decision.

“Everything we do is evaluated in terms of what’s best economically for the company while still providing services customers want,” says American spokeswoman Andrea Huguely.

“I don’t think it’s an unreasonable fee,” says Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst at Forrester Research. “It gives the passenger some control. If they want a blanket they can pay extra for it; if not, they didn’t pay for it as part of their fare.”

Crucial travel strategies

How do I get a good Deal this year?

For one thing, keep track of those surcharges, and see if you can avoid flying on popular holiday travel dates. The airlines are banking on these high-demand days, and flexible travelers will benefit from adjusting their schedules accordingly.

Most importantly, compare, compare, compare. It’s a time-worn adage, but it’s also as relevant as ever this year. Airlines are in tough competition for a reduced number of travelers, and it’s fair to assume we’ll see lots of fare wars and competing sales as the summer travel season approaches. Start benchmarking fares to your destination as much as two or three months ahead of time, and monitor them for a few weeks to see what happens. When you find a price you like, you’ll know just how good a Deal you’re getting.

Further, this is a year where discounted last-minute flights may play a larger role in the airline business. Carriers will no doubt try to push up fares in advance of flights, with the hope that public uncertainty about pricing trends will lead people to book early rather than risk watching their fare go up. If you have a strong enough stomach, you may be rewarded with a Deal if wait until a week or two before your trip to book your flight. (Caveat: This won’t necessarily apply to the most popular destinations, such as Europe.)

Dealing with fees

Keep factoring ancillary fees into your fare comparisons, and consider airlines that charge fewer fees than the competition. Most importantly, keep up with all the new fees so that you know exactly what you’ll be paying, and try to travel with only a carry-on if you can.

United has an annual bag fee program that may work for frequent travelers. For $249 a year, you can check an unlimited number of bags on all United flights. If you know you’ll be traveling a lot, and United’s service and fares work for you, this could be a good money-saving option. So far, no other carriers have come out with a similar program.

Choosing an affordable destination

the real bargains will likely be on the ground, and savvy shoppers would be wise to start any search by looking for great hotel deals and worrying about airfare later. Most travelers take the opposite approach—airfare first, hotel almost as an afterthought—but unstable fare pricing in 2010 suggests this may not be the way to go. In fact, this is a good year to base your destination choices on price, since some destinations may offer deals too good to pass up.

Within hotels, high-end properties have generally seen larger price drops than other properties. This has resulted in price compression, where the difference between rates at high-end hotels and those at middle-of-the-pack accommodations has shrunk, making upscale rooms more accessible to budget-conscious travelers.

Airport security issues

You simply need to give yourself extra time. You may not need it here in the States, but consider it an investment in peace of mind. Abroad, give yourself an extra two hours or more beyond what you would normally budget. Again, you may not need it, but you may also be glad you arrived early.

Beyond time, be prepared for some new experiences. The Department of Homeland Security is expected to add roughly 300 whole-body imaging scanners to U.S. airports this year. These scanners can see beneath your clothing and detect some non-metallic items such as bomb-making materials and composite knives. They also create a greyscale image of your body, which many people feel is a violation of privacy. For the average traveler, this will be a very new and potentially unsettling aspect of airport security, but it appears these scanners will nevertheless become a part of the flying experience.

Lastly, keep an eye on the news, as the security situation is constantly evolving. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and foreign security officials may make policy changes, for better or worse, and you don’t want to be surprised at the airport. Make sure you pack in accordance with current restrictions so your security wait time is minimized. Use common sense and check anything that might invite time-consuming additional scrutiny.

SOURCE: USA TODAY

Airline fees on the rise, again

Continental, Delta, American and United Airlines have boosted their fuel surcharges on flights to Europe by $20. Surcharges vary by route, but the airlines typically impose fuel charges of about $242 on flights to London and $280 on routes to many popular destinations on the continent.

Delta began charging $8 more for the first checked bag and $7 more for a second for Tickets sold starting January 5, 2010. Continental did the same thing beginning with Tickets sold starting Saturday. United will charge $5 more than before. It takes effect on Tickets bought beginning Thursday for travel after January 21.

The three airlines will be charging $25 for the first checked bag and $35 for the second if the bags are checked at the airport. The fee is slightly lower for bags checked in online.

“It’s a match” of Delta’s higher bag fees, Continental spokeswoman Mary Clark says. “But we don’t normally comment on our rationale” for matching competitors’ pricing changes.

An American Airlines spokesman said the airline has not changed their fees, but they’re studying the moves by the other airlines. Southwest Airlines does not charge to check the first two bags.

It’s easy to see why airlines raise service fees. Their final results won’t be announced until later this month, but U.S. carriers are expected to post a combined 2009 loss of about $2.9 billion, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Airlines have cut flights and gone to smaller planes in response to weak passenger numbers and high fuel costs to try to limit losses.

CONTRIBUTING: USA TODAY, ASSOCIATED PRESS