Consumer affairs

By Robert McGarvey

When I signed up for the Delta SkyMiles Gold card, mainly to get the welcome bonus cache of miles, the fee was $99. Now it’s been bumped up to $150.  Do I keep it or cut it up?

Know that in the past year or so I’ve cut up a United Explorer card and a Barclays AA card.  I live in Phoenix where the United presence is slender so it went. Delta doesn’t have many more flights but it does have a swank new Phoenix terminal and club and it also is an airline with a real relationship with Amex and its Platinum card (club access, yes, that will be capped in 2025 but it’s better than the bupkis at United).

As for American, I’d gotten a  Southwest card for the welcome bonus and it flies to pretty much all the useful AA domestic locations and I saw no point in carrying both cards. So AA went through the shredder.

Is it now the turn of the Delta card?

I’ve already used the welcome bonus – it plus existing miles bought two coach tickets to Madrid in the summer and that wiped out my stash of around 300,000 miles.  Pricey? You bet. But in the era of devalued air miles, if you have ‘em, burn ‘em.

As for my verdict on the pricier Delta SkyMiles Gold, I just transferred it from a tertiary wallet into the wallet I carry every day.  I have decided to keep it.

Amex raised the fee but also threw in a new perk: Spend $10,000 in the calendar year and get a $200 Delta credit. That’s up from $100, which hadn’t been enough to entice me but the $200 does.

The $10,000 spend also earns 10,000 SkyMiles, worth around $120 at a valuation of 1.2 cents per mile. Yes, I could put the spend on Amex Plat and get putatively richer miles…but, honestly, in my redemptions I am probably only getting around 1.2 cents per mile anyway.  Sure, I could play the redemption game more cleverly but I know me and my appetite for that kind of gaming.  

Other perks with the Delta card include a free bag check, priority boarding in the main cabin, and a 15% discount on awards travel. There’s also a $100 credit on a hotel stay booked through Delta and paid in advance.  I especially value the 15% discount awards – which saved me upwards of 40,000 miles on my Madrid tickets.

Perks I won’t use include a discount on inflight purchases and secondary insurance on rental cars. I don’t recall the last time I did either.

Aren’t these calculations tedious? They are. But they have emerged as essential in today’s credit card world.  Used to be, most of us could get by using a few mainstay cards for just about all purchases but nowadays as we pursue welcome bonuses, cashback, and in my case a Bitcoin reward (via a Venmo card and, thank you for asking, I’m up 73.5% on my holdings), cards are in a state of continuous churn.

As cards approach their renewal data, instead of just letting them renew, I find myself doing a quick and dirty cost benefit analysis. I also find myself weighing adding a new card with a rich welcome bonus instead of keeping a veteran card.

That means, in 2025, when the SkyMiles Gold card comes up for renewal, again I will do a fast calculation: keep it or cut it.  

That decision all comes down to how much value I have gotten from the card and timeframe is the past year and a forecast for the coming year.  What happened long ago no longer figures in the decision.

Does card shuffling hurt one’s credit score? I’ve seen a tiny dent, a loss of a few FICO points, mainly due to a loss of some credit capacity.  The two cards I recently cut had huge credit lines and no utilization.

But I don’t see any meaningful consequences of a loss of a couple points. Your mileage might vary.

It’s up to us to get the most value out of our credit cards.

By Robert McGarvey

I come not to praise Dan Buttner’s Blue Zones but to bury it – or, rather, the New York Times did the execution and I am here to lament the fading of an idea I have admired and recommended for 15 years.  

The essence of the original Blue Zones story is that Buettner found five discrete communities where the inhabitants live a lot longer than the rest of us.  They are Ikaria (a remote Greek island). Sardinia (the villages up in the mountains), Okinawa, Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, and Loma Linda CA, a town around 60 miles east of Los Angeles that is distinguished by the fact that 9000 of the 25,000 residents are 7th Day Adventists who are vegetarians and don’t smoke or drink alcohol.

The kicker is that in these communities people are 10 times more likely to reach 100 than the rest of us and they also are generally healthier.

Sadly, the Nicoya Peninsula and Okinawa are fading out of Blue Zones status as the traditional lifestyles are replaced by a 21st century convenience and fast food culture.  But Singapore recently was added and it, interestingly, is not a product of a traditional lifestyle so much as it has been created by a society that seeks to control pretty much everything.

What do residents of the Blue Zones have in common? They eat little meat (maybe once a week), they eat nuts, they drink alcohol in moderation (or not at all), and they get a lot of exercise, not typically in a gym but more commonly as an ordinary part of their lives (walking, gardening, etc).

What they don’t do is follow health fads on TikTok, consume “super foods,” frequent expensive “wellness” spas or, really, do much of anything except live the kind of life people in their communities have lived for a very long time.

For me, all this is practical, reasonably easy to follow and it makes good commonsense. So for a decade I’ve tried to live something of a Blue Zones life and it’s not terribly hard to do.  It also has much in common with a traditional Mediterranean Diet so cooking ideas are easy to come by and not expensive to implement.

Where did all this go wrong?  The New York Times story’s subhead points us in a direction: “Communities certified as ‘blue zones,’ a concept that promotes healthy living and longevity, are multiplying, but some wonder if the movement is just another gimmick.”

Some 70 communities in the US have worked with the Blue Zones company to create better, healthier lifestyles for their residents. 

Along the way, a Blue Zones tag has also found its way on cans of beans, bottled teas and frozen burrito bowls.  

Meantime, too, some real estate developers have determined it’s a selling point to be a Blue Zones and so they are claiming.  Noted the New York Times: “in some cases, it appears to be more a marketing strategy than anything else, joining a flurry of real estate certification programs and having little to do with the modest way of life that Blue Zones is meant to reflect.”

Not every community even wants to be a Blue Zone. In South Phoenix, a lower income neighborhood with a majority Hispanic population, there has been a push to implement Blue Zones lifestyles – but that has been met by vocal opposition.  

Said one group of opponents: “The Collaborative for Black & Indigenous Land Restoration and Reparations, is choosing to push against this project that does not share the decision making power with the community it intends to help.”

Here’s my bottomline: I still like and recommend the original Blue Zones concept that the traditional lifestyles of various communities foster longevity.  We can adopt what pieces we want and likely will see some benefits.

But I for one have no intention of buying products that are slapped with a Blue Zones seal of approval, and neither do I want my community (midtown Phoenix) to go all in on a Blue Zones project. And I definitely have no interest in buying a home in a “certified” Blue Zones. If I did I’d probably move to Loma Linda.  But I don’t.

As far as the six Blue Zones, I’m interested in visiting Ikaria but can’t say I’m keen on any of the others.

And I’ll still mainly eat a Blue Zones diet that’s veg forward with sparing intake of meats.

I was walking 5 or 6 miles a day before I stumbled on the Blue Zones and still do.  That won’t stop.

But I won’t try to tell you what to do.

It’s your life, live it your way. 

By Robert McGarvey

We’ve heard about it for at least a decade but now the warnings are getting louder: the robots are coming to hotels and restaurants near you.

Probably the loudest gong was rung at this year’s CES in early January.  Headlined AP: “Robot baristas and AI chefs caused a stir at CES 2024 as casino union workers fear for their jobs.”

Tech Times headlined likewise: “Robot Bartenders: CES 2024 Showcases Future of Hospitality, Sparking Job Security Worries.”

CNET got in the trenches with the robots: “I Tried Ice Cream, Stir Fry, Beer and Cocktails, all Made by Machines at CES ’24.”

Understand two facts: even though I am all for helping workers keep good jobs, I also am not opposed to replacing humans in many hospitality positions with robots.  

Will that in fact happen?

Headlines aside, no time soon.

The Hotel Tech Report has a summary that seeks to separate fact from fiction. It is a year old but much of what it reports remains true. Robots are coming our way but they aren’t here yet.

Case in point: housekeeping jobs are not presently threatened, although truth to tell most hotel managers would love to put a stake in housekeepers if in fact affordable machines could replace them.  It’s simply the case that we are far removed from being able to create a robot that can make a bed and that would have a clue between what’s trash on the floor of a hotel room and what needs to be preserved for the guest.  Is that dirty, torn white sock on the bathroom floor trash?

Yes, robots can deliver towels and probably can do a better job operating the slick window coverings I find in many hotels (and that I struggle to use properly).  But it will be some years before housekeeping jobs are endangered. I can see big hotels deploying robots to do some of a housekeeper’s work – vacuuming is another case in point.

But much of the present housekeeper’s job is beyond a robot’s current ken.

Another case in point: robot bartenders are real, they actually do work – see Royal Carribean’s Bionic Bar.  There’s also a plus to a robot bartender: it’s unlikely to steal from the establishment, either cash or booze.  But devices such as RCL’s robots are costly – prices are upwards of $100,000 for one device and humans would still be needed to replenish the bottles and do a clean up of the place.  A robot’s useful life expectancy is also unknown. So far, robot bartenders are deployed as conversation starters more than as replacements for people.

Can I think of jobs that actually are in jeopardy in hospitality? I can.  At least some dealers at casinos are not long for the world.  Robots already are in use at some Macau casinos, with apparently good results.

Aren’t humans needed to spot cheaters?  I’m not persuaded that dealers are good at that except in the case of the clumsiest cheats.  Eyes in the sky at casinos watch every move at the tables and there also are many casino workers whose jobs are to monitor action at tables. Dealers aren’t essential in this security and if casino management believe robots are better for the bottomline, bet on the demise of dealers.

How about front desk personnel at hotels?  The experts say yes – but, you know, I’d say it has largely already happened but it’s not robots who are replacing front desk staff but guests.  I can’t remember the last time I checked out at the front desk – it’s accomplished with a few clicks on my phone.  I’ve also used self check in at hotels and have no complaints. Hotel management has cleverly outsourced many front desk tasks to us.

The conclusion: the robots are coming to hospitality but so far it’s more talk than actual job loss by humans.  It’s taken a good decade for bots to adequately replace humans, most of the time, in providing customer service via phone – and there still are times when the bots completely strike out.

I expect to see human bartenders and waiters and cooks and housekeepers for some years to come. Whether we’d rather interact with machines or not.

By Robert McGarvey

Maybe it’s just whom I know but I am encountering more people who have set what I view as genuinely stupid travel goals.

I don’t mean goals such as spending at least a week abroad every year or seeing the big 5 animals on an African safari. Such goals are of course personal and they may be enriching. I’ve had such goals myself (e.g., doing two Caminos in two years or traveling to northern Ireland frequently enough to have some understanding of the Troubles).

What gets my blood pressure boiling is a goal such as visiting all 50 US states and this week that goal roared in front of my eyes because the Financial Times – an otherwise very credible British newspaper – ran a piece entitled “From Alabama to Wyoming: how I joined America’s 50-state club.”

The author, an FT staffer, noted: “though it is a strange, and admittedly arbitrary, endeavour, it is one that growing numbers of travellers are undertaking. The All Fifty Club was founded in 2006 to help ‘track, share, and celebrate the accomplishment of visiting all 50 states.’ It now counts more than 10,500 members, about 85 per cent of whom have completed the quest, with the remainder closing in on it.”

The author further noted that this is part of a trend called “completist travel.” Other such goals are visiting all 193 countries recognized by the UN – which would mean trips to North Korea, Somalia, Haiti, Russia, Burkina Faso and other, shall we say, off the beaten path destinations with little to commend them to visitors. I assure you my life would not be richer if I traveled to Burkina Faso and I doubt yours would be either.

And of course there is to my mind the lunatic obsession with going to Antarctica to be able to claim to have visited 7 continents.  I admit I know a lot of people who have done this or who insist they want to. If I still sent Christmas cards I’d cross them off the list but since I don’t anymore I will have to content myself with knowing I’ve crossed them off an imaginary list.

Who cares about going to all 7 continents? I don’t.  I’ve been to four, would gladly go to Africa and Australia if need or opportunity arose, but I wouldn’t go to Antarctica if an all expenses paid cruise landed in my inbox.  I couldn’t reconcile my damage to the planet in going to that ice cube at the bottom of the planet with whatever pleasure I might experience and, frankly, if I get a craving to go there I throw some ice cubes on my kitchen floor, put on heavy hiking shoes and walk on them for a while. I could complete the simulation of the experience by watching a few YouTube videos of penguins, although they now apparently are disappearing from Antarctica.  

But to my mind the most pointless completist mission is visiting all 50 states – and I see many acquaintances on Facebook celebrating their closing in on the magic number.

Not me. I have been to around 30 (I don’t count driving as fast as I could across Indiana as being there) and, you know, I am comfy with that number. I plain don’t want to visit most of the states I have never been in. Sorry about that North and South Dakota, but I don’t care. Ditto Mississippi. I find it unimaginable that I will ever visit them and I find it inexplicable that somebody would want to visit them just to get a few more notches on an imaginary belt.

OK, I get it. A harcore Elvis fan would want to go to Tupelo Miss.

And I know a motorcycle fan who loves the annual Sturgis ND event and that’s fine for him.  But I have never ridden a motorcycle and have no intention of picking it up now,

I am not opposed to going to states I haven’t been to, it’s just that I have never had a reason to go and doubt that will change.

And I’m flatly opposed to contributing to global pollution by traveling to places just to check a box to achieve a pointless “goal.”

Good goals are where we grow – emotionally, intellectually, somehow. A pointless completist goal is, well, pointless. Just don’t go.

by Robert McGarvey

I have stepped into the Weimar Republic. Not the good parts – the free speech, a genuine democracy and excitement bubbling through philosophy, painting, architecture – but the galloping inflation that pounded the mark into near worthlessness,

Of course I am actually speaking about airline miles and I will tell why momentarily.

First, a history lesson.  The 1920s Weimar Republic was yoked by crippling debts from WW I and a ruined economy.  The upshot was a currency in free fall.  As reported in Smithsonian, “In January 1923, a dollar cost 17,000 marks. Just three months later, in April, that figure reached 24,000. The numbers skyrocketed each month, reaching 353,000 in July, 4.6 million in August, 98.9 million in September, 25.3 billion in October and 2.2 trillion in November. The sorry climax arrived in December, when the exchange rate topped out at 4.2 trillion marks to the dollar.”

The hyperinflation was so vigorous that if you were given a 100 mark note at noon, you would have spent it by 12:05, on just about any tangible goods likely to hold value from shoes (they didn’t have to fit you) to beer, butter and bread (the three building blocks of the German diet in that era).

My thesis today is that air miles are on the precipice of becoming kin to the Weimar mark as ever more miles are handed out as welcome mats for taking a new credit card through miles accrued for buying a Big Mac with an airline credit card.  There simply is no way to count how many miles are distributed daily.

In the old days we earned our miles the honest way: by flying. Now we earn them every way and of course we earn so much more.

There aren’t many more flights however. In 2004 there were 630 million domestic flight enplanements.  In 2019 there were 811 million. (The numbers from 2020 – 2022 are Covid tainted.)

That’s around 25% more enplanements.

In 2002 there were 119 million passengers boarding international flights at US airports.  In 2023 there were 175 million international passengers.  That’s a significant jump, yes, but think about all the extra miles we earn.

Just this morning I picked up 260 Amex rewards miles at a periodontist!

That’s the prelude that explains why yesterday I used 302,600 Delta miles to buy two coach – not comfort class, coach – tickets to Madrid from Phoenix in July.

I wiped out the miles earned as welcome rewards on a couple of Delta credit cards and emptied all but 3000 rewards miles at Amex.  Yesterday I woke up with over 300,000 possible Delta miles. Today I have under 10,000 in multiple accounts, kind of the spare change amid couch cushions.

And I don’t regret any of it, don’t feel bad about what I did. Indeed I celebrate and commend likewise to you.

A few months ago I did a similar wipe of a Southwest miles stash.

How many miles are you hoarding?

Remember: the smart credo today with airline miles if you have ‘em, burn ‘em. Because tomorrow they will be worth less.

As for why, specifically, I cashed in the miles now for July flights, it’s that I anticipate vigorous demand for flights to Europe again in summer 2024.  The economy is roaring (the pessimists who say otherwise simply are wrong or perhaps are just lying for political purposes).  Flights to Europe will fill up.  I wanted as much choice as I could get and that meant shopping early.

Maybe there are better uses of miles – perhaps in acquiring merchandise. I never have, can’t say, but I doubt it, simply because the machinery that now cranks out miles for just about everything we can do or buy is well oiled and relentless. Thirty years ago it was a rare month when I accrued 5000 miles – that basically meant I’d flown from LAX to Dublin – whereas now it is the exceptionally rare month that I don’t bring in 5000 miles via credit cards.

You too probably.

Airline miles today are a 2024 equivalent of the German mark a century ago. That’s just fact.

If you have miles, burn ’em before they are further devalued.

By Robert McGarvey

Just what have I learned after four camping trips in 2023, eight nights of sleeping on the ground in Bryce Canyon, Sedona, Lake Roosevelt AZ, and Verde Valley AZ?  

Keep in mind I am a camping newbie.  I never camped as a kid growing up in urban New Jersey and only once had I been persuaded by an editor to write a camping story and I literally packed it in and checked into a motel after one night.  That failed experiment was around 30 years ago.

Why did I decide to give camping a real go in 2023?

The underlying goal has simply been to break out of my comfort zone and to embrace nature.  There are lots of ways to break out of a comfort zone. For me camping was an obvious choice. After a lifetime of urban living I had chosen to shatter my beliefs about what I needed in my daily life.

The big plus: getting out into nature just is good for us.  There is testimony from so many, from Thoreau (“we can never have enough of nature”) to Frank Lloyd Wright (“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you”).

Understand this: tent camping is not comfortable.  The ground one sleeps on is hard and in my case that is with a sleeping pad, an inflatable sleeping pad, and a sleeping bag good to 20 degrees.  My goal isn’t to create a comfortable night’s sleep, it’s to create a night’s sleep and this gear – plus a camp blanket – has given me enough comfort to get a restful sleep even when the night time temperature fell to around 26F as it recently did in Clear Creek campground in Verde Valley (and the forecast had called for temps in the mid thirties).  

After every trip I add something new.  Not to achieve comfort, just to get a little better at camping.

The last trip prompted me to accept that the inexpensive tent I had wasn’t what I needed and so I splurged on an Aurora Highrise Tent that is tall enough so that I can stand up in it – and unless you’ve done it you have no idea how awkward it is to change clothes sitting on a sleeping bag.

After a few miserable efforts to cook on a camp fire I bought a Coleman propane stove which makes it easier and quicker to make coffee in the morning, cook soup in the afternoon, and even crisp Spam for an evening meal.  No, I haven’t (yet) partaken of the freeze dried foods favored by dispersed campers but even that stuff needs a jolt of hot water to make it edible.  But neither have I taken up ambitious camp cookery, although I did buy a copy of a camping cookbook authored by long ago neighbors of mine.

Camp fires, by the way, are great – for ambience and morning warmth.  I’ve built one at every campsite but after it took me a half hour to get water boiling for coffee on my first camping trip, I opted for the faster propane route for food and coffee.

But there’s still more to buy – indeed I now have a bag packed with miscellaneous smalls that have proven to be necessities. Such as an axe (for firewood), a butane lighter (for lighting the fire), a mallet (for pounding tent stakes into the ground), aluminum cookware and aluminum plates and cups, a tent footprint (essentially an under floor that prolongs the life of a tent’s floor in the desert where sharp rocks and cactus needles are enemies), a tent lantern and also headlamps for finding the lavatory in the night.

I’ve also expanded my camping wardrobe to include a base layer which is gear to keep warm at night.  Mine now includes thermal underwear, heavy sweatpants, a thick Helly Hansen hooded sweatshirt, and a knit cap (heat escapes the body through the scalp, they say at campsites). There also are sandals to quickly put on.

Approximate cost of this gear: all in it’s around $2000.

But my 2024 camping plan already includes reserved stays in Organ Pipe National Monument, Joshua Tree, Sedona, and Chiricahua National Monument (which could soon become a national park).  I figure around 20 days in 2024. I’ll get my money’s worth…and I’ll do it in nature.

All the while attacking my comfort zone limitations. I do not urge you to camp. I do urge you to set a 2024 resolution to attack one of your cherished comfort zones. It may not feel good but it is good for you.

By Robert McGarvey

Reuters dropped the bomb: Exclusive: US scrutinizing airline frequent flyer programs: “The U.S. Transportation Department is scrutinizing the frequent flyer programs of major U.S. airlines for potential deceptive or unfair practices, the agency said Thursday as regulators step up oversight of the airline industry.”

The trigger of course is the Durbin-Marshall bill that’s in the Senate where the Senators complain about “troubling reports that airlines are engaged in unfair, abusive, and deceptive practices with respect to these loyalty programs.  For example, reports have suggested that airlines are changing point systems in ways that are unfair to consumers, including by devaluing points, meaning it takes more points than initially marketed to achieve the promised rewards.”

There’s no questioning reality: airlines do, routinely and seemingly arbitrarily, devalue points.  Just last month Southwest sliced 4% off the value off its Rapid Rewards. Just this month Alaska Airlines significantly devalued its miles.  

The devaluation part is beyond debate. But even so I do not expect meaningful federal restraints regarding how airlines manage their miles programs.

Miles are big money for airlines. United lifted the kimono when it valued its loyalty program at north of $21 billion.  That program is worth more than the rest of the airline.

Delta meantime expected to pull in around $7 billion this year from American Express and much of that money is for rewards miles.

The carriers will fight with all their considerable might to derail federal efforts to control how they manage their awards programs.

I do not see the regulators prevailing.

Airline rewards strike me as an updated iteration of S & H Green Stamps, which were everywhere in retail during the 1960s.  I personally remember hijacking some of my family’s green stamps and cashing them in for a Zippo lighter.  I also remember losing all interest in the stamp programs immediately thereafter.  

S & H Green stamps actually had a stated cash value – they carried the note: “Value 1 ⅔ mills” which is 1/5th of a penny. But their real value was cashing them in for consumer goods, everything from blenders to dolls and of course cigarette lighters.  I know nobody who ever claimed the cash value, ever.

Do understand that S & H owned and of course controlled the distribution centers where stamps were traded for goods.  S & H naturally bought merchandise at wholesale, sold at retail, and it had complete control over the value it attached to stamps in those trades.

Of course there was grumbling about how the stamp companies priced their merchandise.  But we played and continued to play because, well, it was all free.

It wasn’t of course. Grocers for instance paid the stamp companies for the stamps that were handed out to grocery shoppers.  The stamp companies in fact were wildly profitable, in part due to how they valued the merchandise stamps could “buy,” but also because of the fees exacted from retailers (who naturally raised their prices to pay these new costs).

The stamp companies were cash machines. For instance: Curt Carlson built his fortune on the back of his Gold Bond Stamps. When he died in 1984 the New York Times obit reported: “For a corporation whose more than 100 separate companies include the Radisson and Regent International hotel chains, T.G.I. Friday’s and half a dozen other restaurant chains, several travel agencies, a cruise line, the nation’s largest marketing services company, vast real estate holdings and a host of other operations in 140 countries, the Carlson Companies had distinctly humble beginnings.”

The Times continued: “At a time when some local department stores were seeking to assure repeat business by giving customers Security Red trading stamps, exchangeable for premiums, Mr. Carlson realized that such stamps would be ideal for grocery stores, whose identical products left them little room to distinguish themselves from the pack.

Acting on his vision, Mr. Carlson created the Gold Bond Stamp Company in 1938, with a $55 loan.”

Understand, it wasn’t regulation that killed off the various retail stamp companies. It was the death of consumer interest, as alternatives – such as airline miles! – seemed more suited to the times.  Who wanted a free toaster where the same effort could produce a free flight to Paris?

The time will come when airline rewards programs fade away. We may be nearing that time as more consumers find it very difficult to trade miles for flights they want – 70% of us have stashes of miles.

By some counts as few as 8% of airline rewards miles are redeemed in a year.  The argument is that we are stockpiling them as we aim to cash in a big trip – but just maybe we will never have enough points because the airlines keep moving the goalposts.

Airlines will continue to mint rewards miles until we lose interest.

I just don’t see the carriers changing their ways. Not this year, not until we and they wake up and stop caring about miles.  We’re a long way from there.

By Robert McGarvey

Are we finally at the end of resort fees?

Sometimes called amenity fees or – my favorite – urban amenity fees.

So some now think that is now happening and a flash point was when Joe Biden used his State of the Union speech to call for an end to junk fees and he specifically called out “resort fees,” noting they are often charged by joints that don’t even qualify as resorts.

Even when it in fact is a resort, do you use the pool, the gym, or property wi fi? I never use the first two – can’t recall the last time I did – and I use hotel wi fi only when I can’t create a hot spot on my phone, a vastly more secure connection anyway.

It is laughable that resort fee defenders say that resort fees deliver more value than the charge itself but they don’t acknowledge that many who pay the fee get no value at all from it. Literally zip.

Not laughable is that nowadays it has become very hard – perhaps impossible – to talk your way out of paying the fee. A decade ago, maybe. Not now.

Enter the Hotel Fees Transparency Act, introduced in the US Senate by Senators Moran (R-Kan) and Klobuchar (D-Minn).

Said Moran: “This commonsense legislation requires hotels and other short-term lodging providers to display and advertise the total price of their room, so Kansans can be certain that the listed price is what they will pay at check out.”

Said Klobuchar: “Too often, Americans making reservations online are being met with hidden fees that make it difficult to compare prices and understand the true cost of an overnight stay. This bipartisan legislation would help improve transparency so that travelers can make informed decisions.”

The American Hotels and Lodgings Association (AHLA) supports the legislation: ““The Hotel Fees Transparency Act is an important bill that will create a single standard for mandatory fee display across the entire lodging ecosystem – from hotels to online travel agencies, metasearch sites, and short-term rental platforms,” said AHLA President & CEO Chip Rogers. “We know consumers shop for travel across multiple sites, and this bill is a pivotal step toward creating a more transparent booking process for guests.” 

AHLA says, by the way, that 6% of hotels charge resort fees. Google takes a stab at a number and estimates 10+ percent.

So what’s the catch? Why is AHLA backing the bill?  Partly it’s because there are more efforts in state houses (California for instance) to ban resort fees. The California law bans “offering a price for a good or service that does not include all mandatory fees or charges other than taxes or fees imposed by a government on the transaction.” That language provides no wiggle room.

Similar legislation is percolating in Pennsylvania. Rep. Nick Pisciottano, the bill’s author, said: “You get to see the price, the whole price, and nothing but the price at the very beginning so you can make your decision on whether the real cost is worth it.” 

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way this wind is blowing.

Then there’s the mounting push against such fees at the federal level, from the White House to the Senate. With the House in a dysfunctional condition it’s unlikely to see meaningful legislation on this emerging, but the Biden White House and the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau which has targeted “junk fees” – everywhere from banks to hotels – seem intent on wiping out resort fees via executive actions.

All that is why AHLA backs the Moran – Klobuchar bill. It looks to the industry trade group to be a lesser evil than, say, the California law or what CFPB might cook up.

But will that bill in fact mean the end of resort fees?

Very probably the moniker “resort fee” will vanish.  But we may start seeing more creative naming that is intended to skirt around the language of legislation. The Los Angeles Times has reported that some Las Vegas strip restaurants and bar have imposed fees nearing a 5% surcharge that’s labeled a “concession fee,” whatever that means.  

Hotel industry watchers of a cynical mind believe we will see ever more creative labeling that’s intended to pick a few more dollars out of our pockets. Put me in that cynical camp.

The only way that won’t happen is if we scream – loudly and often – that these fees by any other name are just as repugnant.

By Robert McGarvey

I laughed out loud as I read the AFAR Magazine headline: “This Is Your Last Chance to Score a 75,000-Point Bonus With Southwest’s Credit Card Offers.”

Rubbish.

Yes, that particular initiative expired but there will be more. Very possibly better.

The reality is that US consumer debt keeps trickling ever higher – it’s now $17.29 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  That number is fed by home mortgages, student loans and credit cards.

Now dig into those numbers.  Home mortgages have dipped substantially as consumers flee from >7% rates on 30 year fixed rate paper. As I type this the rate is 7.44% for a consumer with good credit.

That number has triggered a halt in trade up transactions as homeowners with >4% loans just say no to trading up to a new, bigger home because that would entail maybe a doubling of their mortgage interest rate.

Student loans, meantime, have edged up but just a bit and there’s also rising anxiety that this market may go bust as more people decide to forego a college degree. College enrollment has dropped by 10% in the past decade.  

And then there’s the story in my mailbox.  At least once a week I get a “pre-approved” credit card offer, nowadays frequently a cashback card with promises of maybe $300 in cash after spending around $3000 in the first 90 days.  Call me skeptical but I have taken two of these offers, just to see if the money was that easy to earn. It was.  

I am not accepting offers of new cashback cards because the two new cashback cards I have are now stashed in a wallet I don’t use (it’s a storage case for unloved credit cards).  

That’s because Venmo just (temporarily) raised its top cashback rate to 6%!  I have that credit card and am now using it a lot more. No other card in my wallet hits that number. Venmo wins.  For now.

The point of all this: banks are tossing out ever sweeter offers in order to prop up their cashflow as mortgage monies slow and skepticism about student loans rises.  Credit cards suddenly look like the safest bet for bankers who want to keep their income flowing.

As for airline mileage cards, this year I opened two such cards – Southwest and Delta.  I already used the Southwest miles and will use the Delta miles in a month or so. I don’t much use either card anymore because I get better returns on the cashback cards (6% vs 1 or 2% on the airline cards).

So, yes, I am beginning to eye new airline cards because I am a follower of the Brancatelli Law that the only way to win the airline mileage game is by scoring tasty signing bonuses. The bonuses are easy money.

Which brings me back to the Afar commentary on the Southwest card.  The bonuses – understand – are funded by and driven by the issuing banks. They want their cards in more wallets so they can hope to earn more swipe fees. (And they also hope their lobbyists can strangle the Credit Card Competition Act which big retailers are trying to push through Congress and the bankers are fighting back because it would lower swipe fees.)

For now, the bankers are operating on the assumption that the swipe fees will continue to flow in — and that means, by the way, that it isn’t banks that are funding those welcome bonuses but rather consumers who pay in cash (and thus get no rewards).

The bankers are bribing us with what amounts to free money from their perspective and if we actually begin using the cards that will produce more swipe fees for them so they win again.

Right now I am pretty sure I will soon see a generous bonus on an Alaskan Airlines card – one arrives seemingly monthly but I haven’t bitten. But with just a few more miles to sweeten their offer I will.

I almost took a 60,000 mile TAP card bonus last week.  But I didn’t because I know better is coming.

I just need to be patient.

Right now we can wait because, honestly, a better welcome deal is coming.

But watch the mortgage market. If rates dip below 5% and volumes go up…our card welcome bonuses may get pinched. But that day isn’t in view.

Wait for the right card deal. It will come.

By Robert McGarvey

The headline in a Phocuswire piece caught my eye: “WHY SMART AIRLINES WILL FIND VALUE IN PRIORITIZING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.”

Put aside the obvious jab that airlines and smart is an oxymoron rather like a kindly sadist – the terms just don’t go together.

However, I also don’t think airlines and customer experience belong in the same sentence, at least not when there is the suggestion that they care about our experience.

Exhibit A in my case that they don’t care is a Wapo story I’d read the day before: “Self-serve snack bars are coming to a flight near you” proclaimed that headline. 

The pettiness is in the details. The Wapo piece reported that United is initiating self-service snack kiosks on some flights out of O’Hare.  In doing this United joins The JetBlue Pantry which is available on some flights.

At the United kiosk coach passengers will be able to gorge on a veritable groaning board of delicacies consisting of a “limited supply of water and the snacks offered during the complimentary service,” said United.

Wapo elaborated that the feast would include “items like fruit bars from That’s It, Undercover chocolate quinoa crisps and Savory snack mix.”

Time for a sanity check: would you give a hoot about any of this?  Would you walk down the aisle to grab your share?

I won’t.

Let us say you are on a long flight in coach – cross country, say.  You anticipate being hungry at the four hour mark.  Would you not have bought a sandwich at an airport restaurant or maybe brought some personal favorite snacks from your favorite market?  I know I would.  

For years I have had a thou shall not eat airline comestibles policy – except on international flights (where I eat out of boredom). It’s a good rule, I commend it to you and if you do need to eat inflight bring your own grub.

Back at Phocuswire, a thesis of that piece is “Any airline working to recover passenger volumes, regain loyalty with millennials and engage Gen Z – who are fast becoming the dominant market – must be seen to be improving the customer experience for their passengers.”

We Boomers apparently have been cowed into docility by a quarter century of airline penny pinching. The young ones who increasingly are doing the bulk of travel demand better. Good on them.

Marketer Matthew Walker, the author of the PhocusWire piece, goes on: “What happens when a generation whose retailing experiences have been shaped by on-demand services, no-questions-asked refunds and same-day delivery encounters an industry that has historically never met those expectations, but now in recovery is struggling more than ever?”

Let me suggest to airline execs that Gen Z are not going to be wowed by a sampling of mediocre, leftover snacks and if those execs are hoping that this ploy will persuade passengers to become loyal, well, that is fantasy.

A generation won’t be bribed by a free snack.

What would persuade flyers to evidence loyalty to a carrier? Fewer flight cancellations and delays, to start.  More free perks such as baggage check.  No cost flight rescheduling by the passenger.  Credible and stable awards programs. These are things that matter. (And, yeah, Southwest already has two of the four handled but it definitely struggles with the first and it’s devaluing its miles come January.)

A snack doesn’t matter. What, it saves me a couple bucks!

Trend research says that what we want in travel today are experiences – but that really means good experiences.  Airlines today, at their best, seem to provide just the minimum and if there are no failures we strike it up as a success.

But we don’t like it, not a bit. We suffer it.

We fly because there is no genuine alternative for many of the trips we take.

In Europe, yes, there are growing options for train travel and I have been quite satisfied with my trips on the rails there.

But in the US our only choice often is to fly.

It’s not a good choice.  But when it’s the only choice we take it.

Just don’t think a small bag of pretzels will buy my affection.