Travel

 

By Robert McGarvey

I have hung back from booking with Airbnb –it all seemed too uncertain, from check-in vagaries to check out confusions and I definitely did not want roommates.

Maybe that has changed. Now Airbnb has rolled out a “Business Travel Ready” program that has me thinking anew.  Tnooz itemizes some of the characteristics of units that qualify: “All properties designated ‘Business Travel Ready’ must meet a list of criteria: At least 60% of their reviews must earn five stars. The whole home or apartment must be available, be smoke- and pet-free and include hotel-like amenities, including Wi-Fi, laptop-friendly workspace, iron, hangers, clean towels and fresh linens, hairdryer and shampoo.”

Airbnb also says 24/7 chck in, check out is available.

Is this enough to shove me out of my habits and into new digs?

Recently I got nudged into the sharing economy via American Express’s monthly $15 Uber credit for Platinum Card holders.  I’ve been very pleased with the rides – the cars, the drivers, the app – and that has prompted me to thinking more kindly about other sharing economy services.

Like Airbnb..

I’d thought for many months that what a business traveler needs – what I need – is predictability.   Whether I am staying at a Four Seasons or – more likely with my clients – a Holiday Inn Express, I know what I am getting and I get it.  No complaints.

But is there more? better? cheaper? to be had by booking in the “Business Travel Ready” program, which Airbnb has apparently had in pilots for a couple years?

I decided to look through the Airbnb site, for possible bookings with upcoming trips.

Note: reader comments on Airbnb are open.  Use the blog’s comment form.  Anonymity is possible.  

Ever more businesses are now reimbursing for Airbnb stays.  By now, just about any business will accept it if the argument can be made that using it saves money.  Does it?

I started by looking at San Francisco, where I usually stay in JDV’s Hotel Carlton, a Lower Nob Hill hotel with rates just about always under $300 per night and a very good location for my purposes – easy walks to Union Square, Market Street, and maybe a mile and a half from the Moscone Center.  

But I have also been eyeing the Tilden, a new hotel in the gritty but gentrifying Tenderloin, where rates are under $200 per night which is jaw dropping in Baghdad by the Bay.  And I really like the Tenderloin, the neighborhood where Dashiell Hammett probably lived when he wrote Maltese Falcon, etc.  

So what would prompt me to book via Arbnb instead?

How cool is this: Airbnb is showing multiple whole apartments (studios) for under $150 per night. At a glance I am seeing nothing actually in the ‘Loin but there’s plenty in true downtown, such as this $199 eye-popper.  At 205 sq. ft it actually is smaller than a typical hotel room but the price is appealing.  I’d put it on my list as a possibility for my next San Francisco trip.

Or I could go budget with this $125 studio.  

Color me interested.

A trip to Washington DC also looms and there I always stay at the Washington Plaza, a mid century hotel in Thomas Circle, a few blocks from the White House and across the street from a building where I lived years ago, when the neighborhood was, ahem, sketchier. It’s quite posh now.  But rooms at the Washington Plaza generally have been under $300 per night, typically well under.  

Here’s a one bedroom condo in Logan Circle for $155, a couple or three blocks from the Washington Plaza.  $119 gets this place.  

Jumping to where I live – Central Phoenix – $77 gets a converted shipping container in Roosevelt Row, very on trend.  

Probably I’d go for $150 for the one bedroom on artsy Roosevelt Row.  

There are plenty of places in Central Phoenix for under $150 per night on Airbnb.  Hotel rooms are typically upwards of $250 for a standard, anonymous chain accommodation.

What’s appealing is that all these places noted in this column are in the “Business Travel Ready” program – and that takes some uncertainty out of this, at least for me.

Is that good enough to separate me from the predictable comfort of a well-run chain’s hotel room?

On my next trip, I am thinking yes, that it’s time to explore the new.

How about for you?

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

I have been talking with airline elites a lot in the past couple weeks, sorting out their willingness to speak up against the stunning mistreatment of passengers by legacy carriers – read United and American.

BA also merits mention for offloading a couple at a remote Portuguese airbase.  And Delta now has kicked a man off the plane fr using the toilet.

The more I have talked, the more I find myself thinking of Kant’s Categorical Imperative, a core building block in leading an ethical life.

With elites I have asked a simple question: since you have status with an airline, are you willing to use it to express distaste for how airlines are treating passengers?

What I have heard, again and again, is no, and “airlines don’t treat me badly.”

Enter Kant, an 18th century German philosopher who usually is ranked among the top five philosophers of all time (along with Plato, Aristotle, Hume, and probably Descartes).  Kant has a lot of relevance to where we find ourselves in regard to airlines and he is especially relevant to elites.

Kant would like American passenger Tony Fierro who, witnessing an American Airlines’ flight attendant’s mistreatment of a mother, stood up and defended her.  Apparently the flight attendant grabbed the woman’s stroller, possibly hitting her with it and also hitting an infant, according to some eye-witness reports.  Fierro stood up, saying: “No, I’m not going to sit here and watch this stuff.”

He said to the flight attendant: “Hey, bud. You do that to me, and I’ll knock you flat.”

A video of the incident surfaced.  American has suspended the flight attendant and offered a profuse apology.  

Meantime, the union that represents flight attendants issued this statement: “There are really two stories here related to this incident aboard a San Francisco to Dallas flight,” the statement reads. “One, we don’t know all of the facts related to a passenger who became distraught while boarding a plane and therefore neither the company nor the public should rush to judgment.”

The union continued: “Second, it appears another passenger may have threatened a flight attendant with violence, which is a violation of federal law and no small matter. Air rage has become a serious issue on our flights.”

The union statement has been widely excoriated and, really, nothing more needs be said about it.

Except to point out that just maybe the attitude reflected in the statement makes it easier to understand the American flight attendant’s behavior.-

That’s also why we need applaud passenger Fierro.

Things have sunk to incredible lows in the air.

I get that flight attendants are overworked and – very probably –  dissed by their own employers.  I empathize.

But passengers, too, deserve better. A lot better than they are getting from the legacy carriers in the US.

So where are elites in all of this?

Nowhere to be seen or heard as far as I can tell. I’m not saying every elite I know has taken cover in the fray. But too many have.

They tell me, quite accurately, that they just don’t see themselves suffering such blatantly bad behavior, so what of it

What of it is the Categorical Imperative where Kant advises us to act only in such a way that you can will that action to be a universal law.

Do elites really want everybody just to shrug off the bad behavior many passengers are exposes to on airlines?

That is what they are in effect suggesting with their passive indifference.

The Categorical Imperative says: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law [of nature].”

That means protesting when a Dr. Dao is dragged off a plane in Chicago, or when a mother is apparently hit with her own stroller by a flight attendant.  Such behaviors just are wrong – universally wrong, by the way – and the right thing to do is to speak up.

Some elites have told me it just is not their character to make a public scene.  Fine. There is no necessity to emulate Fierro.  Write an email to the airline’s executives. Or write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Or past comments and thoughts to traveler focused websites.  There are many ways to get heard and standing up in the aisle and going toe to toe with an irate flight attendant is only one of them.

A non elite, coach class passenger does not have a lot of weight.

An elite with lots of miles in the bank does.

And it’s time to deploy the Categorical Imperative and do the right thing.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

United Airlines is winning applause in some quarters for a crew booking policy change – but I am baffled by the why.

Here’s the story. A few days ago TMZ published a document it said was an official United internal memo.  The header said: Inflight Services Alert.  It went onto say that, effective immediately, crew will be accommodated on oversold flights only up to 60 minutes before scheduled departure.

The memo explicitly said: “This is so the denied boarding process in an oversell situation may be implemented in a gate or lobby area and not on board the aircraft.”

Read that again.  It is saying in effect to avoid another Dr. Dao, let’s be sure we bump ‘em at the gate and before their rears are on our seats in the plane.

And for this there is applause?

United, by the way, acknowledged to the New York Times that the document is legit. The Times reported: “We issued an updated policy to make sure crews traveling on our aircraft are booked at least 60 minutes prior to departure,” a spokeswoman, Maggie Schmerin, wrote in an email on Sunday. “This is one of our initial steps in a review of our policies.”

Let’s review where we are.  You can be bumped up to 61 minutes before scheduled departure to seat a crew member and, really, other than cry and perhaps pocket a few dollars there is nothing you can do.

Even though the situation is entirely the fault of the airline. The passenger did nothing wrong. But the passenger suffers the consequences of wretched scheduling and capacity management and personnel distribution policies.

No wonder a Morning Consult poll has found that we are fleeing United.  Reports Morning Consult: “People are so mad at United Airlines that almost 50 percent are willing to pay more money and even endure a layover to avoid flying with the company.”

New York Times reporting on the poll makes clear that for the moment United is paying a price for its mistreatment of Dr. Dao.  Said the Times: “About 44 percent of respondents who said they had heard of United recently preferred to fly American even when the journey cost $66 more and took an additional three hours.”

Hold on, however. Do you really think similar could not have happened at American or Delta?  Is there good reason to think United is markedly more incompetent and anti passenger than its legacy brethren?

The competitors are trying to persuade us. Delta now has sweetened its ante to nearly $10,000 to coax a passenger to give up a seat and American said it won’t bump a seated passenger.

A new DOT report in fact indicates that United is middling in the ranking of carriers and their involuntary boarding stats.

Are you feeling more loved and respected?

Do you see any significant differences among the legacy carriers? As long as I can recall I have had strong preferences – but mainly due to geography and which airline controlled my home airport. I don’t recall thinking there much difference among the US carriers.  

The puzzlement is how an industry became so myopic – so indifferent to its customers – that it has thought it okay to tell people that, no, that ticket you thought was good for a flight isn’t much good for anything unless we tell you it is – and we are telling you it isn’t so sit down and shut up.

And if you do speak up, well, you may be dragged out of your seat, given a concussion, and maybe have your nose broken and a few teeth knocked out.

Can you picture any other business – except organized crime – that treats its customers this way?

As Brandeis professor Robert Kuttner noted in a recent New York Times piece, “The current business model used by the big airlines is not the only one consistent with reasonable profit and good service. It simply reflects the sheer arrogance that comes with monopoly power.”

Kuttner added: “Elsewhere in the travel industry — hotels and car rental agencies, for example — these abuses do not exist because there is actual competition. But airlines are simply not naturally competitive.”

In the past week there’s been a flurry of politicians calling for investigations into United and what will happen is that the airlines will make a few internal rules changes – like the United 60 minute doctrine – and we’ll forget about Dao.  Things will go back to “normal” in the skies.

But the fundamental dysfunction and anti-passenger hostilities that have characterized the industry for at last 15 years will persist.

Unless we demand changes.

Changes that go way beyond this new United 60 minute rule.

Way beyond.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

I grew up maybe 20 miles from Times Square and one thing I have always known is there is no gain in playing three card monte with a street hustler. Before I went to kindergarten at P.S. #4, I knew that.

And yet here I am with a Barclays AAdvantage Mastercard and a Chase MileagePlus Explorer card in my wallet.

Of course I am being played for a sucker and I am definitely the loser in this 21st century version of three card monte.

But now it’s not cards or peas – it’s airline miles.

Here’s the Bloomberg headline: “Airlines Make More Money Selling Miles Than Seats.”

Here’s the subhead: “The golden goose isn’t your ticket or bag fee—it’s the credit card you use to collect frequent flier miles.”

Why are airlines in the black? Miles just may have a lot to do with this.

The Bloomberg story goes on to say: “Each mile fetches an airline anywhere from 1.5 cents to 2.5 cents , and the big banks amass those miles by the billions, doling them out to cardholders each month.”

The story twists the knife: “For the banks, people who pay annual fees for those cards to accumulate miles are the closest thing to a sure bet. These consumers typically have higher-than-average incomes and spend more on their cards, which generates merchant fees for the banks. They also tend to maintain high credit scores, which means they pay their bills on time and banks experience fewer defaults.“

How many of those airline cards are in your wallet?

Remember, I have two – so I cannot point blaming fingers at you without a few fingers pointed back at me.

How has it comes that I am now playing three card monte with slick hustlers in the sky?

It’s time to think harder about our mileage addictions.

Honestly I have gotten many free plane trips over the years from cashing in miles.  I don’t recall ever cashing them in for anything except tickets and upgrades – definitely no merchandise or magazines.  

I have enjoyed those flights – to Rome, Paris, New York, and many more. I have savored flying upfront when I paid with miles.

But even so I have to accept I am being played for a sucker.

The thesis of the Bloomberg piece – very much worth a read – is that airlines aren’t really in the transportation business, they are in the loyalty/points business and when viewed as such they are wildly more successful (and undervalued by the market, apparently).

The hustle of course – especially looking only at the universe of miles for airfares – is that the seats airlines fill with miles cost them close to zero and they only fill the ones they want to fill. Thy most certainly do not bump paying business class fares to find room for a person cashing in miles.

What a beautiful business.  The miles cos essentially nothing. Even when redeemed they have few costs involved.  And airlines can mint as many miles as they want because they control the redemption marketplace.  

Don’t hotel rooms and iPads and other redemption items cost airlines something? Sure.  But experts still estimate that on average airlines sell miles for maybe three times what the miles cost the carriers.

Then too, at will, a carrier can devalue miles – which has happened numerous times – and all the frequent fliers can do is bellyache.  

By some estimates, too, 40% of miles are never redeemed for anything.  Not even magazine subscriptions.

New Bankrate data say that 31% of us have never redeemed credit card rewards points, by the way. Never.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that some analysts now say that maybe half of the typical airline’s profits come from selling miles and the related partnerships with big banks.

As long as we remain addicted to miles, the airlines are in the money.

It’s up to us to challenge the paradigm.

Personally I do not factor potential mileage earnings into purchases I make. In fact, to the extent I think about perks with purchases, I am more tempted by cashback offers and I particularly like many of the Discover programs.  Why? $100 in cash from Discover is worth a lot more to me than, say, 5,000 in miles.

And I try to use miles as quickly as I can. I keep a stash – around 250,000 at Amex – to use for family emergencies but as for the rest, I’ll spend ‘em as quickly as I can.

The biggest resolution: it’s time to stop playing three-card monte at 30,000.

I can’t win that game.

That means I just will try not to much think about or talk about miles – and in that direction lies a kind of freedom.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

Do you use hotel gyms?

The question is not rhetorical. Those who want should use the comments field to tell their experience of hotel gyms because, frankly, I want to put on the table eliminating them.  Personally I don’t use them, can’t say I have in several decades, and I also don’t know anybody who does.

There are some data points that say I’m nuts – more on them imminently – but my reality is that those who exercise on the road walk around town, or jog, some go to yoga studios, a few diehards belong to home gyms that give them reciprocal use of out of town gyms and that is where they go.

In the latter case, I am assuming they go to a dedicated gym because, judging by the hotel gyms I have looked at in recent years, most seem modestly equipped, with far from the latest gear, and often very small.  That makes sense. Hoteliers pinch pennies where they can and if no one is squawking about gyms, they won’t put money into them.

The analogy is to hotel business centers which genuinely are an endangered species.  

Then too, marketing firm MMGY Global said that in a recent survey it found profound evidence of lack of interest in fitness on the road.  Here’s its data:

• 57% of business travelers work out less when they’re on the road
• 59% of business travelers eat less healthy
• 47% sleep less

Those numbers very much sync with what I hear from fellow travelers.  A small percentage maintain a real fitness regimen on the road – personally I try and usually succeed in walking 10,000+ steps daily when traveling which is surprisingly easy when walking in airports, in Las Vegas convention hotels, and around Manhattan and San Francisco.  Word of advice: use a step counter (apps are standard on both iPhones and Androids). You may be shocked to see how many steps you log in a normal business travel day, especially days when you are in airports.

And yet there is contrary data that say we love our hotel gyms. For instance,  MMGY Global found that nearly half of millennials put a high priority on good fitness options when picking a hotel.  About a third of Gen Xers said likewise. Just one Baby Boomer in four thought this way. So there ae generation differences indeed but if you believe those numbers we very much want to preserve hotel gyms.

A 2016 survey by American Express uncovered similar data. Some 49% of millennials, said Amex, pegged a fitness center as one of a hotel’s most important features.  

Meantime, lobbying group AHLA said that 84% of hotels now offer some kind of fitness center.  

Are they in fact any good? Certainly some hotel gyms are dazzlers but what I have heard from fellow travelers, and have frequently read in reviews posted to TripAdvisor and Yelp, is that a lot of hotel gyms are genuinely mediocre.

Then, too, just maybe the numbers – showing real interest in hotel gyms – don’t add up. Data from the Cornell hotel school suggested that – just maybe – we express more interest in hotel gyms than is reflected in our actual use. Said Cornell researchers: “Of particular interest, the study also found that guests greatly overestimated the likelihood that they would use the hotels’ amenities.”

That Cornell study found stunning discrepancies between our words and our deeds when it comes to hotel gyms.  On average 46% of us say we expect to use hotel gyms. Just 22% do.

Travel & Leisure covered the report in a story headlined: Didn’t Make It to the Hotel Gym? You Aren’t the Only One
It twisted the knife: “Hotel fitness centers are a
neglected—and costly—amenity.”

Those numbers prompted a Conde Nast Traveler story titled: “Is the Hotel Gym Dead?”

Bottomline: sure, there are polls that say we plan to use the hotel gym – but very probably you’ll find us at our desks doing email, or maybe in the hotel bar. Where we won’t be, I believe, is in the hotel gym.

Does this mean it is time to think, hard, about closing hotel gyms?

My vote: yep.

Which brings us to the money question: Do you use a hotel gym?  

Would you pick one hotel over another because of its gym?

I just don’t see it mattering that much, except to those for whom it really matters and quite probably in my experience they have already made their own plans which do not necessarily involve the hotel where they are staying.

 

 

 

by Robert McGarvey

 

The CruiseCritic headline slapped me in the face:

Norwegian Cruise Line to Raise Gratuities

Hold on a second: how does a cruise line “raise” gratuities which, by definition, are volitional with the guest?  To belabor the obvious: that means I can tip, not tip, tip a lot, tip a little – it’s on me.

NCL apparently does not like any of that.  Its new policy, explained CruiseCritic, is that “fees for standard cabins and mini-suites will jump from $13.50 to $13.99 per passenger, per day, while cruisers in suites will be charged $16.99 per person, per day, up from $15.50. That amounts to a respective per- person increase of $3.43 or $10.43 per seven-night sailing.”

On Norwegian Sky, a beverage inclusive ship, passengers will get nicked for more: “cruisers in standard cabins and mini-suites will now pay $18.99 per person, per day, while those in suites will pay $21.99 per person, per day,” reported CruiseCritic.

On a 7 day cruise most NCL passengers will pay $118.83.  On Norwegian Sky, the tariff is $75.96 for most passengers, $87.96 for those in suites, on a 4 day cruise.

For a family of four on Sky, that tip amounts to $351.84 if they are in a suite on a 4 day cruise.

Doesn’t NCL get that tipping is supposed to be at my choice?  Sure it does. Kind of.  NCL told TravelMarket Report “the discretionary service charges can always be adjusted as guests wish. They simply need to visit guest services desk onboard.”

Note: that means you cannot just log into a website, look at your bill, and cross off the gratuity.  No. You have to do it in an in person meeting. On the ship. Using time you probably want to put into the fun activities people cruise to do.

It’s enough to make me scream in angry disbelief.

Understand I am on Danny Meyer’s side when it comes to tipping, which is that the right policy – for business, their employees, and the guests – is to eliminate tipping and reflect that in higher charges to guests.

I also know NCL is not alone in building tips into the bill presented to customers.  It has become common practice at many high level spas, for instance, and these are places that nick guests maybe $250 or $300 for a session – meaning the tip (often 20%) adds as much as $60 to the tab.

I am not for paying masseuses less, or waiters and waitresses, or bartenders, or barbers.  What I want is a system where the price presented to the patron includes adequate compensation for the server.

I also want transparency in pricing so the consumer knows the tariff going in.  I have the same problem with resort fees as I do with automatic gratuities – they aren’t adequately disclosed in the pricing info.

In most of our interactions – in grocery stores, with Google Express, on the subway, and down most of what we do – we don’t tip because it is not the norm.

In a subset of services – often involving hospitality – we frequently are expected to tip. I am no fan of the custom – I wish it would just stop and that employers would resolve to pay their own employees a fair wage.

But where I am supposed to tip I do.  I might not like how the game is played, but I do not want to stiff the worker.

I have tipped, every time, I have cruised and I have tipped generously by my standards.  Crew work hard, typically they are not well paid, and I want to reward their efforts – even if I wish their employers simply raised their paychecks.

I go along with the system. really I do.  Even with my grumbles about it.

But a line has to be drawn and a place to draw it is when businesses automatically add a tip to the bill and I have to take extra steps to void it.  That’s an imposition and it is wrong.

I also know that NCL is not alone in the cruise industry. Nowadays, many lines impose automatic gratuities – and also require the passenger take an extra step or two to change the amount or void it.

All wrong.

Note: I don’t even mind places that, acknowledging many of us are math challenged, show what a 20% tip is – but still leave it up to me to add it in, to add in a different amount, or to void the tip entirely.

My advice: just say no to automatically imposed gratuities. Do tip the workers. But tell their bosses that their attempt to force our hands is all wrong.

 

By Robert McGarvey

Terrorism has us shaking in our travel booties.  That’s the word from a recent poll by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) that pegged terrorism as the top worry by a large margin.

The Skift headline grabbed my eyes:

U.S. Business Travelers See Terrorism as Most-Important Concern.

I don’t believe it.  Most of the travelers I know are concerned about what they have always been concerned about – flight cancellations, bad weather, missed connections, oversold hotels (now back at some hotels in their pursuit of manna), and the consequences of missing those many birthdays and anniversaries that road warriors inevitably do miss.

Terrorism? Not so much and I say that despite all our eyes this week having been on the purported terrorist incident in London near Parliament.  

Understand, however, the reality is that this poll isn’t in fact looking at all concerns – just safety and security issues. The headline was a tad misleading.

Narrow the field to security concerns and GBTA said its poll of 798 travelers who had traveled on business at least four times in the past year, including one international trip, found 45% pegged terrorism as their top security/safety concern.  

Street crime was named by 15% as the chief worry. Illness by  13%.  Property crime 12%. Kidnapping 8%.

And about now we have to blow the whistle and say stop.

Fears are relative.

That’s why I don’t still buy that terrorism is the top worry, even when the field is narrowed to safety concerns.

It all depends on where you travel to.  Fly in and out of Singapore and Shanghai and quite probably kidnapping is not on your mind, and nor should it be.

Fly into Lagos and you had better be very concerned about kidnapping.  

Ditto parts of the Middle East, elsewhere in Africa, and parts of the Americas – all kidnapping hot spots.

Paris? Naw.

As for street crime, that too varies on the destination. If you are in Rio and aren’t concerned about street crime, that’s puzzling.

If you are in Munich, it’s not much of a worry, certainly not anything other than pickpockets.

As for illness I know travelers to India who work themselves into a state of anxiety worrying about gastrointestinal issues, and others who are going to the Caribbean who are very fearful of Zika. Justified in both instances. But I’ve never heard a visitor to Copenhagen fretting about illness.

It all depends upon the where.

That’s the problem with any poll that seeks to identify what has business travelers’ knickers in a knot.

It’s all so context dependent.

Don’t think I’m saying ignore terrorism.  In some parts of the planet it is a very real concern.

Maybe, too, wherever we go we need to think on terrorism and factor a terror thread into our travel planning – but how much we dwell on it will depend on many specifics.

Am I worried about terrorism when I am in New York? No.  Just as I am not especially worried in London and that is despite this week’s tragic incident.  

Would I be more concerned about terrorism in Tunis or Cairo or Istanbul? Yep.

Read the headlines is the first step in living in a world of terror.

Step 2 is, before going abroad, read the US State department travel advisories Because they are inherently politicized. I also will read the British Foreign Office advisories.  

Step 3: Be alert about where you stay and where you go.  In Belfast, during the years of intense terror, I visited often and never stayed in a high profile – expensive – hotel.  I bunked in low key places around Queen’s University, a neighborhood that had always been safe.

Personally I avoided the hotels preferred by big corporation business travelers.  

I also avoid large crowds wherever possible- it’s just a smart precaution.

Do likewise.

Step 4: Always have an evacuation plan in mind.  If your company has assistance resources available, know how to tap into them.  If the company doesn’t, know what your own plan is.  Don’t get caught by surprise and witless. Know your exit routes.

Was I worried about terrorism on my trips to Northern Ireland?  No.  Of course there were neighborhoods I avoided, especially after dark, there were things I would not do, but that’s just commonsense.

Commonsense in fact is my idea of the cure for a lot of travel anxieties.  Use it and your travels – generally – will be safe.

But here’s the money question what do you do if your boss tells you to catch the next plane to Algiers or Tegucigalpa? I can’t answer that for you.  I believe I would personally decline both trips unless there were very good reasons for going and a great plan for my safety.

You have to make your own call.

But word of advice: never worry about terrorism. Plan for it. Know how to deal with it.

But don’t gnash teeth.  That benefits only dentists.  

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

Talk about a swampy idea.  A gaggle of Senators and Congressmen have joined together to support legislation, called SEAT,  that would set minimum seat sizes on commercial planes – and I struggle to come up with a kindly view of the why

The legislators also want a minimum space between rows of seats.

They say: “The SEAT Act would establish a minimum seat size on commercial airlines as well as a minimum distance between rows of seats to protect the safety and health of airline passengers.”

“Airline passengers are tired of being squeezed,” said Congressman Steve Cohen, one of the primary backers. “Shrinking seat sizes in airplanes isn’t just a matter of comfort but the safety and health of passengers as well. Planes need to be capable of rapid evacuation in case of emergency. In addition, doctors have warned that deep vein thrombosis can afflict passengers who do not move their legs enough during longer flights. The safety and health of passengers must come before airline profits.”

Color me as anti.

Understand, I am not a small person, around 6’1”, 190 lbs., and – wherever possible – I have always sought to fly upfront for the greater space.  I have had my knees smashed by the seat in front of me, and I have also been unable to use a laptop because there just was not enough room.

I have written, with some favor, about the controversial gadget Knee Defender that prevents an airplane seat from reclining.  I have not used it myself but I understand those who do.

I have also written a number of times about DVT – deep vein thrombosis – and while I would not deem myself an expert on the condition, I take DVT seriously enough to pretty consistently get up and walk around for a few minutes every hour in a flight.  The first DVT story I recall writing was in 2003, the most recent was 2015.  

So, definitely, I am sympathetic to complaints that too snug airplane seats are potentially bad for our health.

I am also sympathetic to the claim that too snug seats are bad for safe and fast emergency exits from planes, another point made by the SEAT advocates.  

This is probably made all the worse by the obesity epidemic in which we find ourselves Too big people in too small seats is indeed a catastrophe in the making.

Generally, too, I am in the same Washington DC camp as Cohen and fellow SEAT backers Chuck Schumer, Bob Menendez, Dianne Feinstein, Ed Markey, and more.

So why don’t I support SEAT?

Know that a very similar bill was introduced in the House and Senate last year. It was defeated.  But Cohen vowed to reintroduce it and here we are.  

Factor in the context that the US President is on record, often and loudly, opposing too much legislation – and it would not be hard to envision this president vetoing SEAT if it reached his desk.

Sure, shrinking seat size is an issue, as more airlines want to squeeze more of us into a small space.  Here’s a Telegraph round up, from 2010, of seat sizes.  If anything, seats today are smaller.

Here’s a 2016 round-up by the Independent.  

Meantime, BA recently indicated it planned to shrink seat pitch on many planes, in order to better compete with low priced rivals.  

All bad.

The legislators, in their press release, documented that if you think things are snugger in coach you’re right: “The average distance between rows of seats has dropped from 35 inches before airline deregulation in the 1970s to about 31 inches today. The average width of an airline seat has also shrunk from 18 inches to about 16 ½.”

But a Congressionally mandated seating chart is madness.

What do we need instead of legislation? Loud, persistent voices complaining about too small seats – and just as important is putting our money where our mouths are. A for instance of the latter was a January JoeSentMe column by Chris Barnett, where he observed the advantages of a bus trip for an intra-California hop: “Seating on the two-year-old motorcoach was far more comfortable than any U.S. airline’s coach or premium economy class.”

Another, smart choice: drive instead of fly.  It may well be cheaper with today’s cheap gas prices.  It almost certainly will be more comfortable – and quite possibly no longer in time – than flying, particularly when it’s, say, a four hour drive from New York to Boston or to Washington DC.

Raise your voice if you want more space in economy.

And back it up with your wallet.

That’s how to wake up penny pinching airline executives.

Those execs already know the Cohen SEAT bill is DOA.  They won’t break into a nervous sweat over it. They’ll probably have a good chuckle about it.  

But if they hear enough anger from passengers – and if enough use their wallet power, now you may have gotten their attention.

 

 

What’s In My Wallet? And Yours?

 

By Robert McGarvey

The giant has awakened – and it has sweetened the perks that come with its Platinum Card.

Take that, upstarts.  

The question: are the upgrades good enough to keep American Express Platinum cardholders in the fold after a scheduled 20+ % fee increase kicks in later this year?

Either way, Amex had to do something. Indeed, this was a long overdue move on Amex’s part. Grumbles had grown that the card just was no longer worth the $450 annual fee, especially as it lost one airline club access privilege after another  and only Delta remains on board.

Club access probably had been the key Platinum card benefit so these losses were a big deal.

And that gave competitors room to maneuver.

The big buzz in high end credit cardholder circles for the past year has been about Chase’s Sapphire Reserve, with an annual fee of $450 and freebies ranging from $300 in annual travel credits to a 100,000 mile sign up bonus and good airport lounge access.  

A few hands also clapped about the Citi Prestige Card.

Along the way, Costco dumped Amex for Citi and, said some, this was a real blow to American Express. Don’t ask me. I have never been in a Costco and have no plans to – but I suppose that did matter to some Amex cardholders.

Here’s the money question: had my loyalty to Amex wavered as it lost benefits?  Note: I have been an Amex cardholder for 40 years, much of that the gold card but maybe 15  years ago I switched to Platinum. In recent years had I questioned if the Platinum Card continued to be worth the dough? You bet, especially when United and American yanked their clubs out of the mix (and before them, Continental pulled out in 2011) and that club access had been what kept me smiling, with both Amex and air travel.

Suddenly my questions about each rose.

But – even before the new wave of benefits – I still found enough to like in the Platinum Card.  Such as the Centurion Lounges, which I continue to believe are the best domestic airport lounges.  Amex also had added Priority Pass lounges a couple years ago (now a perk with the Chase card) and, by now, Amex insists its network  is the largest, comprising 1000+ lounges in 120 countries.  It’s not perfect but it is pretty good and once you have been in a Centurion Lounge you wish you had access to them wherever you traveled in the US.  

The club access now is as good as – probably better than – what they had when United and American were in the mix.  

There’s also a $200 annual airline fee credit for charges such as lounge access or checked bags and, yes, it genuinely works. I have bought a bottle of champagne and I have checked a locked bag with a handgun inside (fully disclosed at check in of course) and in both instances fees were reimbursed and with no teeth gnashing about my consumer choices.

I’ve also gotten the TSA Pre fee reimbursed by Amex.  Or go for Global Entry and Amex picks up that tab. One or the other, not both.

And gold status in the Hilton HHonors program. Ditto for Starwood and, since its merger, that means Marriott too.

There also is a concierge service, for help arranging restaurant reservations and such like.  Those who use it a lot like it a lot.

Did those perks add up to $450? In my mind, absolutely. I admit I never ran detailed calculations. But I was satisfied I was getting my money’s worth.

Now Amex is upping its perks.  Notably it is issuing 5X points on hotels booked via amextravel.com. That complements the existing 5X rewards on airfare purchased via that site.  

It says it has added enough airport lounges to have some 90 lounges in the US alone.  

It also is offering a $200 Uber credit, plus Uber VP status and, you know what, I confess I still haven’t used Uber but now I will.  Good for me, good for Uber, good for Amex.

The bad news is that Amex is bumping the Platinum Card annual fee from $450 to $550 – but I’ll keep it in my wallet.

Besides, this year Amex is replacing the plastic card with a metallic one and how cool is that?

I’m staying put. What about you?

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

Of course you don’t need to buy trip cancellation insurance on domestic travel – but we are in a new era when it comes to foreign policy and, suddenly, many travelers are asking if they should by it for trips abroad in the Age of Trump.

Mind you, I have never bought the stuff  in four decades of travel – always thought it superfluous, particularly for travelers who bought the right airfares and made very certain that hotel rooms could be canceled without penalty. For years I thought that was plenty circumspect on my part.

Things are very different today however.  Foreigners arriving on US soil sometimes are being treated with real suspicion by US immigration – and there is a tit for tat reality in international travel. If we are treating arrivals from France or China badly, expect the same for yourself when heading there.  

And maybe you decide you just don’t want the hassle.

The other, largely new issue is that whole parts of the globe may be crossed out as no go zones by the White House – and if you already have a trip planned to an impacted country you may want to rethink.

A particular flashpoint is Cuba, on the one hand a wildly popular go-to place, on the other it’s a place where President Trump has sometimes seemed to suggest that his administration may modify the Obama led warming up of relationships.

Here’s the bad news, however. Most trip insurance is no panacea in such cases.  That’s because it usually offers no coverage for cancellations triggered by shifting government policies.

But if you opt for a “change; for any reason” policy, you will probably get 50 to 75% of your expenditures refunded in the event changing US policy leads you to cancel a trip to Cuba.

It could be anyplace.  This definitely is about more than Cuba. Right now it is unclear what the Trump administration will do regarding many nations, from China to Egypt.  We have entered into an era of significant unpredictability and as travelers we need to prepare for the uncertainties in front of us.

That’s not easy. But is also why I find myself contemplating trip insurance.

A standard trip insurance policy costs 4 to 6% of the cost of the trip. That is, a $1000 vacation can be insured for $40 to $60, but those policies have lots of fine print and loopholes about what is insured and covered and what isn’t.  

Enter trip cancellation for any reason coverage which, for the most part, does what it says.  It costs about 50% more than a standard policy.

Is it worth the money? “If travel to Cuba is prohibited by the government, Cancel For Any Reason is the only benefit that can cover travelers to cancel their trips,” Jessica Harvey, an executive with travel insurance review site  Squaremouth, said.

Similar can be said about travel to just about anywhere.

Play by the rules, buy from a known provider, and very probably you will get some of your money returned if you decide to cancel, for any reason, from fears of terrorism to government policies that make you uneasy about travel to a particular place or maybe those policies make is very difficult to get there.

One other bit of bad news: cancel for any reason policies are not available to New Yorkers.  The New York Dept of Financial Services has said: “An insurer may not include ‘Cancel for Any Reason Waiver’ or ‘Change of Mind’ coverage in its travel insurance policies because such coverage is not insurance, nor is it necessarily or properly incidental to the kinds of insurance that an insurer is authorized to write in this state.”

I’m told no other state has followed New York’s lead.

Honestly, what I will do this year is nothing new regarding travel to western Europe – from Ireland to Austria I just don’t see significant changes coming out of the White House. And I won’t buy trip insurance.

What about Ukraine? Turkey? Even Morocco?

Color me uncertain.

There are dozens more countries in that uncertain bucket.

I just don’t know about our relationship with such nations and that uncertainty is exactly why if a trip to such places pops up on my calendar I very well may buy travel insurance with a cancel for any reason option.

That just maybe has become prudence 2017 style.