The Real Deal

Helpful change for air travelers – starting today, airlines ads must include the actual full price. No more going after those $29 or $59 “teaser” fares only to find that with taxes your price is significantly more than that. I love the low prices and hope the next step for airlines is to work to keep the bargain prices at say $59 with all the taxes! Call me crazy…

In addition, another major rule taking effect allows customers to put a fare and a reservation on hold for 24 hours without paying for it. Gives us all time to change our minds or check with others about our travel planning. Awesome!

Read more here: http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-new-airfare-rules-taxes,0,6613827.story

2011: My Year in Travel Photography

2011: My Year in Travel Photography.

via 2011: My Year in Travel Photography.

A+ Hampton Inn

We made a last-minute decision to head to Jacksonville for 2011 New Year’s Eve. Hubby has several points as a Hilton Honors member and it turned out we could cash some in for one free night. I may have mentioned before we often travel with our pets, and turns out the Hampton Inn in Jacksonville’s Tinseltown takes pets – without a pet fee! Great news!

Except that when I made the reservation at around 7 p.m. EST on Dec. 30, Hilton Honors’ system auto-populated the arrival date of Dec. 30, not 31. Really? Who would think?

Of course when we arrived to check in on Dec. 31, the hotel clerk told us the points were gone and we’d have to pay for our entire stay now. So my husband was unhappy with me, and I was unhappy with me for my careless mistake. (Lesson learned: double- and triple-check dates when booking anything online.)

However, I was mostly very unhappy with Hilton. Until that moment I was thrilled with them–great location, highly pet-friendly, and immaculate cleanliness. We did a quick check online and learned the best way to resolve the issue was to call customer support, which my husband did.

He applied the ‘honesty is the best policy’ approach and admitted we goofed when making the reservation. He also pointed out the illogic of making a reservation five hours before the day ends and showing up the next day to check in. Within about five minutes, the Hilton Honors staff restored his points, and while we had budgeted for one night free, at a $79 rate ($89 with taxes), we still had a good deal.

Truly a lovely hotel and one of the cleanest I’ve stayed at in quite some time. I highly recommend it, and Tinseltown is a fun location. Lots of restaurants and a movie theater all within walking distance, 10 minutes in a couple directions to great shopping, and 20 minutes to the beach.

Rewards programs are helpful for people like us who enjoy travel on a budget. Track the points and take advantage of them. Just be extra-careful about data entry when you book online.

AAA.com and Travelocity – Disappointing Service

Let me start by saying I am, er was, a long-time Travelocity customer and booked numerous trips through that website. In recent years the deals didn’t seem as good, and I noticed that AAA.com also offered travel planning. I use the AAA roadside service and gave their travel planning side a try, too.

I’ve used it on and off, haven’t found it to be remarkable but occasionally found some deals. Like this one for Memorial Day weekend when my husband and I decided at the last minute to travel to Nashville for my niece’s high school graduation. It’s about a nine hour drive from where we are in Florida so decided to drive to Atlanta that Friday night and finish the trip Saturday morning.

At www.aaa.com, I used “Free Breakfast” and “Pets Accepted” as hotel search terms. A Hilton returned in the list, in the right location with a great pre-paid rate of $75 for the night. Perfect! Having used pre-paid rates before, selectively of course, I was comfortable with that since we knew our trip was definite.

We arrived late Friday evening and the front desk clerk told me the hotel does not accept pets. While very nice, she was not budging and wouldn’t let us stay there. She said “Travelocity” had not paid them yet and she noted on my reservation cancellation the reason I had to cancel.

You notice I said Travelocity there. Apparently, AAA “partnered” with Travelocity last year and in my opinion, they both did a pretty lousy job of partnering. May 29, two days later, I re-created my search and the same results returned, and I filed an online request for assistance at AAA.com.

The short answer from AAA has been that essentially their search engine returns results based on one term, seemingly the first one on the list. In this case that was “Free Breakfast.” Nowhere on their website do they post a warning telling you that it can only search on one term. Here is the explanation I got from them:

The website will apply multiple search terms and identify exactly which terms from your criteria were matched. If the hotel had allowed pets, it would have identified this as a match along with the free breakfast.

Interestingly, when I search tonight using the same location and same search terms, the Hilton in question does not return. And on some listings (but not all) there is now a “Features Matched” line that I do not recall seeing there before, ever. Is it possible that out of my misfortune came a change in service? Unfortunately too little too late for me.

Luv those award travel miles!

Last month we took a trip to visit family back in North Dakota to celebrate my mom’s 70th birthday. I had great fun planning and executing the fabulous (if I do say so myself) party!

As I planned our air travel, I realized that given our travel dates, both my husband and I had enough Delta award travel miles to get “free” tickets. For a grand total of $56 each, we enjoyed a 4,000 mile round trip and a week with family. We each paid a $10 processing fee for the tickets, plus $23 each for one checked bag each way. (I am all in favor of checked baggage unless you can truly use a carry on.)

Some time after I had made the reservations, my husband questioned whether we should have saved those miles. My college economics professor’s voice echoed in my head, “A dollar in hand today is always better than a dollar tomorrow.”

Using that philosophy, I believe we made the right choice because it kept dollars in our hands today. In the current market, those tickets run between $600 and $700 each.

Additionally, as I checked travel dates before booking, the number of miles I  needed to use per ticket, vary based on our travel dates. In our case, because we traveled mid-week, both ways, we used only 32,500 miles, instead of 50,000, for each ticket. That left us with a good start in our award travel miles toward the next trip!

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

I saw it at last. Finally Monday, the day before my birthday-with-a-zero, I visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Not really knowing what to expect, I was delighted. I felt like I had truly ventured to another world when I arrived.

The castle, Hogwarts, is magnificent…and huge. It is exactly what I imagine it would be like to be inside a castle. Of course today’s technology makes the talking and moving pictures easy to believe. I recommend the ride as well as the castle tour so you can take photos. I did feel just a little bit dizzy after the ride, so if you, too, are one of those, be careful.

My only–and greatest–disappointment was that I did not see any of the familiar characters anywhere. In Orlando, the land of Mickey and Minnie after all, I fully expected to have photo opps with Harry, Ron and Hermione. Particularly when I dined in Three Brooms Restaurant on the premises. But they were nowhere to be seen.

We were there many hours and returned the next day, and I still did not run into anyone. They appear in the castle in the form of movies running in sets, but I dearly wanted to meet Harry and have my picture with him.

Am I the only one who did not see them in person (in character)? Am I the only one disappointed by that?

NYC here we come!

I have to wait until September, but we are finally going to New York City. I have wanted to be there since Sept. 11, 2002, the year after the terrorist attacks. My birthday is Sept. 14 and this year is one of those milestone birthdays (never mind which one!). Seems like the perfect year to go.

When I planned our Orlando trip in 2000, I used a terrific book as my guide. So for this trip I bought the NCY version of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to [insert city name here], along with Pauline Frommer’s, New York City: Spend Less See More.

Hubby and I are not really foodies so that will not be a focus of this trip. Although after watching a recent Travel Channel episode on pizza, we will definitely try Lombardi’s Pizza and Ray’s Pizza on Prince Street. Perhaps an overall pizza theme will drive our meal decisions.

I’m looking for the next Wicked – a new theatre production that is spectacular but the whole world hasn’t discovered it yet. We may also see Cats. It is one of my faves and I’ve seen the traveling production. But I don’t think John has and it would be awesome to see it on Broadway. While we’re in that neighborhood, we will visit the “Golden Arches” – another Travel Channel tip.

Of course, we will be at Ground Zero on September 11. I have to see the Guggenheim, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. My family spent one summer in New York City when I was seven or eight years old so my memories are fuzzy. I do know we went to Ellis Island and back then, as again now, we could walk up into the torch and I want to do that . Central Park is another must. Romantic that I am, the carriage ride holds appeal.

I welcome your suggestions and tips on travel and bargains. I will keep you updated on my planning and the bargains I find. And need to find a counter to add here to countdown the days until I get there!

Good dog

 

Our Kooper, full of vim and vigor! 

Only northerners head to Fort Lauderdale in August…and while hubby and I have been in Florida six years now, I guess we are still northerners at heart. We spent a long weekend there last month.

For the past few years we travel mostly with our dogs. The two older ones are gone now, and the new guy at just nine months is full of “vim and vigor” as my dad used to say. All that means when we travel, we look for pet-friendly lodging and restaurants.

Easier to find now than it used to be, but still proved to be a challenge in the “Venice of America,” Fort Lauderdale. We stayed at the Hilton Marina, billed as pet-friendly; however, as soon as hubby told them we had a dog, we felt snubbed. The friendliest hotel staff was a bellman as we checked out. Disappointing.

Many of the restaurants we called did not allow dogs. Not even at their outdoor seating. One place said another dog bit someone once so no more dogs. We have heard similar stories at home, and that most likely means that their insurance companies told them no more dogs. Understandable, but people — control your dogs!

Don’t ruin it for the rest of who do. We keep our dog on a leash and we monitor him the entire time we’re out. We don’t want him to disturb anyone who doesn’t want to be disturbed. If your dog isn’t social and won’t behave, even on a leash, leave it at home!

And to hotels and restaurants who claim to be pet-friendly, make sure your staff know to treat guests with pets as well as they treat guests without. I’m not sure we’ll use Hilton Marina again, even though it’s a lovely property.

Wanted: big trip tips

We are contemplating a three-week road trip next summer, from the U.S. southern coast to the northern border. I’ll keep you updated on my trip project planning and would love to hear tips and suggestions from those of you experienced with long road trips!

Makin’ the most of the mini-vaca

Planning for meals is really the best way to travel economically for people like us. We just spent four days in Fort Lauderdale, and we spent about $100 a day on gas, food and beverages (soft and hard). That included buying dinner one night for two friends.

We traveled by car for this mini-vaca so could bring water, soda, snacks and breakfast food. Kind of a pain hauling it, but it pays off. Our first night there we ordered pizza for delivery. With large three-topping pie, we got a small cheese pie. Wasn’t sure we needed all that pizza, but it was worth it. Gave us dinner that Friday night and the next, as well as lunch Sunday. For less than $25..and it was great pizza! (Dough Boys on SE 17th St.)

We brought our own wine, too. Going out for drinks burns through cash in a hurry, but wine shopping in advance at sale prices, cut that expense.

We got a decent deal on the hotel, although as is often the case once you add in the taxes, parking fees and all those other hidden costs, the deal is suddenly $100 more than budgeted. Also in this case, we brought our dog and didn’t know the pet fee at this hotel was $125. That’s high in our experience so wouldn’t recommend using Hilton Marina if you travel with pets. We could have spent another $30 and boarded him. Would have given us more time to go out on the town, which wasn’t in the budget and besides, we would have missed our Kooper!

Bottom line: our four-day escape to sunny – and hot! – Fort Lauderdale cost just under $900 with everything. Small price to pay for mental health!

LWMac and Kooper, Fort Lauderdale Beach