The voting phase for the 2007 Travvies is now closed.

Thanks to everyone for voting! Results will be announced tomorrow, so be sure to check back.

(The voting page may remain up for a few hours, but votes are date-stamped, so late ballots won’t be counted.)

Downgraded: Virgin America, Upgraded: Someone else
Poor Virgin America. They want to fly, really they do, but the US government won’t let them. But while the airline waits for a decision, they’ve been forced to lease out their spankin’ new planes to other airlines. It’s the equivalent of going downtown to the pawn shop and cashing in your newly bought plasma TV, just days after you showed it off to all your friends. But this means that other airlines are benefiting from Virgin’s misery. Word on the street says it’s Skybus, the startup airline that wants to rock Columbus, Ohio like a hurricane.

Downgraded: PIA
PIA, aka Pakistan International Airlines, will apparently be slapped by the European Union. The airline’s safety record is so spotty that only their seven newest planes will be allowed to land in the EU. Comforting.

Upgraded: Cruises, highbrow and low
Cruise lines are finally getting into the loyalty program game. I guess they wanted to wait 25 years to see if this whole frequent flyer miles thing was going to work out. Don’t plan to do any mileage runs on a cruise ship anytime soon. While the points don’t expire, they generally measure days at sea. On Silversea Cruises, for example, you need to cruise for 250 days before you can cash in for a free week on the high seas. Ouch.

At the other end of the spectrum, the NYT’s budget traveler, Matt Gross, spent some time on the EasyCruise ship, a hybrid of Ryanair, Carnival Cruises, and MTV’s “Real World.” He manages to express affection for the experience, despite being stuck on a ship with dozens of hard-partying kids looking to put the “easy” back into EasyCruise. Call me an old fart: A floating party hostel may be your speed, but it’s not mine anymore.

Downgraded: Paper tickets
Trees rejoice: Northwest Airlines is planning to eliminate paper tickets entirely. They won’t even be an option. Only 0.1% of their customers used them. The paper ticket is largely an anachronism today, but it still has its place, especially during irregular operations, when airlines can sign over a paper ticket to another carrier. Despite network integration, it’s still harder to do that for an e-ticket.

(image)

Just a quick reminder: The last day to vote for your favorites in the 2007 Travvies is tomorrow, Wednesday, February 28. The polls close at 6pm central time — votes cast after that time won’t be counted.

Best of luck to all the finalists, and thanks to everyone for the many votes that have already been cast!

Chris Elliott slams a decision by the United States District Court in Newark, NJ, which ruled that car rental companies are within their rights to charge $5.99 per gallon of gas, if you fail to return the car at the specified fuel level.

I’m not as riled up by this as Chris. I think the markup is absurd, of course, but it’s no more ridiculous than any other late charge. (Consider the difference between the hourly rate and daily rate for late returns. That’s pretty remarkable, too.)

As much as I advocate for consumer rights, it’s the customer’s job to bring the car back with gas, so I don’t have a big problem with these penalty fees.

And besides, the fees are limited by the size of the gas tank. The greater your laziness, the greater your bill.

But if we’re going to talk about gasoline and rental cars, let’s have at it:
What ticks me off more is when the car rental attendants are too lazy to actually fill the tank from the last lazy customer before handing the vehicle off to the me.

Getting a car with the fuel level hovering somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 is a major pet peeve of mine. And the rental agent’s quip of “Oh, just bring it back at that level” ? That doesn’t cut it.

As I’ve said before, it’s nearly impossible to approximate the proper gas level if it’s not full when you start. If you’re trying to be a good citizen, and trying to avoid the gouging fees of $5.99/gallon gas, you’ll always end up over-filling, thereby giving the company a gift of a gallon or two. And that’s not acceptable. I want a car with a full fuel tank, so I can return it full, without pulling out a calculator.

So how about this: Any car rental company that charges double the market rate for gasoline agrees to actually fill the tank for the next customer? Deal? Don’t make us come after you with a renters’ bill of rights!

(By the way, I realize that my European readers, in particular, may be guffawing at my insistence that $5.99 for a gallon of gasoline is expensive. So yes, yes, I know, Americans have cheap fuel, compared to the rest of the world.)

Related:
- Low mileage, high surcharges

(image)

Ed Perkins points to the deceitful but unfortunately effective practice of insurance upselling by front-desk employees at car rental agencies.

Agents told [customers] that although their [credit] cards covered damage to the vehicle, they didn’t cover the additional “loss of use” fee the car company would collect for the rental revenue lost while a damaged car was out of service. That statement is a flat-out lie.

Loss of use is included in the CDW (collision damage waiver) provision of credit card coverage. If your card has rental car insurance built in, then you should be fine. (Check your card’s fine print to see if you have the coverage in the first place, of course. If you don’t have the rules governing your card’s benefits, call your bank and have them send it. If you don’t have the coverage, get a card that does.)

This “loss of use” story is a sales pitch I’ve gotten before at the time of rental, most memorably and insistently from a desk agent at Advantage Rent-a-Car at the Phoenix airport. I’ll never forget that guy. He kept telling me over and over again how much Advantage charges for “loss of use,” and how neither my own auto insurance nor my credit card would cover it. It was his aggressive hard-sell, and the snotty attitude he copped after I declined his coverage again and again, which cemented my policy to never rent from Advantage ever again.

Bottom line: Never trust a car rental agent to tell you what your existing insurance covers. Not when they try to tell you about the insurance provided by a credit card, and not when they try to tell you about your own policy.

(image)

If you’re an elite member of a frequent flyer program and you’re looking for a status match at United, you may have a window of opportunity, thanks to the sad demise of Brazil’s Varig. Even if you’re not a traveler to Brazil, this might benefit you.

Varig went bankrupt and lost its membership the Star Alliance, so other Star Alliance members are jockeying to pick up the elite frequent flyers in the now-defunct Varig “Smiles” program. The Star Alliance webpage lists the different status match programs that are available to Smiles members until April 30, 2007. Air Canada, Lufthansa, South African, Swiss, and TAP are all granting status matches to Varig’s elites.

BUT: United goes one further. Their rules doesn’t specify that the status match is only open to Varig flyers, either on the Star Alliance site or on their own page. So this is where it gets interesting.

The offer on the United page reads:

We are pleased to offer you the opportunity to participate in our elite status match promotion, offering top-tier flyers with other airlines an equivalent* status in the Mileage Plus elite program. This offer is valid for status matches received between January 22 and April 30, 2007.

Emphasis added. No mention of Varig, though the address and fax number for sending in the documentation are in Brazil. (The asterisk in the quote above indicates that they will match to Premier or Premier Executive, but not to Premier Executive 1K.)

Worth a shot, and a fax to Sao Paulo.

Related:
- Debating the value of elite status

(via MilesLink)