It’s come to this: German package tourists booking through Thomas Cook can upgrade their vacations and add a reservation for a poolside lounge chair. “Beach towel wars,” whereby competitive tourists get up early to “claim” a chair with their beach towel, may be a thing of the past if this takes off.

Nine hotels have joined the scheme to stop “beach towel wars”, which see many Germans accused of hogging loungers.

Reserving a lounger and beach umbrella in advance will cost about three euros (£2.60) a day, on top of the holiday package.

Thomas Cook is offering the option at nine hotels in Turkey, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

For a weekly rate of 49 euros per room a family can reserve one lounger for each person, along with a beach umbrella and their own dining table at six Egyptian hotels.

The fact that people are currently getting up early to run downstairs, plop down a towel, only to sit in the same spot for hours and hours, broiling away in the sun, strikes me as sad.

But, from the perspective of the hotels and the booking agency, it’s a great way to boost revenue and improve those customers’ experience… if they book in advance. Otherwise, tourists might show up at a resort and find the pool completely reserved. And they’ll be dissatisfied, to say the least.

But if you’re a hotelier, how far do you take this? What else could be pre-reserve-able, to calm the nerves of guests who, for whatever reason, want nothing left to chance? The hour when housekeeping knocks? Buckets of ice from the machine? Treadmills in the gym?

So: What say you? Is permitting the reservation of a pool chair a good idea, or absurd overplanning? Hit the comments!

(image)

Delta announced changes to their SkyMiles frequent flier program yesterday. Changes were bound to happen: With the merger of Northwest and Delta, and the upcoming combination of their mileage programs, that’s a lot of accounts coming in.

I’m late to the discussion, and others have already hit the main points, so I’m just going to give you the short version and recommend others for the detailed breakdown of the pros and cons.

The biggest news is 1) the introduction of a new (fourth) elite tier at 125,000 miles, 2) the ability to roll over qualifying miles from one year to the next, so you get a running start on status the following year, and 3) upgradable award tickets.

For the most part, the changes are good. The fourth elite tier is a bit annoying, in that it creates greater complexity in an already complex system. Rollover miles are nice, but they come at a price: The following year, there will be a LOT of other travelers with a running start; the upgrade competition will be fierce. And upgradable award tickets? Great idea, but let’s see how it’s executed. (I.e., who gets priority for the upgrade, the Diamond-level elite with an award ticket, or the Platinum with a full-fare paid ticket?)

For full reviews, see these other fine blog posts:

On the “pro” side:
- Henry Harteveldt of Forrester Research is downright ga-ga for the changes.
- Brett over at Cranky Flier calls it good news for frequent flier junkies.
- The Delta Blog is positive. I was really expecting some hard-hitting critiques…

On the “con,” or at least skeptical, side:
- Gary Leff calls the changes “unimpressive.”
- One Mile at a Time notes that United and American top-level flyers already have most of the Diamond benefits, at a lower mileage level.

In any case, it’s going to change the calculus for top-tier fliers in the new Delta. Lower-tier elites and general members are frankly going to see little difference.

Update: Seconds after publishing, I see Jared Blank had the same exact idea for handling this topic as I did.

Upgraded: United’s Mileage Plus
Man bites dog! Airline reverses fee! United is eliminating the fees for booking Mileage Plus tickets within 21 days of travel. If you book today, you’ll still pay a fee — $100 for travel within six days was $100 and $75 for travel within seven to 20 days. But if you book July 30 or after, there will no longer be a last-minute booking fee for using your miles. It’s an interesting — and welcome — move, considering airlines aren’t known for cutting fees. Here’s hoping others follow suit.

Downgraded: American’s luggage fees
Speaking of fees, this is more or less the norm: American is raising its checked baggage fees by $5, both for the first piece (now $20) and the second ($30).

Downgraded: Open Skies
OpenSkies, the all-premium class British Airways subsidiary, is dropping its New York-JFK to Amsterdam route and is focusing entirely on flights from Paris to Newark and JFK. Just days after announcing that the airline was for sale. A shame.

Downgraded: Government architecture
Just when they started making customs and border crossing buildings a little more interesting, they go ahead and roll it all back: The 21-foot-high letters spelling “United States” were deemed a target, and thus a security risk. Words fail me.

Upgraded: Deals at Starwood hotels
Starwood is cutting rates by up to 50%, albeit off rack rates. “Limited time only,” they say, but no end date.

Upgraded: Headline writing
A Southwest Airlines flight made an emergency landing shortly after leaving Hartford, due to an electrical problem emanating from a coffeemaker, but you’ve gotta love the Times of London’s headline for the incident: “Southwest Airlines flight grounded by coffee aroma.”

Upgraded: Eco-designations for hotels
AAA is planning to note an “eco-friendly” designation in their TourBook travel guides for properties that participate in local, regional, or third-party eco-accreditation systems. The patchwork approach means that a hotel might make the cut in one state but not in another, based on regional variation.

Since the world has gone ga-ga for Twitter, corporations have been trying to figure out how to take advantage of the popularity of the micro-blogging service. Some airlines are trying out Twitter-only discounted airfares to fill seats. (United calls them “Twares.” JetBlue calls theirs “Cheeps.” I’m sure there are others, but it’s still not the norm for airlines to offer these.)

But these deep discounts come with fine print. This past Friday, USA Today’s Ben Mutzabaugh posted that United’s most recent $118 all-in Tware between Chicago and Philadelphia didn’t earn Mileage Plus miles. Comments started rolling in, protesting the change — these were published fares, after all, why wouldn’t they earn miles?

These fares last only a short time — typically two or three hours — and the fare’s terms and conditions are no longer visible online.

I asked for clarification. Specifically, I tweeted for clarification. I asked United, in under 140 characters:

Within an hour, their response:

Not an encyclopedic answer, but this much is clear: All Twares are not created equal. Some are normal deep discount fares, much like weekend e-fares. Others aren’t. Another layer of complication in the airfare and frequent flyer game.

If miles matter to you, and if Twitter-only fares are up your alley, then you’ll need to read the fine print before you click the purchase button.

While other airlines are dissuading customers from transacting business at the airport, by imposing penalty fees, American Airlines is looking to smoothe things for passengers at the counter. At Boston Logan Airport, the airline is testing a new set of mobile check-in devices.

The machines, called “Your Assistance Delivered Anywhere,” or YADA — insert Seinfeld joke here — won’t be tied to a specific spot. Instead, AA staff will be able to rove around, checking bags, printing boarding passes, clearing upgrades (!), and providing flight and gate information. The program is designed to reduce wait-times. It sounds like they’ll need a skycap tailing them, to carry the bags off.

It’s a six-week test, so it will be interesting to see how the new procedure plays out in the real world.

Boston AA travelers: Please post your experiences with the YADA in the comments!

Normally I don’t advocate buying frequent flier miles, as they’re overpriced and not always redeemable. But sometimes, a deal is just too good to pass up. And now there’s a sale.

Gary Leff does the math. US Airways is offering a short-term 50% discount on purchased frequent flier miles, which means you pay 1.25 cents per mile plus a $30 processing fee. If you pay for 50,000 miles, you get 100,000 miles credited to your account. (Alas, you can’t get more than a 50k bonus.)

That means a business-class ticket to Europe from North America — including a stopover, or an open-jaw — costs only $1030. (It costs 80,000 miles for the ticket, but you buy 40,000 miles, plus bonus, for that price.) That’s a great deal, especially if you have a better airline in the mix (Singapore Airlines, for example…) I wouldn’t get too excited if my only options were for redemptions on US Airways themselves.

Before you do anything like that, check to see the availability of award tickets on US Airways’ Star Alliance partners. Japan’s ANA, a Star Alliance member, shows award inventory on their website across all their partners. That’s a very, very useful feature.

If you’re not a member of their program, Mileage Club, join; it’s free, and you’ll be able to search award availability, even if you don’t have any miles banked with ANA.

Gather your data, then buy your miles, then call US Airways to book. The bonus ends August 15, 2009.

Hats off to Gary for the find.

When Continental leaves SkyTeam this fall, it won’t join Star Alliance the next day. Rather, there will be a period of transition as the airline shifts from one global airline alliance to another.

“With our final flight on 24 October, we will leave SkyTeam,” said outgoing Continental CEO Larry Kellner. “We will be in Star just as fast as we can be after that. We just can’t do anything until we get out of SkyTeam to jointly market with Star partners. It won’t be seamless; it will be a couple days in transition.”

Extracting itself from SkyTeam for Continental involves ending loyalty program and airport lounge reciprocity with Air France, Delta, KLM, Northwest and other soon-to-be former allies.

It also requires ending codeshare flights and joint corporate programs. On the former, some code shares with Delta and Northwest already have been discontinued, Kellner said, and “all drop off [by] the end of July.” On the latter, he acknowledged that “we have some joint contracts, but we don’t think that’s a significant risk for us. It’s a very small risk.”

How much time passes between the wind-down of the old partnerships and the initiation of the new ones is another open question.

The transition period may be a bumpy one for Continental loyalists — or for those planning on flying Continental and hoping for benefits via one alliance or the other. Stay tuned.

(image)

Downgraded: Bangkok airport duty-free
If you’re in Bangkok, you might want to skip the duty-free shop. Customers have been falsely accused (better: framed) of shoplifting. And thanks to an apparently collusive agreement between the police, the duty free operator (King Power), and individual “translators,” all working in cahoots, travelers have been forced to pay up thousands of dollars in order to leave the country. “The British Embassy has also warned passengers at Bangkok Airport to take care not to move items around in the duty free shopping area before paying for them, as this could result in arrest and imprisonment.” Absurd! Read the whole convoluted story of the “zig zag scam” here.

Downgraded: OpenSkies
British Airways is looking to sell its all-business class OpenSkies subsidiary, only a year after buying L’Avion and merging the two operations. The airline-in-an-airline is still operating, though, and there are some pretty sweet deals for premium class travel. If you’re flying between New York and Amsterdam or Paris anytime soon and looking for a relatively inexpensive upgrade, this could be the ticket. (~$1230 all-in roundtrip for a 140° cradle seat, or ~$2100 for a 180° flat bed.) But I wouldn’t book more than a month or two out.

Upgraded: Inflight internet overseas
Lufthansa is reportedly exploring ways of restarting the now-defunct Boeing Connexion satellite-powered inflight internet service. The receivers are already installed on many of their planes (a process which was undertaken at a hefty cost. Panasonic is the most likely provider of the services to the airline.

Downgraded: The St. Regis Monarch Beach
Upgraded: Irony
You may recall the St. Regis Monarch Beach in California as the site of controversy — Weeks after accepting a huge federal bailout, AIG executives spent nearly half a million smackers to host a swank affair at the resort. Now the resort itself has gone into receivership: Creditor Citigroup has foreclosed on the property, taking possession from the franchisees, Makar Properties. (Perhaps not surprising if reports of 15% occupancy rates are true.) But foreclosure doesn’t mean closure. The property remains open, albeit under new ownership.

Upgraded: Exotic inflight vermin
Paging Samuel L. Jackson! A passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight departing Phoenix was stung by a scorpion in flight. The creature fell out of luggage in the overhead bin, where numerous other scorpions were residing.

Downgraded: Budget Rent-a-Car’s ethics
Budget Rent-a-Car is still working with Trilegiant, the shady operators who send out “checks” you shouldn’t endorse. Signing the back commits you to an expensive membership in a “consumer club” with minimal benefits — all billed to the credit card you used when you rented a car from Budget. I reported on this back in January. I just received a similar solicitation this week, offering me a $10 check in exchange for a $219.98/year membership in “HealthSaver.” Shame on you, Budget, for pimping out the credit card data that your customers trusted you with.

Downgraded: Airline fees
Another week, another hike of airline fees. Continental, as part of its earnings report, is raising the cost of checked luggage by $5, bringing it to $20 for the first bag and $30 for the second. Also: Delta is adding a $5 in-person luggage fee for bags not checked in in advance online.

(image)

Customers of Preferred Traveler, an authorized participant in Homeland Security’s Registered Traveler program, started worrying about their local Registered Traveler program when Clear folded last month. The worries were justified. Another one has bitten the dust after all.

Preferred Traveler, operated by Vigilant Solutions, has dismantled their security line. Reader “Mooner” sends in a link from their site with photographic evidence from Friday, July 17, showing the carting-off of the secure lane equipment at 4:21 pm.

Someone needs to let Vigilant know that their website is still showing that they’re in business… the site, which doesn’t seem to have been updated for a month, reads:

As many of you are aware, Clear put out a statement stating “At 11:00 p.m. PST on June 22, 2009, Clear will cease operations. Clear’s parent company, Verified Identity Pass, Inc. has been unable to negotiate an agreement with its senior creditor to continue operations.”

Be assured, that while we are interoperable with all Clear lanes, we are not Clear and will continue to operate on a limited basis. We are working on gathering information and are having discussions with other industry members and will provide you information as we receive it.

Gives new meaning to “limited basis” …

The company was operating at two airports: Jacksonville and Louisville. Their partnership with Clear gave them a broader reach of more than 20 airports, but after Clear went belly-up, that breadth disappeared. With only two airports in the network, I’m sure many questioned the value they were getting for the $175 annual fee.

As before, when Clear went under, there are questions about refunds, and questions about the security of users’ private data. To participate in a registered traveler program, passengers needed to permit a detailed background check, which was stored by a private company contracted with the federal government. Registered Traveler was a poorly planned concept from the get-go. All for a shorter line. And now…?

(Thanks, Mooner!)

UPDATE: Via e-mail Joe Brancatelli points out that the FLO Corporation, which managed a similar program in Reno, has also closed. (Thanks, Joe!)

A Q&A from the TSA regarding the Registered Traveler program is found here.

Back in April, Orbitz rolled back its hotel booking fees, in the face of some smashmouth competition between the online travel agencies. At the time, Orbitz promised that the hotel fee cuts would last until July 15. But no: They’ve been extended.

Orbitz was one of the last agencies to reduce its airline booking fees. Those fee cuts were set to resume on June 1. They didn’t. Until further notice, the fees are history.

It’s a brutal world and a nasty fight for market share, and agencies aren’t bringing the fees back. Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, and Hotwire all eliminated their airline booking fees.

But other agencies haven’t reducing the hotel booking fees the way Orbitz has. Orbitz is trying to carve out a space as the site for hotel bookings.

On the one hand, they’ve got a better price than other agencies, so this gives Orbitz a competitive advantage that travelers would be wise to take advantage of.

But it simultaneously shows that Orbitz is hurting and needs to cut prices in order to generate business.

(image)