Downgraded: Moscow
For the sixth year in a row, Moscow has the most expensive hotel rates in the world for business travelers. The average Moscow rate fell 12 percent to 13,250 rubles ($452). Fell.

Upgraded: Flights from NYC to Tokyo
American Airlines is launching flights from New York JFK to Tokyo Haneda Airport. Haneda, which is closer to downtown Tokyo, not Narita, the primary international airport.

Downgraded, then Upgraded: United grounds, then fixes, its 757s
United grounded all 96 of its Boeing 757s yesterday, to perform required emergency updates to all the planes’ air data computers. A day later, the airline reported that only 15 flights were nixed, and that all planes were back online.

Upgraded: One-way rentals out of Florida
If you’re in Florida and looking to leave the state between April and June, Hertz is serving up one-way out-of-Florida rentals for merely $5 a day. Rates are good for a limited range of destination states, and for a max of 14 days, but $5 is cheap. No one-way drop-off fees, either. Snowbirds bring the car in, you bring it out. This isn’t necessarily something for everyone, but if it meets your needs, go for it. (via)

Downgraded: Hot cheese
Beware of hot cheese when you travel. Seriously. The headline: “Disney in Hot Cheese Lawsuit.” It’s quite sad, actually, for the kid who got hurt. Poor child, but wow, what a sentence: “[Walt Disney Parks and Resorts] has just received the lawsuit from a Californian couple who say their four-year-old Isaiah Harris was injured at Cosmic Ray’s Starlite Café [at Orlando's Magic Kingdom] when he toppled into a scalding hot cup of cheese that had been prepared for pouring over nachos.”

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This is big news: In an era of increasing fees, nickel-and-diming, and shifting frequent flier mile award charts, Delta is going the opposite direction. Retroactive to January 1, 2011, Delta SkyMiles no longer expire.

Until now, you needed to engage in some sort of activity every 24 months — either by earning or redeeming miles — in order to keep your account alive. If you didn’t, poof!, your miles disappeared.

This move is primarily a change for the better for the infrequent Delta traveler. After all, if you were a regular Delta (or SkyTeam) customer, you weren’t really worried about the expiration date, since you kept racking them up.

Rather, this helps the little guy and is bound to build up a great deal of goodwill.

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What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day (and the 5th anniversary of this blog, yay!) than to get some travel vaccines?…

I started my morning with another needle in the arm, finishing the cycle of what I hope is the last vaccine I could realistically need for many years. It feels like I’ve had them all… typhoid, yellow fever, meningococcal meningitis… you name it. I suppose there’s, say, a cholera vaccine that I could be getting, but I’m pretty much covered at this point for travel to just about anywhere.

It wasn’t always that way. For years, I never really gave vaccination a second thought. I figured, I wasn’t traveling to disaster areas, so where was the risk? Silly me. I ended up picking up a nasty bug that could have been avoided with a few vaccines. Luckily, my body beat it, with no long-term consequences, but it was a painful experience that knocked me out of commission.

So I’m no longer messing around. Now, when travel takes me to a country or region I haven’t been to before, I check the Center for Disease Control’s destination pages. The individual country pages list vaccines, pre-or post-travel medications (such as anti-malarials) to plan for, and general warnings about things to look out for, to avoid regional illness to which non-locals are susceptible.

For the sake of your health, and, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, for the peace of mind of your loved ones, don’t be an idiot. Don’t risk your health when you travel. Get your shots.

For years, selling miles for cash has been a gray area — legal, but a violation of the terms of the frequent flyer programs.

But now Points.com, the company that lets you switch miles from one program to another, for a fee, has partnered with Paypal, which effectively converts miles to cash.

Since airlines have to agree to participate in Points.com, those “legal” hurdles are out of the way. It’s perfectly legit now to make the switch to cash.

Participating airlines at this point are few and far between, but a few biggies are in there: American Airlines AAdvantage, Air Canada Aeroplan, and US Airways Dividend Miles are the only players, so far.

The biggest problem is the actual value proposition: They’re terrible. Don’t expect big cash payouts.

If you want to get $100 cash, you’ll need 17,734 Air Canada Aeroplan miles, 24,118 American Airlines AAdvantage miles, or a mind-boggling 120,589 US Airways Dividend Miles.

120,589???! For $100??? Are you freaking kidding me? That’s a business class flight to South Asia. That’s three coach tickets to Hawaii. That’s … worth well more than $100.

The other airlines’ options are not much better. AC miles come to 0.56 cents per mile. AA miles are worth 0.44 cents per mile. And US miles… 0.083 cents per mile. That’s insane.

While, in theory, it’s nice to see more choices for redeeming miles, there’s no way on earth I’m participating in this.

In 2008, when Orbitz first introduced their Price Assurance program — their policy that provides refunds when another Orbitz customer buys the exact same ticket as you — I was skeptical. As I wrote then:

Orbitz will automatically send you a check IF AND ONLY IF another Orbitz customer purchases the same ticket you booked, and they do it for less money. If the price just goes down, but no one buys that ticket on Orbitz, you’re out of luck. No refund.

So when would you be more likely to win in the refund lottery? It would need to be a frequently purchased itinerary, so I’d be expecting it on major business routes like Washington-Chicago, San Francisco-New York, etc. Trying to get a price drop refund on that Bozeman, Montana to Fayetteville, North Carolina itinerary? Good luck with that.

So imagine my surprise — perhaps even comeuppance — when a pair of tickets I purchased on Orbitz on behalf of the in-laws ended up yielding a refund check. The proof is above (with the check numbers erased) and if you click the image, you’ll see the marketing language that’s on the stub, too. Oh, and it’s been cashed, so don’t try anything too clever, smart guy…

This dates back to a purchase made in late October. I bought two US Airways tickets from Providence, RI, to Charlotte, NC for dates in December. The price was an embarrassingly-cheap $117.90 per person, roundtrip, all taxes and fees included. (Fare war with JetBlue at the time, apparently.) But someone else somehow did even better a few days later, and booked the same exact itinerary for $97.90. So not only was there a refund — at all! — there was a refund of $20 per ticket on a stupidly-cheap fare.

About six weeks after the trip was completed, the check arrived. Cashed immediately.

I’m certainly glad that I got cash back from the trip, without doing anything. I’m grateful for that. But at the end of the day, it’s still not a real guarantee that you’ll always have the lowest-possible fare for a given flight. If someone books a lower fare on Travelocity, or directly from the airline, you’re not getting a check.

The stars aligned for me. I got lucky, plain and simple.

Related:
- Check in the mail: Orbitz refunds airfare price drops, but is it worthwhile?
- Orbitz Price Assurance re-examined: Real savings or gimmick?

Delta is launching a small premium seating section in the economy cabin on longhaul international flights: Dubbed “Economy Comfort,” the new section of the plane will feature the same physical seats as the rest of economy, but with “up to” four inches of more legroom and 50% increased recline.

The service comes with a promise of more service, too:

In addition to more leg room and recline, customers seated in Economy Comfort will board early and enjoy complimentary spirits throughout the flight. These benefits are in addition to Delta’s standard international Economy class amenities, including complimentary meals, beer, wine, entertainment, blankets and pillows. In-seat power will also be available on aircraft equipped with personal entertainment systems which come with free HBO programming and other for-fee content. The seats will be designated with a specially designed seat cover.

Food, drinks, legroom, and recline? Feels like a throwback to international travel in 1988!

Of course, there’s a velvet rope:

Customers who have purchased an international Economy ticket on Delta will be able to choose Economy Comfort seats for an additional fee of $80-$160 one-way through delta.com, kiosks and Delta reservations beginning in May for travel this summer. Complimentary access to Economy Comfort seats will be available to all SkyMiles Diamond and Platinum Medallions; up to eight companions traveling in the same reservation with Diamond and Platinum Medallions; and customers purchasing full-fare Economy class tickets. Gold and Silver Medallions will enjoy 50 and 25 percent discounts on the Economy Comfort seat fees, respectively.

The key for Delta frequent travelers is the fact that seats in Economy Comfort will be complimentary for SkyMiles Diamond and Platinum level members. But not the entry- and mid-level elites (Silver and Gold), who still have to pay up, albeit at a discount.

The fact that you need to fly at least 75,000 miles before you get extra legroom distinguishes the program from United, which offers its Economy Plus seats to all its elites at no additional cost. UA Economy Plus is a lot easier to attain — only 25,000 miles, not 75,000 — and it’s available on domestic flights as well as international. Sure, Delta throws in some free drinks, but it takes a lot more flying to earn that complimentary cocktail.

Also, remember: This isn’t the same as a true premium economy class, as you find on, say, Virgin Atlantic, Air New Zealand, or JAL. Those products actually have different, wider seats, and not just more legroom.