It’s been a tough few weeks, but U:TB is back on the beat. Not tanned, rested, or particularly ready, alas. But back.

Upgraded: Snakes in a car
A Florida woman got in her Enterprise rental car, only to find a 3 1/2 foot long red rat snake on the dashboard. Will “snake availability waivers” be the next add-on fee? And was it a Dodge Viper?

Upgraded: Convictions of liquid bombers
Prosecutors in the UK convicted three men of conspiracy to murder, as part of the 2006 liquid-explosives threat. Prosecutors want to re-try three of the men, for whom the jury could not reach a verdict. In connection with the trial, the BBC released a video ostensibly showing a liquid bomb of the type planned by the convicts.

Upgraded: Newcastle airport
UK officials are testing liquid-explosives scanners at Newcastle airport, using a device that scans liquid containers to judge whether their contents are a potential bomb ingredient or a harmless beverage, facial cream, or toothpaste. Could the 3-ounce liquid limit be up for review?… stay tuned.

Upgraded: Singapore’s A380
Global travel is in a slump. But if you’re expecting an empty seat in coach on board a Singapore Airbus A380, guess again. People still pack the plane. Full planes don’t mean a fat bottom line, though. The airline isn’t getting top dollar per ticket, even if the public seems to like the plane.

Upgraded: Hotel deals
The average rate for hotel rooms has dropped 17% in the first half of 2009 alone, making the average room the cheapest its been in five years. Bucking the trend: rates in Caribbean, down only 2% on average. (I’m sure there’s still a lot of variation between islands.)

Downgraded: Block 37
For years, “block 37″ in the center of the Chicago Loop (the block is bounded by Randolph, State, Washington, and Dearborn) stood vacant. It’s a construction site now, with plans for a central transit hub underground. And above ground, a Loews Hotel was planned, with rights sold to the company for $1. But the hotel chain can’t (or won’t) get financing for this prime downtown location, so yet another hotel project is up in the air.

Downgraded: Continental and US Airways add international luggage fees
Following in the steps of American Airlines and British Airways, Continental and US Airways have now also added a fee for a second checked bag on international flights. US Airways also bumped up the fee for domestic luggage fees by $5 per bag.

Upgraded: Japanese car rentals
Travelers renting a car in Japan can now reserve a wireless enabled netbook for about $10 per day. The company, Oryx, includes the cost of the wireless service.

Downgraded: Blaming the victim
A Stamford, Connecticut franchisee operating under the Marriott name stupidly and offensively blamed one of its customers, saying she “‘failed to exercise due care’ before she was raped at gunpoint in front of her children in a hotel parking garage.” Stay classy, Stamford Marriott! Now, the Marriott mothership is distancing itself from the words (and legal strategy) of its franchisee.

Upgraded: JetBlue-Lufthansa partnership
It took a while — I blogged about the possibility of an alliance partnership back in December 2007 — but JetBlue and Lufthansa are finally talking about codesharing. The consequences will be interesting. I’m particularly interested to see if Lufthansa will be selling JetBlue segments on tickets to destinations served as well by Star Alliance members United and US Airways.

Downgraded: SkyEurope
SkyEurope, a European (duh) discount airline, has ceased all operations. This was the airline that at one point offered to pay its customers to fly with them. R.I.P.

Downgraded: Enterprise Rent-a-Car
Rental cars typically don’t have a great reputation, and this doesn’t help: Enterprise saved money on its rental fleet by requesting that GM delete safety features — features that were otherwise standard. The savings per vehicle: $175. 66,000 Chevrolet Impalas without side curtain airbags were rented out, and then subsequently sold as used vehicles.

Upgraded: Weird contraband found at airports
Downgraded: Pigeon welfare
The NY Daily News has a set of photos of items found by customs agents at airports. Most are drug related, but my favorite has to be this image of a man with pigeons wrapped up and kept in his long underwear:

“Sir, your pants are cooing.”

Downgraded: Priorities
A new film being made with George Clooney in the lead role is apparently based on the premise of a man seeking to collect 1 million frequent flyer miles. I would rather see a film devoted a person seeking to spend 1 million frequent flyer miles…

Downgraded: “Good luck” cards for illegal immigrants
Staying on the customs-and-immigration theme… A Mexican man attempting to enter the UK, with the intention of overstaying his visa, was flagged as a probable immigrant, rather than a tourist, when a card was found in his luggage containing the sentiment, “Good luck in your new life in the UK!” The UK Border Agency trumpeted that they were sending him “back.” But the man flew to Manchester from Los Angeles… I wonder what his return ticket read.

Upgraded: Advantage Rent-a-Car revived, in death
Bankrupt Advantage Rent-a-Car’s assets are being bought by competitor Enterprise, assuming the courts approve. But with the ongoing slump in the rental market, I’m surprised Enterprise would even want more cars or offices!

Upgraded: Northwest and Delta mileage accounts
I realize I’ve been negligent in not mentioning this before: You can merge Northwest WorldPerks miles into an existing Delta SkyMiles account and receive a 500-mile bonus for doing so, if you do it by April 15, 2009. The miles will instantly transfer over, but the bonus will take a few weeks to post.

Downgraded: Spirit Airlines charging fees again for buying tickets on their own website
I have to say, part of me loves the gall that Spirit Airlines has. Last year, they instituted a “passenger usage fee” of $4.90 for buying tickets on their own website. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is: The airline tried this last summer, but retracted it within a few days. In the WSJ, Scott McCartney has this summary:

Spirit tried charging a $7.90 passenger usage fee last year, along with a $2.50 “natural occurrence interruption fee” (to cover storm-related costs) and an $8.50 “international service recovery fee” to pay for some taxes and fees the airline pays to foreign governments. But the DOT stepped in and ordered the airline to stop; federal rules require airlines to include airline-imposed charges that all customers must pay in advertised fares.

Spirit was fined $40,000 but remained undeterred. Since then, the airline has been negotiating with the DOT to find an acceptable way under department rules to charge the passenger booking fee. “We will be reintroducing it in a way the DOT is comfortable with,” Mr. Baldanza says.

Offended? Complain. Here and here.

Downgraded: Missing a flight
Downgraded as well: Airline staff who film passengers
A passenger who flipped out when she missed her flight to Hong Kong, and was caught on cameraphone throwing a huge tantrum, has received an apology from the airline that kept her off the plane. Not because she didn’t board, but because the embarrassing video was made by a Cathay Pacific employee. (Notably, they claim the employee wasn’t the one to have uploaded the video to YouTube, but that’s hardly a vital distinction at this point.) I didn’t post the original video when it started making the rounds, because it seemed to be everywhere at the time, but I’ll include it here for context.

One of the oldest tricks in the money-saving book has been to rent a car in an area that’s not as heavily taxed. For example, it’s often cheaper to rent downtown, rather than at the airport, to avoid the airport “concession fees.” But the city of Chicago is fighting back and taxing renters in ways that can be called “creative,” at best. And it’s landing the city in court:

Enterprise Rent-A-Car has sued the city of Chicago for trying to tax car rentals outside city limits, including far-reaching suburbs.

The St. Louis-based car rental giant filed the suit last week in Kane County after Chicago’s Department of Revenue decided that all car rentals in the Chicago suburbs are subject to the city’s 8 percent “transaction” or leasing tax.

To be excused from the tax, Chicago is requiring rental companies to photocopy customers’ driver’s licenses and obtain a sworn affidavit that they won’t be spending more than half of their time driving in Chicago with their rented car.

Sworn affidavit? That’s just ridiculous. And, may I add, unenforceable.

The city has a history of extra-jurisdictional taxation. When I lived in Chicago, I bought a car at a suburban dealership (in Schaumburg, just west of O’Hare, for those keeping score.) And much to my dismay, I had to pay the higher Chicago sales tax rate, instead of the lower Schaumburg rate, because the tax was based on the zip code of registration, not the location of the seller.

The move to tax rental cars is most likely targeting those suburbs near O’Hare Airport. Drivers there would be nailed with both airport fees and Chicago tax rates if they rented at the airport, and the city wants that revenue. Much like the Washington Airports Authority is trying to nail hotel shuttles with fees, this is a case of the city shifting the goalposts when the rules aren’t working out in its favor.

I don’t think Chicago’s taxation policy will stand up in court. It’s not only logically questionable to have a city taxing services in another city, but it’s an undue burden on both drivers and the rental car companies who have to collect the fees. I think Enterprise will win this case.

In the mean time, watch out for Chicago taxes outside of Chicago. And if you see such a fee on your rental agreement, then your bottom line is simple: Sign the affidavit. Then drive in Chicago with impunity.

A couple of weeks ago, Sean O’Neill of Budget Travel pinged me with some news of more hybrid rental cars hitting the lots: Enterprise was adding 5000 hybrids to its fleet (totaling 7000 nationally), and sister company Alamo/National was bumping their hybrid fleet to 2000 vehicles.

Agencies are reporting more and more hybrids on their lots. But this growth story is being countered by reader reports that they weren’t able to actually rent the hybrid they reserved. Reader Steve reported that his reservation for a hybrid (at Hertz) was substituted for a different class when he showed up at the airports (two separate airports in California).

Then Tyler Colman of Dr. Vino, when renting from Fox Rent A Car at Oakland Airport, was told that hybrids were being cut back at the company “because the transmissions kept dying at 30,000 miles.” Hmm. Seems fishy.

I asked for comment from Fox Rent-a-Car, to see if this was actually a company-wide decision, or if this was just a big talker at the front desk. I still await their response.

Transmissions or not, the deck is stacked against hybrids in rental fleets, given the way rental cars are actually purchased. Sean’s post sums it up well:

Why are there so few hybrid rentals? I posed that question to Neil Abrams, president of the rental car consulting and research firm Abrams Consulting. He explained that rental car companies do not have an advantage with volume pricing buying power. Hybrids are so popular that car dealerships can get bigger margins selling directly to retail customers instead of rental car companies. Meanwhile, automakers are willing to offload lots of standard engine cars and below-market prices to rental car companies— to clear their inventories. So a rental car company can buy (to pick a random example) a Mercury Sable for, say, roughly $12,000. They can rent it for a year. Then they can re-sell it as a used car, and make money off the resale. This is far more profitable to them than buying a hybrid car, which might cost $20,000. They’ll have to charge far higher daily rates to customers to try to recoup the cost. But in an era of under-$2-a-gallon gas, not enough customers may rent the hybrids at the premium prices.

Indeed. And that’s more likely the better explanation for hybrid shortages at California airports. In this climate, it’s frankly surprising that any rental car company is adding hybrids to the fleet, period.

Enterprise’s expansion of the hybrid supply is unlikely an act of altruism. Perhaps they’re making a bet on the future direction of fuel prices. Let’s just hope the transmissions hold up.

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Upgraded: Frequent flyer legislation
Downgraded: The value of your miles
Frequent flyer programs can be a byzantine maze. Above all, nearly everyone is cranky about being able to cash in their frequent flyer miles. I just tried winnowing down the uncomfortably large kitty of points for some Caribbean travel in May and was given the Heisman. But I’m not cheering on Washington state legislator Chris Hurst, who’s proposing a bill that would allow consumers to cash in their miles at 0.2 cents apiece. “Cash in” literally — for cash. House Bill 2707 is probably not going to go anywhere, but it’s meant as a shot across the bow of airlines whose point redemptions are increasingly stingy. Representative Hurst, call me when you start demanding 2 cents per mile or better. (via Pointswizard)

Upgraded: Delta’s business class seats… on some of its planes
Delta is rolling out new fully-flat seats on its 767s that travel internationally. Excellent news. But only on the 767s for starters, which means that the Delta fleet will have a patchwork of seating at the front of the plane. Sure, every airline rolls new seats out one plane at a time, but it’s odd to limit the rollout explicitly to one aircraft type.

Upgraded: Delta’s flight attendants’ trepidations
With Delta and Northwest in confirmed talks regarding a possible merger, the as-yet non-unionized flight attendants at Delta are looking to organize. Delta’s attendants might be members of the AFA-CWA as of February 14. Consider it a Valentine to Delta management. The goal is to “have a seat at the table” when merger discussions take shape.

Upgraded: Competition for hourly car rentals
With the success of hourly “car-sharing” rentals like Zipcar, the big car rental players are getting in on the action. Reportedly, Enterprise is launching its own version, dubbed “WeCar,” which is being test near Washington University in St. Louis. Just be sure to walk around the car and take photos before and after the rental. If WeCar is anything like their regular operation, those Enterprise guys will try to nail you for any damages on the car, whether it happened on your watch or not.

Upgraded: Gitmo!?
Disturbing and bizarre: There actually exists scheduled service to Guantanamo Bay, ironically provided by the happy-go-lucky sounding Air Sunshine, using 9-seat Cessnas. For those wishing to plan their trip, service is only four days a week, at $250 each way. Not cheap, for such a short trip, and you’d better hope they honor the return portion of the ticket. But you may never want to leave. After all, as Dick Cheney described the conditions for detainees at the base’s prison facilities, when he spoke to CNN in 2005, “They’re living in the tropics. They’re well fed. They’ve got everything they could possibly want.”

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Several great tips rolled in as responses to recent posts on car rentals. Some were posted to comments, but in case you missed them, I’m upgrading them to a post of their own:

Max out your dropoff time
Reader Jason, a former employee of one of the major rental car chains, responding to a post about disappearing grace periods for late returns, offered this advice:

Make sure the rental agent updates your pickup time if you arrive after your scheduled pick up time (i.e. scheduled to pick up at 2pm and you don’t arrive until 3pm). If you arrive early, the computers will likely set your pickup time to the actual time you pickup the car, but if you arrive late it’s up to you and/or the agent to update your pickup time. This little trick has caught a lot of renters who return at the same time they picked up the car, but still get the late fees.

International rentals: Test-drive local booking sites
Reader NPM, author of the Porto City Guide (or Oporto, if you prefer) offers this tip:

Internationally, renting online through local branches can be cheaper than using US major car rental companies’ websites — even for the same company. For instance, in Portugal www.budgetportugal.com tends to be much cheaper than budget.com.

Warehouse discounts for underage renters
Reader Brent offered this tip on saving money if you’re under the age of 25:

Get an Executive membership at Costco. The cost is 100$ but you get the membership right away and it’s worth it. Then rent a car from Budget Car Rentals. The executive Costco membership waives the 21-24 underage driver fee (savings of 25$/day), allows you a free upgrade in car category, so basically if you’re going to get a full size vehicle, you only pay for what a mid-size would cost – and finally they also waive 10% for being a Costco executive member.

After four days, you’ve broken even! And the Costco executive membership is yours to keep…

Know the upsell speech
Finally, over at the Consumerist, they got their hands on Enterprise Rent-a-Car’s script which their associates use to try to convince you to buy their loss/collision coverage. Read it and ignore the temptation to spend your money unnecessarily.

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A reminder: Reader tips are always welcome! Just use the “contact” link at the top right of every page, or leave a comment.

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Related:
- Reader mail: If you’re under 25, how do you rent a car without huge surcharges?
- Reader mail: What happened to car rental late-return grace periods?
- Rental car agent blows smoke up my backside, redux
- Loss of use? Get lost.

Two readers wrote in regarding late returns and grace periods when renting a car. Reader Francine writes:

When I rented a car from National recently, there was no grace period for late returns. None! Is this the latest way they get you?

And reader Peter offers this story, and advice, from his recent rental with Budget Rent-a-Car in Montreal:

I was late getting out of Vermont and late getting the car back to the airport. When I arrived I discovered that I had signed a contract that stipulated $33.xx CAD/hour for being late on a $55/day rental. Further, since I was 2hrs 15 minutes late they claimed I was 3 hours late (the grace period disappeared) and they charged me for another DAY, stating it would cost me less than 3 hours of the late charge.

I haven’t had any luck getting Budget to discuss this with me. If you rent from anyone be clear at pickup 1) what constitutes late and 2) what it costs when you are.

Indeed, grace periods are no longer a given when it comes to late returns. Hertz cut their grace period in half a year ago, and others soon followed suit. Nowadays, you really need to know what you’re signing (and initialing).

In Peter’s case, I see only one possible “violation” here on the part of the company: The forfeit of the grace period. But even then, if he returned the car two hours late (instead of three), he’s better off paying a full day extra, rather than two hours’ overtime. It sucks, but those are the terms.

With contracts like this, if you signed for it, you’re on the hook. These hourly rates are one of the items you’re often asked to initial.

Not all companies are the same, though: Late-return policies vary by chain, with some chains offering no grace periods whatsoever.

Perhaps even more importantly, some companies reserve the right to retroactively change your rate to a higher level — for the duration of the entire rental — if you return the car late. If anything, Peter was lucky they didn’t change his rate for the earlier days as well!

The policies of each major U.S. chain, with key points highlighted, after the jump:
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Your newspaper smells delicious, did you stay at an Omni?
Hotels’ “scent programs” and aromatherapy trends may have just jumped the shark. In a cross-promotional marketers’ fantasy come true, Omni Hotels have started slapping berry-scented stickers advertising Starbucks muffins on copies of USA Today. And the Wall Street Journal is considering adding scents to their advertising pages. Hopefully these odors won’t interfere with the whiff of lemongrass and green tea that’s being pumped into lobby spaces at the chain. What’s next, pay-per-view Smellovision?

Predict the next threat? A TSA-inspired contest
Bruce Schneier is running a contest to conceive of an absurd, fictional terrorist plot that would cause the TSA to start banning yet another product from airports. The more ludicrous the product, yet oddly plausible the threat, the better. Why? “The purpose of this contest is absurd humor, but I hope it also makes a point. Terrorism is a real threat, but we’re not any safer through security measures that require us to correctly guess what the terrorists are going to do next.” Partially-digested food, tooth-fillings, and zippers are front-runners in my book.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car buys Alamo and National
Enterprise is buying Vanguard Car Rental, the parent company of Alamo and National. The combined company would have over a million cars on its lots. Will rentals at Enterprise become more automated, like at Alamo/National? Will Alamo/National start doing the long walkarounds, hard-sells on CDWs, and secretly-negotiable rates?

Wi-fly
After the shutdown of Boeing’s Connexion satellite-based inflight internet service, other companies have been slow to start up service, which was promised nearly a year ago. Scott McCartney checks in with possible providers, and we’re still not there. But it’s coming “early next year.” And rest assured, Skype calls won’t go through. They’ll be blocked, so your fears of cellphone conversations can be kept at bay. Onboard wi-fi — which is already approved for service by both the FCC and FAA — will cost around $10 per day, and packages that link with existing services like T-Mobile HotSpot, Boingo, and iPass will be available. No word on which airlines will be the first to bite.

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The fine folks at the Consumerist got a tell-all e-mail from a former (and presumably disgruntled) employee of Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Included: some info on how to negotiate better rates.

Some are unethical, such as claiming to be an insurance adjustor for State Farm. Don’t do that.

But other tips are helpful, such as:

1. Enterprise doesn’t have any set prices. [...] the agent manually types out how much you pay per day and he has authority to make it pretty much whatever he thinks you should pay.
[...]
6. For the best weekend deal call up on Friday sometime before 2pm and say, “I have all my info, drivers license and credit card, can I get a rental all setup so I don’t have to do anything but sign the ticket when I come in?”

The extent to which Enterprise’s rates are negotiable is particularly striking, and potentially useful, if you’re in the market for a rental car and aren’t afraid to haggle.

The whole post is here.