Upgraded: Hotel guest behavior, via the inverse of TripAdvisor
Think twice before trashing a room in the U.K., being overly drunk and loud, or steal the towels. Not only because it’s rude and obnoxious, but also because you may end up on a new guest blacklist. If you’re on the list, hoteliers can refuse to accept another reservation from you ever again: “About 10,000 small hotels, B&Bs, holiday letting agencies and campsites are expected to join the subscription-based GuestScan network, which will enable them to check whether a guest’s name is on a blacklist before they accept a booking. [...] Under the Data Protection Act, guests will be told their name is on the blacklist and they will have a right of appeal. Accommodation providers must indemnify GuestScan against the consequences of malicious reporting.” It’s TripAdvisor turned on its head!

Upgraded: Pushback against Homeland Security searches
If you arrive in the United States from overseas, your laptop, cellphone, or other electronic device is treated as if it were a suitcase, subject to search and seizure. It’s as if your data is a bag of dirty clothes inside your bag. Why? You’re in the gray area of the customs area — not quite admitted to the United States, but still on United States soil — so there has been no clarity in the question of whether constitutional protections against warrantless and unreasonable searches are applicable or not. Now, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, challenging the department’s authority to search and seize electronic equipment “without reasonable suspicion.” I’m looking forward to a court clearing this up, and rooting for the ACLU here.

Downgraded: Travel for American citizens
A fringe pastor in a tiny church in Florida threatens to burn Korans — and then backs down — but the damage is done, and the State Department is relegated to issuing a global travel alert for American citizens traveling overseas. Just awesome.

Upgraded: Rationale for lousy interior design
Vegas hotels go for the razzle-dazzle… but why are the casino carpets so hideously awful? It’s not a bug, it’s a feature: Ugly casino carpets lead to more gambling. And I thought that gaudy designs and bright colors subconsciously led to faster turnover, like at brightly-colored fast food restaurants?…

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Before this morning, I had never heard of Socotra. Now, it’s on my “places to see before you die” list.

For those, like me, who never heard of it before: It’s an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, just 150 miles off the coast of the Horn of Africa. One third of its plant life is found nowhere else. It’s the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean, for lack of a better metaphor.

The natural formations and flora look like scenes from Avatar. It looks like an alien landscape. Roads were only built on the island, which belongs to Yemen, in 2006.

Accommodations on this island of 40,000 are, as you might suspect, quite limited. As per Wikipedia, Yemenia and Felix Airways fly from Socotra Airport to Sanaa and Aden via Mukalla (RIY – Riyan Airport). The Sanaa service is everyday, while Aden flights are available only Mondays (as of December 2009).

There’s an amazing set of photos over at Dark Roasted Blend, so I just suggest browsing over there and looking at the whole thing. If anyone has been there, I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks to reader J for the tip!

Upgraded: The power of coffee and tea
Sometimes it really is the little things: At Easyjet, the UK-based discount airline, flights haven’t been particularly ontime this year. Under 50% for flights from London-Gatwick — which is terrible. And one of the reasons for the delays: “rostering problems.” And, in turn, these “rostering problems” are allegedly driven by … (wait for it)… the airline’s decision to stop giving pilots free tea and coffee.

Upgraded: Lawsuit chutzpah
So a disgruntled passenger who paid $25 to American Airlines to transport her checked back, and whose bag was lost, is suing the airline for $5 million. Umm, I think the suit is a little out of scale here. And now American is saying that they weren’t even the airline to transport the woman: the passenger was apparently rebooked onto another airline (presumably United) when the original American Eagle flight was canceled. Pass the popcorn!

Upgraded: ANA
Japanese airline ANA has made technological breakthroughs that will allow it to start serving draft beer in flight. Bravo, ANA! (Via View from the Wing)

Upgraded: Laughs, literally at Carnival’s expense
Carnival Cruise Lines is introducing comedy clubs on all 22 of its ships. It’ll be dubbed “Punchliner.” Har har har. Take that, Lido deck!

Upgraded: oneWorld
The oneWorld alliance got a boost recently when American Airlines, Iberia, and British Airways got the green light for anti-trust immunity on transatlantic routes. Not a big surprise. A bigger surprise: German semi-discount carrier Air Berlin is joining the alliance. That adds a few more locations to the oneWorld map.

Upgraded: Taking airport privacy to absurd levels
If the prospect of a full-body scan disturbs you — and yes, they CAN see your privates — then perhaps it’s time to invest in some FlyingPasties. (Warning: Potentially unsafe for work, if a pasties-covered female figure doesn’t make the cut for your at-work monitors…)

Upgraded: Alaska Airlines’ green cred
Alaska Airlines has tested a new method of landing, which uses satellite technology to guide the plane down more smoothly than traditional “descend and maintain 5000 feet” directions can do. The airline claims the procedures can reduce noise and cut fuel burn by a third. A third. Yowza.

A friend recently asked me about unaccompanied minors traveling internationally, when his young cousin was planning to travel from the US to Germany solo. Since it’s been 25 years since I’ve partaken of an airline’s unaccompanied minors policy, as a junior traveler myself, this was something I really didn’t know much about.

Policies vary by carrier, of course, and in this instance it was Delta’s policy that applied.

Delta charges a $100 (or 100 euro) fee when a minor is traveling alone. For that fee, a flight attendant will hold onto the boarding passes, passport, etc., and the airline agrees to release the minor only to a specified person at the destination.

Fees vary by airline, of course. So does service. Just as an example, Lufthansa promises a great deal more attention to the unaccompanied minor:

On board your child is welcomed and looked after by a stewardess during the flight. On the plane the child has a special seat located close to the flight attendants so that they can be on hand immediately. Games, crayons and colouring books and their own entertainment programme ensures – irrespective of the length of the flight and the route – that your child feels comfortable throughout.

Lufthansa’s rate varies according to distance flown. For a trans-Atlantic flight, for example, it’ll cost $150 or 100 euros. (Note the variation in exchange rates between Lufthansa and Delta…)

These were fees I wasn’t aware of. When I mentioned this to another friend, he expressed outrage at the cost. “They don’t actually take on real liability, so what are you paying for? Someone to hold the kid’s passport? What a ripoff!” Years ago, this service — like so many others — was free.

I think Lufthansa has the right idea by charging a fee that varies, depending on the distance flown. But it’s still pretty hefty.

So the question goes to you: Is it fair to charge a fee for unaccompanied minors? If so, how much? Parents, what do you think? Hit the comments…

On those occasions when I rent a vacation home, I’m always entertained by the guest book. I flip through to see where my predecessors have called home.

Since I’m taking a few days off to explore Rocky Mountain National Park, and since we rented a vacation home as a base, I was glad to see the guest book lying there.

But one guest didn’t limit themselves to kind words. They broke out the poetry:

If only TripAdvisor reviews were this poetic…

Who charges a hefty surcharge — twice — when you buy a ticket for someone else?

Greyhound.

The travel marketplace is clearly diversifying: It’s not just airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies that are bilking customers with poorly-disclosed and poorly-justified fees. We can now add Greyhound bus lines to the list of offenders.

Longtime friend of the blog Dave H. writes in with a tale of bus tickets run amok with fees:

[My wife's mom] usually drives the 2 hours from Delaware to us but wanted to take a break this upcoming visit [...] so we bought her a ticket on Greyhound. 62 bucks roundtrip, Wilmington to Newark. (Amtrak was about double that.)

Clicked “purchase”, then *after the fact* learned about their $18 “gift service fee”. So talk about an online bait-and-switch! (Aren’t online retailers required to show a complete grand total before completing a transaction?) And then, only on reading the fine print in the receipt did she learn about another $15 “will call” charge if the traveler is not the purchaser. $33 in fees on a $62 ticket. Undisclosed until after purchase. And of course it’s a non-refundable fare. (And also in the fine print: seats are first-come, first-served, and if the bus is full they’ll just put you on the next bus, so there is *zero* incentive to buy ahead of time.)

Greyhound justifies the $18 charge by asking complaining customers — after putting you on interminable hold, of course — how much would it have cost to wire the money to the giftee? No justification offered for the $15 will-call fee. [...]

We, of course, have options: we’ll dispute the charge with our credit card issuer, who will either open a dispute or more likely simply eat the $80 to avoid the hassle of a dispute. But the target of this predatory business practice — people with no credit cards, i.e., the poor — are just getting milked.

To verify the process, I initiated a bus ticket purchase myself, for the same exact schedule as Dave’s purchase. While Dave is quite correct that the $18 “Gift Ticket Fee” is obnoxious, it is disclosed. Here’s a screenshot from the purchase page. See right below “Please Note”:

Disclosure is okay, but come on: What justification is there for this fat surcharge? Fraud risk? I’ve paid for plane tickets for others, which cost a heck of a lot more than that. And the way the rule is written, a husband can’t buy a ticket for his wife without paying the surcharge. Ridiculous! Disclosed or not, the fee offends.

And the $15 will-call fee? Not disclosed prior to purchase. Clicking for details on the ticket delivery methods would — at a minimum — be a good last-ditch opportunity to mention such a surcharge. Nope. Here’s the in-window popup:

It’s not just the lack of disclosure: It’s the size of these fees. $15 to pick up a prepaid ticket would make even Ticketmaster blush.

And whom are they hurting most here? Greyhound’s business model here is painfully apparent in the customer service agent’s justification of the gift ticket fee. Wiring money is the comp? If Greyhound is using Western Union wire fees as its reference point, then they might as well start offering payday loans, furniture rental, and an in-transit pawn shop.

So don’t reward bad behavior. Until Greyhound finds some pricing ethics, seek alternatives where they’re available. Chinatown buses, Megabus, Peter Pan… anything.