GeekSugar

United Airlines Charges For Bags, But Will Charge Your iPod

GeekSugar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:30:26 PDT

This makes me a little less bitter at United for charging $15 per checked bag: the airline is installing iPod and iPhone docks on its airplanes. Not only will you be able to charge your battery at your seat, you'll be able to scroll through your music and videos from the seat back's screen! Don't watch from that silly little screen, watch from behind somebody's head!

The first few flights to boast the Apple connectivity will be transatlantic, and will sadly be for first-and business-class passengers. That had better not last, or my forgiveness for the checked-bag fee will quickly depart.

Source

Flying the Scary Skies? The Airline Industry Hits Turbulence

CitizenSugar — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:00:22 PDT

Suddenly those gross, germy, blankets are the least of air travelers worries. The FAA is answering to Congress today over whistle-blower information surfaced casting doubt over Southwest Airlines safety practices.

The tip came from an FAA inspector who called out his bosses saying, "I'm here today because I'm concerned of the safety of the flying public which has been jeopardized by the abusive authority in violations of the federally regulations." He says Southwest pressured the FAA to hide safety problems. Insert the small tab into the buckle of your seatbelt, there's a ton more airline news, just

Also today, United became the latest major carrier to ground planes unannounced after failing to make required checks of the planes' fire-suppression system. (Southwest and American have both also grounded planes recently.) Aloha Airlines lei-d off 1,900 employees when it was grounded this week, and ATA skidded into bankruptcy, quitting today.

What's behind all the sky-bound turmoil? Is the FAA too easy on the airlines? Are consumers, constantly after bargain-basement fares, partially to blame?

Source

How-To: Continue Saving Travel Dollars After You've Booked and Paid

Emily Co — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:03:26 PDT

Scouring for deals before you make your purchase is always smart, but you can save even more if you go the extra mile and get some money back after you've booked. Here are some savvy tips to get you more savings after you've forked up cash:

Air Travel: You can save more money on air tickets if the price of the flight goes down. Get refunded the difference when you buy your ticket from airlines like JetBlue, Alaska Airlines, and Southwest. Some airlines will charge an extra fee because they will consider it to be changing reservations. AirTran and Virgin, for example, charge $75, while United charges $150. An easy way to keep track of the changing airline prices is to use online price tracker Yapta.com, which will do the work for you and send you refund alerts when your fare has gone down. Be sure to also check out Yapta's other cool feature that keeps track of the flights that you're interested in buying and sends you alerts when the price drops.
Rental Car: Although Yapta tracks rental-car fares, there is an even better site that will do most of the work for you. It's called autoslash.com; it basically books the car for you, checks around for a cheaper price, then emails you when it finds a lower rate. If you want to go with the lower rate, it will rebook it for you.
Hotels: Pick a hotel with a good refund policy or one that allows you to cancel without any penalties if you want to get your money back when you spot a lower rate on a hotel.Then use Yapta as a price-tracking system for hotels, which alerts you when the price of a hotel drops. If the rate does decrease, you can just cancel your reservation and make a new one. You can generally cancel your hotel booking if you don't pay up front for your reservation, but be sure to read the fine print because every hotel has different policy.
Bonus: Alternatively, if you book through travel sites, you can get some sort of price guarantee for your flight, hotel room, and rental car. Keep in mind that every site has different requirements. For hotel stays, Orbitz will refund you the difference if you find the same room at the same hotel and dates at a cheaper price elsewhere. However, the claim has to be submitted before the hotel applies cancellation fees (which requires paying attention to hotel policies) and only works with rates that have the "Low Price Guarantee" or “Price Assurance.” Travelocity, Expedia, and Priceline all have some sort of price guarantee with some differences, so don't assume that the same policy will apply to the other sites.

4 Ways Shoppers Can Offset Rising Food Costs

Business Insider — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:15:17 PDT

Protect yourself by learning what identity thieves are up to with this helpful Business Insider story.

Food costs everywhere are soaring and even so-called budget foods are eating our wallet.

Today, the US Department of Agriculture brought more bad news to consumers with its annual analysis of food cost increases. According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the USDA sees prices going up on, well, everything: beef's up 1.1 percent; eggs are up 1.9 percent; and fish/seafood and dairy products are up 0.9 percent.

About the only thing catching a break is fresh fruit, which saw a 0.3 percent drop. (Sadly, veggies are up one percent.) Your Money tapped Teri Gault, founder of the excellent deals site The Grocery Game, to find out four things shoppers can do to offset rising costs. Hint: it's all in the planning.

1. Ditch the typical grocery list. Gault says too many consumers make the mistake of treating food like a cheap commodity rather than an investment. "We're not doomed to pay full price for everything we consume," she says. And she's right: running to the store to replenish whatever you've run out of almost always means you'll pay full price for it as everything's not on sale all the time.

"Instead of letting running out of food trigger the purchase, let the sales trigger when you shop," says Gault. "Every single thing goes on sale once every 12 weeks," so everything short of dairy and produce can be bought as an investment - if you're sure that you'll eat it.

Find sales by checking weekly circulars online and in-store - you can find them near the entrance - and on GroceryGame.com, where Gault says most of the deals are unadvertised.

2. Bigger doesn't mean better. Items typically come in three sizes - small, medium, and large, says Gault. But bigger doesn't always mean better value. Choose the item with the lowest cost per unit; chances are it will be medium-sized.

Read to find out more.

5 Airlines That Offer Healthy Food Fare

Heather Dale — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:52:08 PDT

When you are purchasing a flight, do you have a favorite airline that you always book with? Or do you just go for the best deal? And what makes you have an airline preference - the service, the extra leg room, or maybe it's the amazing snacks and meals? For me, if the airline has awesome service, great in-flight entertainment, and other perks, it tends to have delicious food as well.

Last year, the Diet Detective conducted an Airline Food Survey, which rated how healthy the food is aboard the top US airlines. After examining the economy class menus of several airlines' domestic flights and taking into consideration the Diet Detective's results - not to mention some of my own personal biases - here are the top five airlines that I think are serving up the healthiest snacks and meals.

How the American Airlines Bankruptcy Will Affect You

Emily Co — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:56:27 PST

There's always a feeling of confusion when a major retailer goes bust, but what we really want to know is what it means for us and how we'll be affected. American Airlines announced it was filing for bankruptcy this morning, which leaves loyal customers wondering what's going to happen to their miles and if it's going to be harder to book a flight with them. Here's a quick roundup of burning questions you might have:

Will American Airlines go out of business and stop flying?

When a company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it doesn't mean it's going to close shop and disappear. It just means the airline gets time off from creditors to do some financial reorganization. Chapter 7 bankruptcy, on the other hand, would mean that business would close. American Airlines has not filed for that, and there seems to be no plans to do so. Airlines such as Delta, Continental, and United have all filed for bankruptcy and are now stronger for it after taking the time needed during the bankruptcy period to put their books in order.

Can I still use my miles?

Yes, the airline says that the frequent flier program will not be affected, and you'll be able to redeem and use your miles. In the past, airlines that have gone bust, such as Pan Am and Eastern, transferred miles to the airlines that purchased some of their assets.

What's going to happen to my flight?

You don't have to worry about the tickets you currently hold, according to Rick Seaney, the CEO of FareCompare, a company that helps customers find air travel deals online. “Tickets won’t be an issue because of the kind of bankruptcy they’re filing,” Rick tells Time. The airline has also said it will continue to honor tickets and reservations.

Read on to learn how you should manage your miles.

The Cheapest Airlines to Fly Your Pet On

Emily Co — Fri, 27 May 2011 05:00:15 PDT

Travel season is here, and it's not just humans that will be flying, pets will be roaming the skies, too! To find out which airline will best suit your pet travel budget, read on for a short list below that states the airline, and the fee for cabin and checked pets. Read on to see how the prices compare.

Best Frequent Flier Programs to Redeem Miles From

Emily Co — Thu, 26 May 2011 14:45:00 PDT

Some of you have experienced frustration while trying to redeem your miles. What's the point of being a loyal customer if the airline doesn't seem to appreciate it? Perhaps it's best to reconsider your frequent flier program. The Wall Street Journal cites a study that ranks 24 mileage programs all over the world, judging them by the success rates of redeeming a ticket with mileage. The front runner of the US airlines is Southwest, which awards seats 99.3 percent of the time. Here is a list to give you an idea of how the US airlines rank among themselves:

Southwest: 99.3 percent
JetBlue: 79.3 percent
United: 71.4 percent
Continental: 71.4 percent
Alaska: 63.4 percent
American: 62.9 percent
Delta: 27.1 percent
US Airways: 25.7 percent

Quick tip: start booking your trips now, because it's going to be harder for customers to redeem their miles this Summer since a lot of the flights are already booked up during this popular travel season. And if you're going to be traveling a lot, you might want to pick an airline with a better mileage program.

The WSJ points out that the study seemed to indicate that it "might be easier to get 'free' tickets using miles on low-fare carriers than it is on big carriers with global networks." So if you're looking for a mileage program that will give you a bang for your buck, you might want to go with a budget airline.

13 Secrets to Save on Travel

Kiplinger — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:53:38 PDT

We're thrilled to present this smart Kiplinger story here on Savvy!

The travel industry is recovering from the recession. And unfortunately, stronger business for it means fewer deals for you. But with our 20 tips, you can still save on airfare, lodging, vacation packages and cruises.

Save on Airfare

1) Use Kayak.com to quickly scan hundreds of travel Web sites for the cheapest airfares. And don't forget to check Southwest.com - Kayak doesn’t include fares for the budget airline.

2) Sign up for airlines’ free e-mails to get sale alerts and coupon codes delivered straight to your in-box. Or visit AirfareWatchdog.com, where the site’s staff shares those promotional codes and special offers.

3) Check Bing Travel to save a fortune using its “price predictor,” which forecasts whether fares on major domestic routes will go up or down. Just enter your itinerary and the site will return a list of fares with a recommendation to either buy now or wait for a fare drop.

4) Try booking and flying at less-trafficked times. Fares tend to sneak up on the weekends, when more people are free to plan their travel, so book your flight on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Flying on those days, as well as on Saturday afternoons, also offer the best rates because fewer people travel at those times.

For more secrets to save on travel, read on.

How-To: Save Money on Your Air Ticket After You Buy It

Emily Co — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:09:02 PDT

We're always looking for cheap air tickets in order to reduce costs before we make the purchase, but did you know that you can save even more money after your buy? Believe it or not, you can actually get refunded the difference if you buy your ticket from airlines like JetBlue or Alaska Airlines. However, some airlines will charge an extra fee because they will consider it to be changing reservations. AirTran and Virgin for example, charges $75, and American and United charges $150. Savvy tip: make sure you do your homework on the fees incurred.

An easy way to keep track of the changing airline prices will be to use online price tracker Yapta.com that will do the work for you and send you refund alerts when your fare has gone down. Be sure to also check out Yapta's other cool feature, which keeps track of the flights that you're interested in buying and sends you alerts when the price drops for the weekend you wanted to jet away to New York. You can even keep track of hotel prices as well.

Have you ever been refunded the difference after the price of your plane ticket dropped?

Got a cost-saving travel tip? Join our Savvy Travel Tips group and share your expertise!