Arthur Frommer's Blog, page 27

Insight Cuba Has Opened up More Cuban Travel Possibilities for 2012 and 2013

In a blog that I posted a couple of days ago, I wept over the scarce availability of air-and-land packages to Cuba, resulting from the limited hotel space in Havana. I based my view, in part, on the then-current website of Insight Cuba (tel. 800/450-2822; www.insightcuba.com ), probably the leading operator of such packages, which showed virtually every imminent date as sold out.

No sooner did that blog appear than Insight Cuba announced that it had added more than 70 additional departures to Cuba in 2012 and 2013, including departures as early as April and May, and many more in September, October, November and December of this year. In a move that has radically expanded the opportunities to that often-forbidden Caribbean destination, Insight Cuba has wholly changed the availability of tour packages there.

So I'm happy to post this correction. Though I based my earlier statement on a careful study of the Insight Cuba website (which at that time did not display the 70 additional departures), the almost simultaneous appearance of Insight Cuba's announcement requires that this new information be conveyed to our readers.

A Senator Claims That Major U.S. Cruise Lines Don't Pay Federal Taxes on Their Profits

Carnival Cruises is the world's largest operator of passenger ships, and one of the foremost American corporations. Its ships leave primarily from American ports: Miami, San Juan, Ft. Lauderdale, Galveston, and Long Beach, California (and occasionally from Seattle on Alaska cruises), and its passengers are predominantly American, too -- if I were asked to guess, I'd say that 80% of its passengers are American. Its largest shareholder (in effect, its owner) is Mickey Arison, an American (who also owns the Miami Heat basketball team). And finally, it enjoys all the protections of America: the extensive services of the U.S. Coast Guard when things go wrong, and numerous other state and federal services of the sort that a company headquartered in America, whose ships are mainly based in America, could expect.

It is, in other words, an American corporation.

And yet, on the billions of dollars in profit that it earns every year, it pays not a penny in U.S. corporate income taxes. Not one red cent.

Through the fiction of being "flagged" in a foreign jurisdiction (probably Liberia) -- a paper transaction done for the purpose of avoiding American taxes and certain labor laws -- it pays not a cent in U.S. corporate income taxes, thus depriving the U.S. government of a significant amount of tax revenue each year.

This startling revelation was made last week by Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who confronted a representative of the Cruise Line International Association with the astonishing fact that apparently none of the American corporations that operate passenger vessels -- such as Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Regent, Seabourn, Oceania, Silver Sea and others -- pay a single red cent in American corporate income tax. Last year, the American cruiseship industry apparently earned upwards of $25 billion in profit, and paid not a penny to the U.S. Treasury.

Rockefeller advised the C.L.I.A. representative that he would be serving a subpoena on that organization, demanding that they submit to the U.S. Senate their most recent federal tax returns.

This is not a partisan issue. When a major segment of the U.S. travel industry fails to share its rightful portion of the burden of government services (like Coast Guard assistance), it behooves the American travel industry to call them to order. All of us should make a public issue out of this utterly unfair failure to pay taxes on the part of major travel entities.

Though Most Tour Operators to Cuba Have Closed Our Programs for 2012, Road Scholar Continues to Have Openings

The problem with many of the package programs to Cuba (now permitted under the new policy that exempts cultural and educational tours from the normal embargo against travel there) is that most of their dates are sold out. However pricey these programs may be, they have proved immensely popular, and large numbers of Americans have filled all the air-and-hotel space available for them for most remaining departure dates in 2012.
 
Among the best of those programs, from a group with years of experience in operating tours to Cuba, is Insight Cuba ( www.insightcuba.com ). But currently, Insight Cuba reports that all of the 2012 departures of its Music and Art tour to Cuba are sold out; all of its 2012 programs to Havana and Pinar del Rio are sold out; and all of its 2012 departures of the Bay of Pigs program are sold out, as are its 2012 program of Havana for Jazz. On the schedule of departures for Insight Cuba, the only available dates that I've been able to find are one in April and one in May that have places still available, and all other 2012 departures are sold out. (A few departures of its Weekend in Havana program are sitll available for April and May; but most would-be visitors are, of course, interested in programs of a longer duration in Cuba.)
 
That's why it's heartening to report that a newcomer to the operation of tours to Cuba, the excellent Road Scholar organization (tel. 800/454-5768; www.roadscholar.org ), which is the former Elderhostel, has just obtained a large number of hotel nights in Havana and elsewhere for the operation of a substantial program to Cuba in September, October, November and December of this year. I was apprised of this by Yves Marceau in charge of that organization's Cuba program, who brought me the news at the New York Times Travel Show this past weekend. As far as I know, that welcome announcement is appearing in this blog for this first time anywhere.
 
The three programs for which considerable space has been obtained, starting with weekly departures in September and going through the winter of 2013 (at least until February), are:
Cuba Today (8 nights in Cuba, starting at $3,195 per person, including round-trip air between Miami and Havana, and going up to $3,595 in peak-season 2013. Shalom Cuba (8 nights in Cuba, starting at $3,195 per person, including round-trip air between Miami and Havana, and going up to $3,595 in peak season 2013; and Havana City of Art (7 nights in Havana, starting at $3,095 per person, including round-trip air between Miami and Havana, and going up to $3,495 in peak season 2013. Note that there is no longer a minimum age requirement for participation in Road Scholar's (formerly Elderhostel) program, although persons interested in these air-and-land packages should expect to travel with mature persons.

I Hope to Meet a Great Many of Our Readers at the New York Times Travel Show This Weekend

In travel, the New York Times Travel Show ( www.nyttravelshow.com ) is among the most important events of the year. Numerous leading travel figures participate in no-holds-barred sessions discussing industry issues on the day (Friday) devoted to the travel trade. On the actual weeked, some 500 exhibitors display their programs at the Saturday and Sunday shows open to the public. And throughout the weekend, speeches are delivered on a wide range of topics.
 
My daughter and I will be among the presenters at the New York Times show this coming weekend (March 3 and 4). We will be speaking first at 11am on Saturday (an hour after the show opens) on Major Trends and Developments in Travel. We will be speaking again at 3pm on Saturday on Popular Destinations in Travel. (Pauline's presentation during that afternoon hour will be a slide show of some of her own most recent travels.)
 
We will be happy to talk with readers of this blog immediately following each presentation, when we will be signing books at a bookstore counter maintained near the auditorium where our speeches will be delivered. And we will be hanging around the show through much of the time between and after our two talks. We hope to meet you at that time, and would be grateful if you'd stop by and say hello.

The Two Big Programs of American Learning Vacations Have Increased Their Offerings This Coming Summer

Overcoming a slump in enrollment during the years of the recent financial crisis (2008 to 2010), the two major programs of summer vacation learning -- Cornell's Adult University and St. John's Summer Classics -- have now recovered their popularity to such an extent that their summer programs are more extensive than ever.
 
Cornell's Adult University, in Ithaca, New York, will be operating four successive, one-week sessions from early July to early August, and will be offering a choice of seven different weeklong classes (meeting morning and evening for five days a week) in each such summer week (more than ever before). Classes, presented by top members of the Cornell faculty, range from the fun topics (one five-day course is "The One-Hour Gourmet," teaching you how to prepare meals in less than 60 minutes; The Tennis Clinic; The Sailing Clinic; The Wines Course) to the seriously profound (like: The Bronte Sisters, 1847-48; The Dynamics of Human Attachment; Film Portrayals of Crises of Vocation; The Joys of Classical Music; and more).
 
I attended a weeklong session of Cornell's Adult University last summer, called Great Political Trials (it was taught by Glenn Altschuler, renowned professor of history at Cornell, and by Faust Rossi, an equally renowned professor at the Cornell Law School) and it was for me one of the most exciting intellectual adventures. I stayed at a nearby hotel, took my meals in a student dining room on the campus, and was able to participate as well in evening lectures and events that added entertainment to the heavy and heady thinking that the daytime classes entailed. Fellow students were a cross-section of American adults of all ages and professional backgrounds, and the discussion was of a level that matched anything I had experienced in previous summers at the adult summer courses at Oxford University in Great Britain.
 
You'll find a detailed listing of the Cornell program at www.cau.cornell.edu . Costs run as low as $1,631 per person for a full week of tuition, accommodations, three meals daily (the meals are copious and excellent), coffee breaks, hospitality hours, parking, and full access to all normal student facilities. For families attending Cornell's Adult University, the school offers a full-scale parallel program of courses for young children-to-teenagers, keeping the latter fully engaged while their parents go back to college.
 
The other important, U.S.-based program of summer learning vacations is at St. John's College, the "Great Books" school of American education. St. John's has two campuses, and the one in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has for several years been offering three successive, one-week sessions of reading and discussing two or more of the acknowledged great books of the western tradition. This summer, St. John's will be offering the same three weeks -- from July 9 until July 27 -- but with an unprecedented number of options, allowing vacationers to choose from several different themes, each presented under the supervision of the "tutors" (instructors) of St. John's. The program is described at www.stjohnscollege.edu .
 
And for the very first time, the program will also be offered, for one week (beginning June 4), at St. John's other campus in Annapolis, Maryland. There, adults of all ages -- without entrance requirements, tests, examinations or grades -- will choose to discuss such works as The Odyssey (in versions by Homer, Sophocles and Euripides), Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man, and various Greek tragedies, both ancient and modern (Sophocles and August Wilson). Costs are around the same as at Cornell. Go to St. John's website for details.
 
I have been to two of the St. John's programs, and can't sufficiently convey my enthusiasm for them; they are among the finest summer vacations that you might ever enjoy.

Despite Rumors, It is Highly Unlikely That You'll Need to Pay U.S. Taxes on the Value of Mileage Points

A number of listeners to The Travel Show, presented by my daughter and myself ( www.wor710.com/arthur-frommer ), have expressed concern that they may need to pay federal taxes on the mileage points they've earned either through flying or racking up purchases on a points-related credit card. The panic results from Citibank reportedly mailing form 1099s to clients who have received points by using that bank's credit card. The fact that Citibank has taken that surprising step was mentioned on our program by Brian Kelly, the man behind The Points Guy ( www.thepointsguy.com ).
 
Although you'll have to consult your own attorney if you're worried about incurring tax obligations on the points you earn, and I can only cite a very offhand, flimsy, and possibly incorrect opinion, I have often regarded such fears as unfounded, for the following two reasons:
 
First, if you have earned points from a purchase of some sort that you have made with your own money, those points are best considered as a discount that you have received and not as the receipt of income. It is only when you earn points by taking a flight that someone else (like your employer) has paid for, that it could be argued that you have received extra income and owe taxes on the value of such points. I have often spoken about corporate executives who take many, many flights each year that were paid for by their corporation, but for which they obtained the points -- which they then use to take their family to Hawaii on vacation. On that kind of transaction, it seems that an argument could be made that income has been received on which taxes should be paid.
 
But the argument, in my view, will never be made by government tax officials for a very simple reason (the second explanation as to why no one pays tax on points earned). The largest recipients of points (or frequent flyer miles, as they used to be called) are Members of Congress, who each receive government-paid air tickets on numerous occasions throughout the year to return periodically to their districts. I've been told that such Congress people are rolling in points, drowning in points, receiving incredible numbers of points based on all the free flights (40 a year?) that the rules of Congress allow them to receive and which are paid out of the Federal treasury. Such members of Congress would be apoplectic if the Internal Revenue Service were to send them a tax bill for the value of such points.
 
So that's why, in my untutored, hesitant viewpoint, the IRS will never tax the use of points. And the act of Citibank in mailing out 1099s relating to such points seems beyond belief.
 
Is there anything I am missing here? Should users of points they have earned, and then converted into flights, record such transactions on their tax returns?

Turkish Airlines is Continuing to Offer Low Prices for Flights to Istanbul from New York City

Its previous, off-season sale offered a stunning price of $599 round-trip to Istanbul and from several U.S. cities. They have now upped the round-trip price to $672, but it again includes all taxes and fees, and that mind-boggling figure is at least $500 less than you'd normally pay at this time for a round-trip flight to a European destination as far away as Istanbul. Unlike the previous sale, this one is from New York City only, but the period for booking the flights has been extended until March 31 and the flights themselves can take place as late as March 31.
 
I've searched the Turkish Airlines website and can't find any "catches" to the offer, so must assume that $672 is the final, all-in price. Assuming it is, it provides you with a remarkable opportunity to tour the highlights of this colorful country in the month of March.
 
You can buy your tickets online at www.turkishairlines.com or from their sales office at tel. 800/874-8875.

Google's Flight Search Product is Now on Most Smartphones

When Google announced more than a year ago that it was acquiring ITA Software (an database of airline flights and  prices), the news sent shivers up the spines, and sweat onto the brows, of just about every existing airfare search engine. And a fierce battle broke out (which Google ultimately won) over Google's right to make the purchase. Although they didn't actually say so, most competitive services were terrified that mighty Google could proceed to grab off a healthy percentage -- indeed, maybe even a majority -- of the searches that people make for their airline flights.
 
A Google announcement this past weekend shows just how well grounded those fears were. Google has announced that commencing immediately, its Flight Search features would be available not simply on computers (as in the past) but on mobile devices running Google's Android operating system and Apple's iOS. And they'll be available not just visually, but by voice. Users can now search on-the-go by speaking into their phones! Readers of this Blog can test the claim by searching for "flights from X to Y" on their devices.
 
But that's not all. In an e-mail to me from Sean Carlson, the youthful director of Google's travel services, whom my daughter and I interviewed on a recent broadcast of The Travel Show, it was also pointed out that the Google Search box is already full of other cool tricks. Currently, on your Android phone, you can:
Get currency conversions (just type "10 dollars in Euros" into Google Search);Translate words and phrases (try "translate where is the bathroom to Spanish")Track flights (just type the airline and flight number, like "usair231"); andCheck time zones (like "time in Denver")Quite obviously, Google is making a big commitment to travel and flight information. Stay tuned.

Travel Development Roundup: Shows, Iceland, Cruiseships and More

The New York Times Travel Show, probably the most prestigious of all these events, is less than two weeks away. On the weekend of March 2 to 4 (Friday March 2 is confined to persons in the travel industry, Saturday and Sunday March 3 and 4 are for the public at large), my daughter Pauline and I will be speaking at 11am (about "Major New Developments in Travel") and again on Saturday March 3 at 3pm (about our "Top Spots in 2012"). Following each hourlong presentation, we'll then be signing books at a nearby booth, and we hope to meet a great many of the readers of Frommers.com at that time

The situation of a cut-rate airline called Iceland Express gets curioser and curioser. Back in the fall of 2011, it was announced that the company that hired Iceland Express to fly trans-Atlantic between New York and Europe (via Reykjavik) had ceased operations, and it was widely assumed that Iceland Express would stop doing business, too. Yet lo and behold, Iceland Express is flying again from April through October, but this time only between Reykjavik and various European cities, and not between Reykjavik and the United States. To take advantage of its low rates (and they are quite low indeed), you'll have to book a flight on long-established Icelandair or Delta Airlines between the U.S. and Reykjavik, and then book a separate flight on Iceland Express to the European city of your choice. This will involve quite a juggling act, but if you'll look up the fares of Iceland Express ( www.icelandexpress.com ), you may find that juggling those two bookings will save you some money. Lots of luck.
 
The ranks of companies operating shore excursions for cruiseship passengers has just been expanded by one (and now consists of four separate companies). A new firm called Shore Excursions Group (tel. 866/999-6590; www.shoreexcursionsgroup.com ), headed by a former executive vice president of luxury-minded Abercrombie & Kent, has recently gone live on the web, offering shore excursions even for as few as four people traveling together, in every major port city visited by the cruiselines other than those in Asia. Booking your next cruise, you might want to compare its prices and features with those of ShoreTrips ( www.shoretrips.com ), PortCompass ( www.portcompass.com ), and PortPromotions.com ( www.portpromotions.com ), operators of tours making use of 12-passenger vans in most instances. All four of these companies will now offer an advantage in both quality and price, in my view, over the shore excursions offered by the cruiselines, which are usually operated in 45-passenger motorcoaches

The big travel event of the month was the opening last week of the Mob Museum in a former federal courthouse of Las Vegas, Nevada. It will henceforth join the list of must sees in Vegas (for an $18 adult entrance fee), introducing its visitors to the history of organized crime (Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, John Gotti, et al) in cities all over the country. Though many residents of Las Vegas were outraged at this initiative by former Las Vegas mayor, Oscar Goodman (i.e., the founding of such a museum in a city that largely denies its criminal past), and felt that the new museum would tarnish the reputation of Sin City (ahem!), the inclusion of exhibits making a nationwide phenomenon out of organized crime has apparently removed the local sting. According to my daughter Pauline, who visited the museum last week and interviewed former Mayor Goodman (himself a former mob attorney), its exhibits are well worth a visit, although young children should be kept away from its blood-spattered depictions of past violence (and they should also be kept away from Vegas, in my view).
 
Though bookings on Carnival Cruises and Royal Caribbean Cruises fell sharply in the days immediately following the sinking of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy, the cruiseship business has apparently recovered, according to two, Miami-based cruiseship experts whom I interviewed yesterday over the phone. According to them, neither the warm winter weather of the northeast, nor the well-publicized outbreak of the norovirus on several ships of Princess Cruises, have had any lasting impact, and much to the amazement of the cruiseship officials themselves, bookings snapped back following a short-lived drop in the ten-days-or-so immediately following the Costa Concordia tragedy

Most difficult question to answer on last week's Sunday radio program presented by my daughter, Pauline, and myself? It was from a woman inquiring how she could arrange to view the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. I gave her the name of World Primate Safaris ( www.worldprimatesafaris.com ), of Kigali, Rwanda, which arranges the experience, but caused great sadness by pointing out that the government of Rwanda a.) limits the viewing experience to one hour, and b.) charges a fee of $500 for the privilege of creeping up to the apes. Hopefully the proceeds of those accumulated fees will be used to help preserve the lives of these stately animals.

A Popular Website Claims it Can Enable You to Live for Free in a Foreign Nation in Exchange for a Moderate Amount of Labor

A three-year-old website called Workaway.info ( www.workaway.info ) is suddenly attracting a great deal of attention among would-be American travelers, probably because of favorable word-of-mouth comments from the people who have thus far used it (Workaway is British-headquartered, but also employs staff ranging as far afield as Buenos Aires). It attempts to satisfy the age-old urge to travel for free, which multitudes of Americans certainly have. Using the services of Workaway, you can receive free room and board for various lengths of time in exchange for your willingness to work for four to five hours a day for your host in a wide range of countries.
 
Note that Workaway differs subtly from the traditional volunteer vacation. People who sign up for the latter are usually contributing their labor to a worthwhile social cause: they help dig a well for an African village, or teach English to persons who need that language skill to obtain poverty-avoiding jobs.
 
By contrast, Workaway signs you to work for people with a purely commercial need for workers, or private families seeking someone to help with the children or around the house. You agree to contribute those four or five daily hours for five or six days a week -- on a farm, in a shop, hostel or small hotel, in a business or laboratory, in a home -- and your international host then treats you like a member of the family. You sleep free-of-charge on the premises, eat three meals a day with your host, raid the icebox as often as you wish.
 
No money changes hands. You simply exchange labor for room and board, and commit yourself for at least three weeks (although you can often stay at the effort for almost as many months as you wish).
 
Are these exchanges of work-for-room-and-board entirely legal according to the rules of the destination nation? Workaway heatedly insists they are, and includes a discussion on their website of the visa requirements in some of the countries they handle. I would guess that the absence of any cash payment for what you do results in most governments paying no attention at all, but Workaway guards its flanks by pointing out that persons planning to work in numerous countries are required to apply for a work visa to do so. Whether every client of Workaway does this is unknown to me, and I can render no judgment on the lawfulness of the entire activity.
 
Last Sunday on our weekly radio show, my daughter and I interviewed a Buenos Aires employee of Workaway, reached by phone in Argentina, and we were impressed by the enthusiasm and idealism she displayed. Quite obviously, Workawaybelieves its has created a major network of international hosts who hold the key to the fulfillment of your own dream to live for free -- for several months, at least -- in a foreign nation. According to our radio guest, over 3,000 such work-activities are now in the website's inventory, and the possibilities exist for some avid participants to live for free for many, many months on end.