Arthur Frommer's Blog, page 36

Have Tickets on American Airlines? There's No Reason to Worry About Bankruptcy

The caller's voice was shaky with fear. She had tickets for a long-in-the-future flight on American Airlines, she explained in a phone call to this past weekend's broadcast of The Travel Show conducted by my daughter and myself, and had heard about a possible bankruptcy filing by American Airlines. What should she do, she asked?

I acknowledged that I had heard the same rumors. In fact, numerous bloggers have written about the sorry recent financial results of American Airlines, which hasn't had a profitable year for some time. It also has some of the highest fixed costs in the airline industry, and is the only one of the so-called legacy carriers that has not altered or eliminated those costs through a bankruptcy proceeding. If the economy fails to improve, and air traffic remains badly affected by the economy, the possibility is, indeed, there for a bankruptcy filing by American Airlines, I replied.

But such a development will probably have no impact on the rights of persons who have advance reservations on American Airlines. In nearly all the bankruptcy filings of other major airlines, the method chosen was under Chapter XI, which provides for a reorganization of the airline, and not for a termination of its activities. It is totally unlike a Chapter 7 proceeding which actually liquidates a company's business -- and no recent major airline has opted for Chapter 7. Rather, under Chapter XI, it is the airline's stockholders who normally take it on the chin, and find their rights and the value of their stock badly reduced. Some of the airline's contracts with suppliers, with its retired personnel and their pensions, with the airline's collective bargaining agreements, are all revised by the bankruptcy court.

But the airline continues flying. And an airline as important to aviation as American Airlines, which accounts for a hefty percentage of all the flights within the United States, will surely continue flying while the bankruptcy court examines its outstanding obligations. There is no realistic possibility of American Airlines ceasing to do business.

So customers of American Airlines should rest easy. And the best thing they can do for American Airlines is to continue booking it. Those reservations, for flights that will operate regardless of legal proceedings, will almost certainly be honored.

A Number of New Stay-for-Free Accommodation Services Are Now Competing for Our Attention

As far as websites for finding a free homestay are concerned (the right to sleep free of charge in the apartment or home of some generous, gracious out-of-town or foreign resident), pioneers like CouchSurfing ( www.couchsurfing.org ) and GlobalFreeloaders.com ( www.globalfreeloaders.com ) dominate the field. Some budget travelers obviously feel that you needn't go anywhere else for your free crashpad.

But lately, a host of additional free-homestay websites have emerged, and it never hurts to consult them when you're looking to avoid the cost of accommodations. While none comes close to having the membership of several-million-plus persons enjoyed by CouchSurfing, they each claim a hefty list of potential hosts and guests. Consider the following:
Tripping ( www.tripping.com ): 15,191 members in 135 countries; interesting in that its safety features include a Skype interview in which users must show ID before they can joinBeWelcome ( www.bewelcome.org ): 14,185 members in 140 countriesThe Hospitality Club ( www.hospitalityclub.org ): 647,000 members in 231 countriesStay4free ( www.stay4free.com ): Some of its 9,240 members offer free homestays as wellAs far as the much-different pay-to-stay services go (for apartments and homes around the world), this blog has heavily featured the impressive Airbnb ( www.airbnb.com ), Crashpadder ( www.crashpadder.com ), and the relatively new iStopOver ( www.istopover.com ). But you might also want to consider the far quirkier Campinmygarden.com ( www.campinmygarden.com ), a U.K.-based site that lets homeowners offer travelers a spot to pitch a tent in the backyard for as little as £4.

Iceland Is Inviting Visitors Into Locals' Homes -- For at Least a Short Time

When a destination is in urgent need of tourism, it often turns to home visits as a way to make its cities more appealing. That was what Denmark did in the 1950s with its famous "Meet the Danes" program. And it's apparently what Iceland -- a country whose economy has met with major reverses -- is now engaged in doing. As part of the "Inspired by Iceland" program ( www.inspiredbyiceland.com ), everyday Icelanders offer visitors a chance to come and meet them and experience something of Iceland from a local's point of view.

[image error] Photo Caption: Aerial view of Reykjavik. lgmadden/Frommers.com Community

The initiative runs though late November, and still has more than 50 invitations on offer -- at least one practically every day of the week. These range widely and include town walks, homemade soup or waffles, farm visits, Northern Lights excursions, shopping tours, goose hunting, geothermal soaks, museum tours, concerts, driving tours, sweater-making, night sailing, or simply sitting down to a cup of tea in someone's living room to discuss literature.

Unfortunately, all the slots appear to have been filled for having pancakes in the home (or rather Presidential Residence) of Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, but if you plan a visit on Nov. 4, you can still sign up to have Icelandic sushi with the mayor of Reykjavik in a historic house.

Tourism is responsible for 20% of Iceland's export revenue, and the country -- not just the government, but the people themselves -- seem determined to extend their tourist season deeper into the early winter, when the Northern Lights shine, Reykjavik nightlife thrives, and proud locals open their homes to share a little slice of Iceland with visitors.

Add Apartment or Resident Hotels to Your Inventory of Options for Overnight Accommodation

Smart business travelers are usually aware of so-called apartment hotels, residence hotels, or serviced flats -- hotel-like structures in which the units are one- or two-bedroom apartments with kitchens and separate living room facilities. These are usually entitled to full hotel services -- daily maid service, central telephone switchboard, laundry done for the occupant (for an extra charge). They are usually rented for fairly long periods, but are occasionally available for one week and less if units are empty. And because of that occasional availability, they should be kept in mind by all travelers, business-oriented or not. That's because they often offer good prices: as little as $70 a night for a studio, as little as $100 and $125 a night for a two-bedroom flat.

Most of these apartment hotels are marketed directly by the chains that own them. To rent a Candlewood Suite (a major chain of residence hotels), you go to the website of Candlewood Suites. For a Residence Inn owned by Marriott, you contact Marriott. But too few travelers are aware that two big websites -- one in England, the other in Germany -- are active in offering independent residence hotels that aren't connected with chains.

The bigger of the services is Apartotels.com located in Britain, which claims to offer several thousand different apartment hotels or residence hotels scattered around the world. But for Europe-based apartment hotels or residence hotels, I have recently found excellent options in a German-based service found at www.apartmentservice.de . Though clicking on that address will access pages of information set forth in German, you have only to click a "translate" box at the top of the main menu to obtain an English language translation of the entire site. Though more than half of its 122 listings are in German cities, there are also 19 such hotels listed for France and at least one apiece in virtually every other European capital (other than London), ranging from Vienna to Athens, from Warsaw to Rome, from Prague to Copenhagen, and from Brussels to Basel to Barcelona to Budapest.

Keep them in mind for your next European trip.

Two Nifty, New iPhone Apps for Obtaining Last-Minute Hotel Discounts

Sorry, you devotees of Android-based phones. For iPhones only (at least for the time being), two valuable and free-of-charge new apps are now available enabling the user to look for last-minute discounts on hotel rooms that will be used starting only a few hours after the app is consulted. They are Tonight Only Deals on Priceline's app ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/priceline-hotel-car-negotiator/ ) or Hotel Tonight deals ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hotel-tonight-last-minute/ ) for hotels in the 20-some-odd most heavily-visited touristic cities of America, from New York to Chicago, from L.A. to San Francisco, from Boston to Dallas. They go up on each app at 11am, for persons needing a hotel room that night, and they are obviously priced at much lower rates than you'd normally find for the same hotel.

In my view, the apps for these unsold hotels, about to remain empty for the night, could have been called Distressed Hotels.

Since neither app requires that you commit yourself before you've seen the name and price of the hotel you desire, you'll probably do best by downloading both apps and then comparing the prices that each offers. Remember, again, that each app offers a room and a price for the very night of the day on which you're consulting the app, and because of that limiting feature, both apps should be expected to reveal unique low prices. I can't remember a recent service that is as potentially valuable as these apps for last-minute reservations.

You Can Get a One-Week, Air-Included Tour of Turkey for Only $1,439 This Winter

One of the great values of winter travel is an air-included, meals-included, two-week motorcoach tour of Turkey for about $1,699, offered by several of the specialists in tours to that country (I've written about that travel deal on several occasions). Now, Friendly Planet (tel. 800/555-5765; www.friendlyplanet.com ) has added to the options a one-week, air-included motorcoach tour of Turkey for only $1,199, and it's another fine opportunity for travelers with less time for a winter vacation (taxes and fees add on roughly $240 more).

[image error] Photo Caption: Library ruins in Ephesus, Turkey. rh/Frommers.com Community

What's most attractive about Friendly Planet's offer is that it goes to three important Turkish locations (Istanbul, Kusadasi and Pergamon) and visits several others (including Troy and Canakkale), includes air transportation from New York (round-trip to Istanbul, via Turkish Airlines), or from Washington, D.C. for only $100 more (Chicago for $300 more), and also includes fuel surcharge. You receive all ground transfers, superior first class hotel accommodations for six nights, daily full breakfast and 3 dinners, and a local, English-speaking guide throughout, with all sightseeing admission fees also included.

The deal is available for bookings made prior to October 12, on two departure dates: January 18 and February 1, 2012.

Fearing Its Ships Aren't Endowed with Enough Fun, Carnival Is Installing More Adult Games and Bars

In an effort to bring vast new meaning to its "Fun Ship" promise, Carnival Cruises has announced what appear to be nearly a score of novel additions to its program of games, comedy acts, light shows, multi-media projections in theaters, new bars of every sort, hamburger stands, and non-food-related dining facilities (there will even be a "comedy brunch" served in one of them). These will be phased in on no fewer than fourteen Carnival ships, and the character of these frantic entertainments is captured in a paragraph of description appearing yesterday on Travel Pulse ( www.travelpulse.com ). According to that source, passengers will henceforth be able to participate in:

Sorry Sliders, which involves a giant shuffleboard court; Simon Flash, where two teams of four guests wear giant light-up color boxes and shuffle themselves to repeat a color sequence; Yahtzee Bowling, with a giant ball and bowling pins; [and] Operation, which is set up like a skee-ball board where contestants try to get the balls into different slots on the patient's body ...

So that no one can henceforth fail to understand the hoped-for atmosphere on board the Carnival ships equipped with these fun items, it is pointed out that there will even be bar installed in the library of each ship (although there will also be some books in bookcases). Engrossed in War and Peace, you'll be able to order a banana daiquiri from the bartender.

Travel News Roundup: Name Changes and New Fees

There's been a bit of odd travel news that might have a bearing on your future planning -- a court decision that forced a major travel company to change its name. That unfortunate firm is Gap Adventures, of Toronto, whose name apparently came to the attention, recently, of the Gap retail clothing chain, which proceeded to sue, claiming infringement of its allegedly exclusive use of the word "Gap." Would you believe that a federal district judge recently ruled against the travel company, ordering it to change its name? And last week Gap Adventures capitulated, announcing it would henceforth be known as G adventures -- the letter G followed by the word Adventures ( www.gadventures.com ). If you should be in the market for a small group trip -- a low-cost journey in the company of no more than 14 persons, to some exotic quarter of the world -- you will now want to look for the offerings of G Adventures, formerly Gap Adventures.

This is the second major name change of a famous travel company within the past year. For reasons too complex to explain, the famous Elderhostel was made to change its name to Road Scholar, all within the last 12 months. In the world of travel names, wonders will never cease.

Also in the travel news last week was an Federal Aviation Administration proposal to greatly increase the cost of the fee that air passengers pay to cover security at airports. Until now, air tickets had to be surcharged by $2.50 for every segment of the trip, and that sum has apparently proved to be too little to cover the cost of the T.S.A. and other security functions. So the administration was faced with the choice: should the increased expense be paid by taxpayers at large, out of general tax revenues, or should it be paid by air travelers? In the proposed federal budget for the next fiscal year, air travelers have been chosen to bear the added cost.

All the travel world is furious, of course, violently up in arms, over that proposal; but I for one feel it is absolutely reasonable. The cost of security at the airports should, in my view, be paid by the people who make use of airports. If the increase goes through, you'll find the cost of air transportation to be considerably higher next year. So what else is new?

The 5 Best Ways to Get Out of a Vacation Rut Are Easily Achievable and Moderately Priced

On the weekly radio program hosted by my daughter and myself, we get countless calls asking us to suggest novel methods of vacationing -- tactics designed to get the listener out of a vacation rut. Our responses, though obvious, are the following earnest suggestions:

Opt for a learning vacation. On the East Coast, consider Cornell's Adult University scheduled for July and early August at the famed school in Ithaca, New York. Its succession of one-week programs, puts you up in university housing and at student dining halls, then places you in your choice of several classrooms exploring topics in the liberal arts, as led by eminent faculty. On the West Coast, consider the same at Santa Fe, New Mexico's St. John's College (also in July and early August), studying your choice of one of the acknowledged masterworks -- the "great books" -- of the Western tradition. For study programs further afield, consider the summer weeklong-and-longer programs at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England.

Book a once-in-a-life-time experience, either an African safari or a trip to ancient Egypt. For about $2,500, including airfare, you can go on safari in Kenya with a company like Lion World Tours ( www.lionworldtravel.com ). Alternatively, you can go to Egypt with an outfit like Misr Travel ( www.misrtravel.org ) and do what every human being should at some point in their lives -- see the pyramids, the sphinx, Cairo's archaeological museum, and the antiquities at Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel.

[image error]
Photo Caption: Beach chairs on Little Corn Island, Nicaragua. acmorris/Frommers.com Community

Go someplace different like China, Panama or Nicaragua or Cuba. The last-named will be expensive, but China is one of the great values of travel from companies like China Spree ( www.chinaspree.com ) or China Focus ( www.chinafocustravel.com ). And you can also go to Panama or Nicaragua for comparatively little.

Schedule a trip to one of the great American national parks, expecially Yellowstone or Yosemite. If you haven't been to either, you are missing one of the great travel experiences.
 
Engage in a vacation exchange -- swapping use of your own home or apartment for the home or apartment of a person living somewhere overseas -- and thereby enjoying the authentic experience of a foreign country. Here's the single most logical and effective way to eliminate the cost of accommodations and at the same time to enhance the quality of the stay. Try HomeExchange.com ( www.homeexchange.com ), Intervac ( www.intervac-homeexchange.com ), or any one of a number of competitors.

All these are obvious suggestions, but they can never be sufficiently stressed.

New York City Visitors Should Consider Michelin Guides' New Way to Find High-Quality, Budget-Priced Meals

In the battle between restaurant-rating services -- Zagat versus Michelin -- neither is particularly well known for its attention to cost-conscious decisions. But that may have changed. The 2012 edition of the Michelin Red Guide to New York City, singles out 114 "Bib Gourmand" restaurants that offer an excellent value -- defined as places where you can get a full meal (two courses, plus wine or dessert) for less than $40.

In a city where restaurant bills can easily creep towards $100, this gives those whose palates are more sophisticated than their investment portfolios 114 chances to dine out in style without breaking the bank.