We're approaching the first of August, and in Paris my nephew and his wife and two children are preparing for their month-long vacation, like a good French family should. They'll spend all of August at a small seaside hotel in the Greek islands, where they'll receive three meals a day and inhabit a room that has no English-language television and no access to the English-language press. For one month, this family will be together, getting to know each other and enjoying some of the most memorable moments of their lives.

Meantime, here in the United States, a recent poll by the Opinion Research Foundation found that two-thirds of all American workers enjoyed vacations of considerably less than two weeks last year. Sixty-nine percent of them would favor a federal law establishing a guaranteed minimum of vacation for all Americans, and only twenty-seven percent were opposed. When will we take this step towards a better America? Perhaps next year, if a more progressive Congress is elected?

Meantime, it's now clear that attendance at the Beijing Olympics will be disappointing, perhaps creating a last-minute opportunity to attend the games. With unrest in Tibet and earthquakes in Sichuan having taken their toll, only slightly more than last summer's visitors are expected to arrive in China's capital, a city that now has twenty more giant hotels than it had last summer. If you have any interest in the Games, you might call a Chinese specialist to see whether a late booking on your part might be handled by them.

There's still just barely enough time to make the arrangements, provided you act this week.

And this week, our friends at BootsnAll Travel Network (www.bootsnall.com), have published a comparison of the hotels, restaurants, and sights recommended in the original, 1961 edition of New York on $5 a Day, with the same establishments in 2008. I?m not the most objective person to assess that article -- I got all emotional when I remembered the research and writing of that book -- but I was quite impressed by the effort that went into the piece, and found it fascinating. You also might share a sense of wonder as to how prices can change, sometimes by a factor of 100 times, in less than fifty years.

Last week, US Air eliminated the showing of movies as the latest in its frantic, cost-saving efforts. That was a wake-up call to bring books, good books, on your next flight. Some recent readings of mine: Karen Desai's The Inheritance of Loss (a juxtaposition of life in northern India with the experience of illegal Indian immigrants in New York), Amos Oz' A Tale of Love and Darkness (Israel in 1948), J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace (South Africa), and Barack Obama's impressive Dreams from My Father. And I re-read Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. What movie could possibly compare?

In a response to one of my posts about the imposition of pesky fees and charges by the airlines, one reader chortled that I had finally awakened to the beauty of the marketplace, the ability of unfettered supply-and-demand to solve all problems (I had asked readers to shun the airlines that had led the charge to impose new fees and thus cause them to change their policies; and he found that free-marketplace-approach to be just dandy). I wondered what that same reader had felt when reading about our government's recent bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns -- the exact opposite of letting the marketplace solve all problems.

Today, the Euro reached a level of $1.60 to the U.S. dollar, which means that most travelers will be paying nearly $1.75 for a Euro when fees and commissions are taken by the money-changers who supply you with Euros. In the immediate future, all of us who want to continue traveling trans-Atlantic will need to become happy-go-lucky, unpretentious, informal, comfort-shunning people, patronizing hostels and guesthouses, cafes, groceries and pubs. And that's not a bad idea.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: airlines, money, summer vacation

We are now ending the first week of à la carte pricing for air transportation in the U.S. -- the imposition of all sorts of extra fees and charges for services that used to be included in the cost of the ticket. Nearly every airline now charges $15 to check aboard the first suitcase per person and $25 to check a second suitcase. Some of the carriers now charge $2 for a small plastic bottle of water or a soft drink. I haven't yet learned how costly the peanuts will be.

These fees are part of a frantic effort by the airlines to raise money. One analyst predicted last week that if oil remained above $130 a barrel, several major carriers would be forced into bankruptcy by the end of the year. So they are panic-stricken and we probably haven't seen an end to additional charges.

In fact, you can gain a glimpse of America's airline future by noting the tactics of the low-cost airlines that fly within Europe. The biggest of them, Ryanair, goes well beyond charging the equivalent of $15 and $25 for the first and second suitcase checked aboard. They now also charge the Euro equivalent of $7.50 for simply checking in at the airport rather than online. But because you have to check in at the airport if you want to check aboard luggage, people with luggage to check always have to pay the extra $7.50.

Ryanair also charges $6 for using a credit card to pay for your ticket. And it imposes unusually harsh charges for overly heavy luggage, which it defines as more than 33 pounds. It charges $22 -- think about that -- for each two pounds above the weight limit. And that's each way. In some instances, passengers have paid more than €98 ($150) in total extra charges, which in some cases is higher than the cost of the Ryanair ticket itself. (Another European airline, the Hungarian/Polish carrier called Wizzair, is charging €1 ($1.54) per minute simply to phone them).

Because, here in the U.S., the extra charges haven't been imposed on persons who bought their tickets some time ago, and will only go fully into effect for new purchases in the days ahead, we haven't yet experienced the congestion, delays, and fist-fights that these penalties will bring about. But because so many people will attempt to limit their luggage to carry-ons stowed in the racks above their seats, it's obvious that rack space will soon be at a premium, that passengers will battle for that space, and that carry-ons will be strictly limited to small sizes. It's been reported that airlines are preparing to hire personnel to hang around the luggage belts, and at the gates leading into planes, spying on the carry-ons taken aboard, to insure that persons do not attempt to smuggle on overly large suitcases.

And because many persons will limit themselves to carry-ons, they will also have to insure that their liquid, gel or aerosol containers are no greater in size than 3 ounces apiece, all enclosed in a medium-size, transparent zip-loc bag. What a mess is about to result!

To worsen matters, scarcely a week goes by that the airlines don't increase their ticket prices, independent of these fees, by sums as great as $90 each way. Those increases will gain momentum as many airlines exhaust their earlier decisions to "hedge" the cost of aviation fuel -- and indeed, most hedge contracts expire near the end of this year. Already, the cost of fuel surcharges across the Atlantic is approaching $250 round-trip, on top of increased security charges, government taxes, and baggage charges. The days when you could cross the Atlantic, or the U.S., for $299 each way, are soon about to end. I'm expecting many one-way fares (and additional charges) to total (including fuel surcharge, taxes, fees, baggage and other added charges) $600 to $700 each way, at least $1,200 round-trip. A couple going to Europe, or from New York to California, will often need to budget $2,400 for round-trip transportation.

Unless you are among a small group of high earners, the only way you will travel in the future is by becoming increasingly cost-conscious with respect to lodgings and other land costs. I used to be looked upon as an eccentric for constantly stressing the need to consider alternative low-cost accommodations: hostels and hostales, pensiones and B&Bs, apartments and vacation homes, convents and monasteries, private homes and houseboats. May I suggest that these will now become necessities? May I advise that the glossy pages and upscale recommendations of Condé Nast Traveler and Travel & Leisure will now become crushingly irrelevant? Most American travelers, if they are to continue to travel extensively, will have to seek out economical approaches that offset the high cost of getting there.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money

Been to an ATM machine recently? If it's not a member of your own bank or ATM system or network, you'll pay an increasingly hefty sum to use it, even for taking out as little as $20. The former $1 and $1.50 fees have virtually disappeared. Nowadays, it's common for an out-of-network ATM machine to charge a minimum of $2, and often $3 and even up to $4 per transaction. And if you're out-of-town (and especially overseas), and can't easily find an ATM machine belonging to your own bank or network, you'll pay those hefty fees every time you use an ATM machine, incurring a growing expense.

To the rescue comes: Commerce Bank. Commerce Bank is a fast-growing bank that's out to be recognized as America's most consumer-friendly bank. It charges no fee for using your ATM card, issued by them, at an out-of-network machine. And if, by chance, you are nevertheless charged such a sum, it will refund the amount when you return home and present your receipt to them.

On our radio program yesterday (noon to 2pm, www.wor710.com), my daughter Pauline and I discussed the reports we had heard that Commerce Bank charges no ATM fee. Within the hour, we received an e-mail from friend and colleague, travel writer Reid Bramblett (www.reidsguides.com), sent from Verona, Italy (where he is researching a travel article), and commenting on our discussion as follows:

I heard you guys mention something about Commerce Bank and the rumor regarding its ATM fees.

I am happy to confirm that it is absolutely true. This is a major reason I have been a loyal Commerce customer for nearly a decade now. They do not charge you to use out-of-network ATMs, regardless of whether than ATM is just a Citibank machine in Manhattan or a Banco Popolare di Milano machine in Milan, or an HBSC machine in Bangkok. Other banks charge between $1 and $4 to use out-of-network (and out-of-country) ATMs. Commerce doesn't nickel-and-dime you on anything like that. (And, since foreign banks have yet to hit upon the money-making scheme of tacking on a few extra bucks for using an out-of-network card, you don't get charged a fee from their end, either.)

Between my Commerce ATM card not charging me fees (or greedy extra percentage points for the foreign exchange process) and my Capital One Visa card not adding on any fees beyond Visa's 1% for foreign transactions (and they use the actual best published exchange rate; I've checked using my own statements and the rates from Oanda's historical currency convertor), I have the most financially streamlined way of spending money on the road.

For our readers who may not be familiar with Commerce Bank, it does business (and has branches) in the following states: New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, northern Virginia, District of Columbia, Florida, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, and Oklahoma. There may also be a way (I haven't done it) to open an online bank account with Commerce and thus obtain a Commerce ATM card. That's obviously a valuable card to have.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: fees, money

If you used a Visa/Mastercard while traveling overseas from 1996 to 2006, you can now apply for a refund of the 1%-3% that the banks added to your bill -- without first advising you. A class-action lawsuit which resulted in a giant settlement worth hundreds of millions of dollars entitles you to a recovery of those undisclosed sums if you can prove your use of such credit cards at that time. Since many Americans preserve their credit card bills as evidence to use in an IRS audit, they should be able to prove the sum that's due them.

If you can't prove your credit card use, you can at least opt to receive $25, which will be paid to anyone who used a Visa/Mastercard while traveling overseas during that period, regardless of their ability to pin down the exact dollar amount of their purchases.

$25 is $25.

To get the necessary forms, go immediately to www.ccfsettlement.com, or else phone tel. 800/045-9890. And for a lengthier explanation of the entire controversy (and the agreement that settled it), go to www.travelfinances.com.

Again: the deadline is May 30.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money

Here's an oddity that may possibly save you 5% on your next visit to London (hey, every little bit helps!).

If you'll go to Visit London's special offers section (www.visitlondon.com/offers/currency/) you'll see a deal from Thomas Cook. If you download the PDF file, print it, and take it with you when you exchange your currency at any Thomas Cook store, and you'll receive a better rate.

A small item in one of those free daily newspapers tipped me off to this savings, and though I can't guarantee it will work, I'd be surprised if a company with the reputation of Thomas Cook weren't sincere. If the voucher is honored, it'll mean you'll save the 5% in exchange fees that you would otherwise pay to every other exchange desk, kiosk, or bank in London, or the 3% you'd pay for using an ATM machine.

There are 10 Thomas Cook offices in London: at Marble Arch, Great Russell Street, Hammersmith, Wembley, Old Brompton Road, St. James's, Victoria Place, London Wall, Wimbledon, and Islington.

Thomas Cook also claims that when you change your currency with Thomas Cook, you'll receive a special offers booklet offering such savings as two-for-one admission to the Tower of London, which would alone save you at least £15.

A note to Garry, one of our London readers: can you check this out? In exchange, I'll send you a free copy of Pauline Frommer's London.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: london, money

Three years ago, the U.S. dollar bought 6 South African rand. Today, the dollar buys 7.5 South African rand. One of the few foreign currencies to actually weaken against the U.S. dollar, the rand has fallen by 25%, and prices for hotels, meals, and sightseeing are all refreshingly inexpensive both in Cape Town and in the wildlife-filled national parks in easy reach of that city. As a consequence, all sorts of newspaper travel sections are touting the desirability of travel to South Africa, especially to its glittering seaside resort capital of Cape Town. The Wall Street Journal is the latest to chime in, touting all sorts of attractions of South Africa.

But the problem is airfare. Go to all the consolidators, aggregators, and airline sites, and you'll rarely find a round-trip ticket for less than $1,700 between the U.S. and Cape Town or Johannesburg. With such an initial bite at your finances, all the savings in subsequent costs can't manage to keep the total outlay to reasonable levels. Though it pains me to say it, South Africa just isn't a feasible destination for cost-conscious American vacationers flying there from the United States.

But how about a visit to Cape Town as an "add on" to a stay in London? Maybe. Using www.cheapflights.co.uk, a leading British search engine, you can occasionally find a round-trip London to Cape Town flight for £399 ($800), though most flights are listed for $900 and $1,000. If you're going to be in London anyway, you might want to consider this interesting trip.

But generally speaking, South Africa isn't currently a budget destination. It is, instead, another casualty of the sharp increase in fuel costs that has so greatly raised the cost of flying to destinations far away.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money, south africa

You may have heard over the weekend about the recent strengthening of the U.S. dollar, but don't break out the champagne. While the rise may be of significance to U.S. exporters whose income is affected by slight shifts in currency rates, the amount of the rise is so small as to have no impact at all on the tourist.

The Euro recently sold for as much as $1.59; it now costs $1.54. The British pound sold as high as $1.99; it now costs $1.97. The Canadian dollar recently sold at par; it now cost 99¢. The dollar recently bought only 102 Japanese yen; it now buys 105.

Measured against the fees and commissions you'll pay to various money changers (and those fees can range, in total, from 5% to 7%), the tiny recent increase in the value of the dollar won't even be noticed by you. It's a terrible time to be using our currency as the basis for international travel, and almost everything has risen sharply in cost. And all those tactics we've been considering for altering your travel habits to reduce the cost, remain as valid -- and necessary -- as ever.

In particular, one tip remains of supreme importance: get your money at ATM machines abroad (which requires that you obtain a four-digit pin number for doing so). If you're lucky, and you're dealing with the right bank, you'll pay a commission of as little as 2% to 3% using many ATMs.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: europe, money

They are:

• Panama
  
• Nicaragua
  
• Honduras
  
• Dominican Republic
  
• Buenos Aires
  
• U.S. National Parks
  
• Bali
  
• Thailand
  
• Vietnam
  
• China (though China's currency is constantly strengthening)

Moderately cheap:

• Eastern Europe
  
• Nova Scotia
  
• Sicily

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: budget travel, money

We have just experienced two of the most difficult and disappointing weeks in the recent history of travel. The sadness began with the debacle of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, where British Airways totally bungled the opening of a giant new facility, destroying the trips of thousands, losing the luggage of tens of thousands, and creating a reputation for incompetence that will takes years to dispel. The bad news continued with the bankruptcy in one week of three airlines: ATA (a major source of low-cost air tickets to Hawaii), Aloha Airlines (internal flights within the Hawaiian islands), and Skybus (charging $10 a seat for the first several seats on its flights to and from Columbus, Ohio); and the insolvencies continued the very next week with the Chapter XI filing by Frontier Airlines (which has, however, continued flying). (Various travel pros are currently taking bets on the next carriers to go under, and the list includes some of the best known.)

Then things got worse, with the cancellation of hundreds of American Airlines flights due to the need for long-delayed inspection of aircraft wiring, ruining trips by more than a hundred thousand passengers and causing airports to bulge with stranded travelers. (On my own Delta flight to Atlanta, Georgia, this past Friday, there were 30 stand-bys -- all people attempting to travel onward via the Georgia capital in substitution for the more logical itineraries of their cancelled American Airlines flights.)

And finally, this past Friday, the U.S. dollar resumed its drop against the European Euro, reaching a level of $1.59 per Euro -- which means an actual exchange of more than $1.70 per Euro when the fees and commissions of money-changers are factored in. (Not too long ago, the U.S. dollar sold at par against the Euro.) As is already the case in Britain, where you must double the price in English pounds in order to get the dollar equivalent, we may soon have to do the same with Euros on the continent -- as if European prices weren't high enough already!

So what's to be done? You must always pay for your travel purchases with credit cards, hoping that the credit card company will reimburse you if the trip you have purchased goes down the drain. You might also take out travel insurance (go to www.insuremytrip.com for an analysis of the policies), purchasing only those policies that protect against the default of the supplier. And with respect to the high cost of traveling in Europe? Well, that's another matter.

I can tell you from the experience of my trip over the past two weeks that Europe has not lost its appeal. It is still the classic destination for Americans, a part of our cultural life, a source of our heritage. Your recourse is to radically change your method of traveling in Europe, substituting much cheaper alternative accommodations (apartments, hostels, rooms in private homes, monasteries, schools, free hospitality services like Servas, Couchsurfering, and Globalfreeloaders) for hotels, eating picnic meals once a day, splitting mealtime plates with your companion. Approached in that manner, Europe can even become a more vital and authentic experience.

And finally, you can take that long-delayed trip to Central or South America in place of Europe, traveling where the dollar remains strong. By 2009, and possibly depending on political developments, the dollar may regain some of its strength, and it surely will do so over the long run.

In this blog, we'll be constantly on the lookout for other means of reducing the cost of a European trip. If anything significant occurs, you'll learn it here.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: airlines, money, tips, travel insurance

It wasn't a really substantial trip, my seven recent days on a Rhine riverboat (stopping in six cities and four countries), followed by three nights in Lucerne, Switzerland. But in any overseas setting, you are reminded by actual fresh experience about the basic principles of smart travel, as follows:

1. The various European rail passes are more valuable than ever. From checking the railroad ticket offices, it became obvious to me that the increase in the cost of point-to-point rail tickets in Europe has not been matched by an increase in the cost of the various European rail passes. It's as if the people who market these promotional devices in the U.S. have deliberately slowed their rise in price to keep the trip attractive; people I met were able to hop-scotch all over Switzerland with a Swiss Rail Pass for just a little bit more than we paid for two tickets at a Swiss railroad station. In advance of leaving for Europe, look into the various rail pass possibilities at www.raileurope.com.


2. The ATM is your very best bet for obtaining cash. Over and over, I discovered that I could get a decent rate, and pay no big fee, by using my ATM card at the various ATMs in European cities. By contrast, I was shocked by the fees and poor exchange rates of the various money-changing kiosks -- and especially by those kiosks and counters at airports and train stations. The latter, paying high rents to be near the tourist crowds, give you a lousy number of Euros for your dollars, and then charge an additional 5% (at least) as a fee. Even banks, I discovered, now charge big commissions for changing your money. Don't use them. Go to an ATM, and you'll receive an honest exchange.


3. The European equivalent of our T.S.A. will confiscate the same items that T.S.A. does. In European shopping, you have got to stay sensitive to the security check you will later encounter at the airport. We had friends who deliberately passed up the chance to buy reasonably-priced Swiss Army Knives (as gifts for their friends) at shops in Lucerne in the thought that they could buy them for much less at an airport tax-free shop. Passing through security in the airport for the flight home, and rushing to the area of the tax-free shops, they of course discovered that none of these shops were able to sell Swiss Army Knives (since those knives could no longer be placed in luggage checked aboard). You have got to keep mentally agile on your trips to Europe, you have got to think logically and have eyes in the back of your head.


4. You can enjoy big savings by crossing the Atlantic on a flight making stops en route to your destination. I met person after person who had flown to cities in Europe using frequent flyer mileage not on the carrier whose program they had joined, but on the planes of an "alliance partner" flying out-of-your-way to another European city -- and only then to your desired destination. Thus, people flying to Amsterdam on frequent flyer mileage earned through Continental, would go there at very cheap cost via Dusseldorf on Lufthansa, a "partner" of Continental; this involved a bit of a hassle, but saved big sums. Bear in mind that all the major U.S. airlines -- American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United -- belong to airline alliances whose other members will honor the frequent flyer mileage programs of the big American carriers (but you are not always told that by the U.S. carrier; you have to raise the subject and insist).


5. All the tried-and-true rules for smart eating continue to bring major savings in today's Europe. Because more and more European hotels include a large buffet breakfast in your room charges -- enough to fill you long past the lunch hour -- it has become smarter than ever to make lunch a picnic meal from ingredients purchased at a grocery. You eat well, cheaply and healthily. Similarly, at low-cost European restaurants, the servings are generally so large that the smart traveler orders an appetizer for themselves, a main course for their companion, and then proceeds to split the plates.

Europe never loses its appeal. As disappointing as the weak U.S. dollar is, a trip to Europe is still memorable beyond measure.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: airport security, europe, money, tips

Though I was less than successful this past week in obtaining news via Internet cafes along the banks of the Rhine, I couldn't avoid the newspapers in every traditional cafe and the reports they brought of three major airline bankruptcies in the U.S.: of Aloha Airlines, ATA, and Skybus. The skyrocketing cost of fuel, and the economic slowdown, apparently proved too much for these low-cost carriers, of which one (Skybus) sold at least 10 seats a flight at $10.

It's interesting -- and an important lesson for air travelers -- that the airline executives announcing the tragic news all suggested that passengers contact their credit card companies. They did not advise filing with the bankruptcy court. In bankruptcy, it's probable that passengers will receive nothing. Outside of court, passengers paying for their tickets within the last five-or-so weeks with a credit card will probably get every penny back from their credit card companies. The lesson is clear that, in travel, you should lift heaven and earth to make payments with a credit card; the card companies will normally refund the expenditure, unless it was recorded many months ago.

As for the elimination from the skies of Skybus, a very small carrier, this will have hardly any impact on travelers living anywhere but in Columbus, Ohio, hub of the unfortunate company. But the elimination of ATA and Aloha Airlines will have a disastrous effect on airfares to Hawaii, to which both ATA and Aloha flew from Oakland, California, at wonderfully low rates. Though all the other Hawaiian-bound carriers are proclaiming that they will take up the slack, and at no increase in price, it's obvious they are simply mouthing bedtime stories to worried travelers. After an initial few weeks of low-cost fares, I predict that all the carriers to Hawaii will raise their rates by at least $100, which is sad.

If you can possibly make that trip now, you might pay current levels. And that's especially the case if you rush to book the trip from Oakland on Hawaiian Airlines, which has announced replacement service from Oakland. They, too, will raise the rates after the initial switchover is completed.

In the same way that the price of oil, the price of wheat, and the price of rice, have all recently soared, it may be that airfares to Hawaii will remain permanently high. That's all the more reason to explore the use of alternate, low-in-cost accommodations for your own visit to this tropical state: vacation homes and vacation apartments on the island of Oahu (the same are being forced out of business in Maui); low-cost Ohana hotels in the Waikiki Beach area (Ohana being a chain of very adequate high-rise hotels owned by the Outrigger chain); B&B's in Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island. The unpretentious traveler willing to make those adjustments in their lodging habits, will continue to enjoy all the rewards of travel.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: airlines, hawaii, money

In all the attention that's been paid to the surging Euro and British Pound, less has been devoted to the Japanese Yen, whose rise is just as startling -- and disconcerting to the American traveler. On Monday of this week, the Yen "strengthened down" to a level of 95 to the U.S. dollar, its strongest position since 1995. It then weakened a bit, and you will now receive about 96 yen for one U.S. dollar (instead of the 114 yen you received not so long ago).

All this means that we will not be rushing to Japan this year; receiving only 96 yen to the dollar, the cost of everything will be sky high, and all the moderating measures -- staying in the plainest of ryokans, capsule hotels, business hotels -- will do little to ease the jolt. (Keep in mind that "96 yen to the dollar" is an official rate; when you pay a 5% commission to a money-changer, as you almost always do, you will end up with only about 91 yen for one U.S. dollar).

As for the European currencies, the Euro reached -- at one point on Monday -- a rate of $1.59 before dropping back to about $1.58. If our Federal Reserve continues committing hundreds of billions of dollars of assistance to failing investment brokers and hedge funds, the resulting inflation of our currency will ultimately cause the Euro to reach a rate of $1.65 to the dollar -- meaning that you, as a tourist, will actually need to pay $1.75 for a Euro, once commissions are figured in.

So how's about considering a trip to Santiago, this summer, or to Buenos Aires? If you'll go to the website of Lan Chile Airlines, you'll find that round-trip airfares to Santiago are as little as $565 at that time, much less than you'll be paying trans-Atlantic, and you'll also find that Chilean hotels (either in Santiago or in the seaside resort community of Valparaiso) are available for about half what you'd pay in Europe. We Americans have paid too little attention to South America, and it may be that current currency conditions may change our attitudes.

One drawback: the weather in the southernmost part of South America is chilly in our summertime (their winter) months. But cultural life is at a peak, and the conditions are perfect for touring cities that are relatively uncrowded at that time.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money, south america

A number of U.S. newspapers picked up the recent disclosure that New York City's hotels enjoyed an average room rate in 2007 of $325. But it remained for the British publication, TravelMole, to place that price in perspective. According to the British e-zine, Moscow was still more expensive (average room rate of $388), with Venice at $250, London at $230, Rome at $208, and Edinburgh at $206. The cities of Latin America were far less costly (Mexico City, $118; Sao Paulo, $125; Buenos Aires, $140), while the two best values in western Europe were Pisa ($132) and Berlin ($132).

The world's cheapest big city? Orlando, Florida, with an average room rate of $110.

In declining order of cost, other cities were ranked as follows: Dubai ($250 the average room rate, making it the third most expensive city), Geneva ($218, sixth most expensive city), Oslo $200 (tenth most expensive), Copenhagen $198 (eleventh most expensive), Paris $196 (twelfth most expensive), Barcelona $190 (#13), Tokyo $188 (#15).

Other cheapest cities in terms of their average hotel room rates: Beijing, Las Vegas, Shanghai, Bangkok, Tallinn.

We can all make our travel plans accordingly.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: accommodations, money

Smart travelers for many years have been aware of the advisability of booking walking tours of the world's major cities. Instead of cramming themselves into a motorcoach with 44 other tourists; instead of enduring a lecture by a youthful tour courier who has simply memorized a spiel; instead of accepting the second-rate approach to Europe; smart tourists have joined tours-on-foot limited to as few as 6 people and conducted by Ph.Ds or other eminent scholars in the history and culture of various major cities.

Such organizations as Context Travel (www.contexttravel.com) have, for years, offered excellent walking tours of London, Paris, Rome, Naples, Florence and New York, usually limited to no more than six persons at a time and conducted by the eminent authorities that I have described above. On its website you will find descriptions of superb, even memorable, four-hour walking tours costing €300 for a group of six, or approximately €50 per person. In the days when the Euro sold at par to the dollar, the resulting cost of $50 per person for such a tour was not cheap, but not outlandish either; and many tourists felt it was a worthwhile expenditure.

The official U.S./Euro exchange rate is now about $1.52 for one Euro, which means you are paying slightly more than $1.60 for a Euro when you factor in the 5% commission that almost all money-changers take. Thus, your four-hour walking tour with Context Travel is now costing $80 per person, or $160 for a couple traveling together. And most Americans would hesitate to incur that cost.

Such companies as Through Eternity Tours (www.througheternity.com), another excellent company of scholars specializing in walking tours of Rome, permit their groups to consist of as many as 15 persons, and thus hold out a lower per-person rate. If their Euro price were to be the same number of dollars, they would be regarded as a major bargain. But at an exchange of $1.60 for a Euro, the charge is high.

If we are to continue visiting Europe without badly depleting our assets, we are all going to have to adopt different methods of seeing it properly, some of us without calling upon these excellent walking tours organizations for help.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money, smart tours

On the currency markets yesterday, the Euro hit a high of $1.51. The British Pound rose to $1.99. But that's only the start of our misery. Since all money-changers (banks, currency kiosks, ATM machines) charge at least -- at least -- 5% for changing your dollars into Euros or Pounds, you actually pay nearly $1.60 for a Euro and $2.10 for a Pound. And at those rates, Europe becomes very expensive indeed.

So what's to be done?

First, and for the time being, you may want to consider traveling to alternative destinations where the Dollar remains strong: Central and South America, Mexico, most islands of the Caribbean, most areas of Asia (and especially China).

But if you're hell-bent on Western Europe, you must necessarily opt for alternatives to standard hotel accommodations: apartment rentals, rooms in private homes, hostels, convents and monasteries, student residences. All throughout Britain and Europe, that form of alternative accommodation remains reasonable in price, and brings you not only money savings on your lodgings but considerable convenience: more spacious lodgings and a kitchen or kitchenette in which to prepare meals.

The apartment rental is your best alternative, although renting an apartment usually requires that you stay in one city for at least a week (probably a good thing to do, in any event). By eliminating a faster-moving European itinerary, by making a trip out of one-week stays in successive cities, you can obtain a quite decent apartment almost everywhere for as little as $100 a day (and that's for two-to-four persons).

The apartment-renting agencies to use are: Vacation Rentals by Owner (www.vrbo.com), HomeAway (www.homeaway.com), Zonder (www.zonder.com), Endless Vacation Rentals (www.evrentals.com), Rentalo.com (www.rentalo.com). And as a further alternative, consider the many local agencies that have emerged to rent you a bed in someone's private home or apartment ("hosted" stays while the owners are still in residence). Go to the "Search this blog" box in our upper-right-hand corner, insert the words "rooms in private homes" or "private home accommodations", and you'll find discussion of such lodgings in London, Paris, Rome and other leading European cities.

The use of apartment rentals, or rooms in private homes, is probably the single most effective way to continue visiting Europe affordably. It's the course that a great many Americans will need to follow as long as the dollar remains as weak as it presently is.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: accommodations, money

Finally, there's a site that does all the hard work when it comes to one of the most dreadfully dull yet vital subjects in travel: crunching the numbers and digging through the details of credit card foreign transaction fees, currency exchange rates, and other money-handling issues.

Travel Guide for Your Finances (www.travelfinances.com), maintained by an American ex-pat living in Europe for the past 11 years, is part resource guide and part blog about the issues of travel finances.

On the resources side, there are charts comparing the various fees for major credit card-issuing banks, links to current currency exchange information, details on dozens of different credit cards and their rewards schemes, lists of fees charged by issuers of ATM cards, and definitions of the various legal and monetary mumbo-jumbo relating to foreign charges and transactions that one encounters on credit cards and bank statements.

It could be a bit better organized, but at least it is chock-full of good information to help you make more informed decisions when choosing a credit card to use on your travels.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money, websites

Commenting on my recent blog about foreign currency exchange rates, a number of readers have all emphasized the wisdom of using ATM machines overseas for such transactions -- and never going to a commercial money changer, like the kiosks found in tourist areas or in airports. "An exchange bureau," wrote one reader "is liable to sell currency at loan shark rates. I priced British pounds at O'Hare and Heathrow and found rates [currency charges] ranging from 8.4% to 16.4%. That would make a $1.99 pound cost up to $2.31636!"

By contrast, said the same reader, "a reasonable ATM charge of 3% over the rate shown at www.xe.com gets you Euros for $1.5141," not the higher amount charged by the money-changing booths.
As usually happens in discussions of this sort, the same readers recommended using a Capital One credit card for credit card transactions overseas -- confirming that no foreign currency charge is incurred when you do so. Thus, "a $1.99 pound costs $1.99, a $1.47 Euro costs $1.47 with Capital One." Has anyone had experience to the contrary?

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money

Because of a ditsy rumor that the British Pound has "crashed" against the U.S. dollar, it's appropriate to update our earlier posts about the plight of the U.S. dollar. Nothing really has changed, and the Dollar is still at its weakest level in years.

It's true that the Dollar has strengthened in recent weeks against the Pound, but not to the extent that would matter on your own trip. Because financial experts feel that British banks are about to suffer the same write-downs that U.S. banks were forced to make as a result of their investments in securities backed by sub-prime mortgages, the British Pound has recently fallen to a level of One Pound = $1.99, from an earlier level of One Pound=$2.07. But by the time you pay commissions and fees to the money changers when you actually exchange your dollars into pounds, you will still end up paying about $2.10 for a Pound. And that's a disastrous exchange. When you see a price in Britain, you must still multiply by two to get the approximate U.S. dollar equivalent.

As for all other European currencies, the Dollar remains unchanged from its dismal, dreary levels of late. The best website for the actual figures is www.xe.com. There you'll discover that a Euro costs $1.47. Meaning, that when you add the commissions and fees you incur in changing your money at a "Change" kiosk or bank, you are paying considerably more than $1.50 for one Euro. And thus you need add 50% to every Euro price to obtain the dollar equivalent. A twin-bedded room in a European guesthouse priced at 130 Euros is costing you about $200.

So there it is. When there is better news to report, I'll rush to do so.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: england, money

The settlement of a class action lawsuit against major U.S. bank-issued credit cards (Visa and MasterCards from Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Bank One, HSBC, MBNA or Washington Mutual/Providian) provides that users of those cards during a ten-year period may not have received fair notice that the banks were deducting fees of 1% to 3% on each foreign transaction (like buying a bottle of wine in a French shop). Accordingly, a $336 million-dollar fund has been created to compensate those credit card holders.

If you are willing to undergo a long process of actually proving the amount of your overseas credit card purchases during that period, you will receive a refund of 1% to 3%. If you're unwilling to gather the proof and present it in written form, you can instead opt to receive $25 in full and final settlement of your own claims. Millions of Americans will take the $25 -- and run.

Papers were mailed out this past week to multitudes of credit card owners asking them to opt one way or the other for the refund they'll get. If you haven't received such a document, then visit www.ccfsettlement.com or tel. 800/945-9890 to get the necessary forms. Filing for $25 shouldn't take more than a few minutes, though it's important to bear in mind that payments won't actually be mailed out until a great deal of procedural steps are first taken.

There's additional discussion of the class action settlement at www.travelfinances.com, and if you're thinking of possibly holding out for a recovery larger than $25, you might take a look at that discussion, too.


Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money

The article I'm referring to filled the entire first page of last weekend's New York Times travel section, and then spread out over part of seven more pages. Its headline read: "The 53 Places to Go in 2008." But instead of citing culture, history, natural wonders, political interest, or interaction with people, as the primary reason for its 53 geographical choices, it clearly implied that the arrival of upscale deluxe hotels was the main reason for visiting most of its nominees.

• St. Lucia? You go there because "big-name resorts with $1,000 rooms are on the way."
• Verbier, in Switzerland? It "will get decidedly more upper class" when Richard Branson's latest chalet-hotel opens, charging "as little as £35,250 a week, well over $70,000."
• Courchevel in the French Alps? Developers are upping the ante with "rustic-chic apartments starting at ... $1.95 million."

And so it read on nearly all of the seven pages of its travel section. You went to Tunisia because it is undergoing a "luxury makeover" that will attract "well-heeled travelers;" to Laos for its "seriously upscale" hotels; to Prague, where the youth hostels are "being squeezed by luxe hotels;" to Munich for "cushy living;" to Playa Blanca in Panama where a "tres chic beach club" of Miami is opening a gated resort; to Rimini, Italy, currently drawing "style-conscious Romans to its?designer hotels;" to Kuwait City ("opulent hotels"); to Easter Island acquiring its "first luxury resort;" to Virgin Gorda, where a new resort will offer "weekly rates starting at $12,500;" or to Itacare, Brazil, visited by "celebrities and the elite of Rio de Janeiro."

In no fewer than 34 of the 43 destinations listed in its printed travel section (the other 10 appeared online), luxury living was singled out as the obvious draw of the destination. The words "luxury," "upscale," "high end," "Ritz-Carlton," "lavish," "well-heeled," "ultra-exclusive," "high ticket," "chic," "upper class," "posh," "opulent," and the like, appear either repeatedly ("luxury" and "luxurious" are big favorites) or at least once in the great majority of write-ups; and the more noble goals of travel, a learning experience that expands understanding, are mainly dismissed in favor of the pleasures of discos and designer hotels.

If you, like many, are not interested in ultra-costly hotels, is there anything for you to read in the travel section of The New York Times? Precious little. I wonder whether any major editor of the Times scans those pages or is even faintly aware of what that section has become. As someone with a regard for travel, who looks upon travel as a precious birthright of our generation, I want to protest against what a new team of mindless poseurs have done to the once-esteemed travel pages of our leading newspaper.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money, news

Several Internet tour operators offer marvels of pricing in their air-and-land packages to Europe. And when you proceed to actually book their packages, the final sum to pay is only slightly higher than the advertised price. That final sum has been increased by only a small amount for taxes and landing fees.

A number of less able tour companies create the appearance of competitive prices by excluding from their advertised price the far-more-hefty fuel surcharge that all airlines now impose for a trans-Atlantic crossing. When you book the packages of these scamps, you suddenly discover that the actual price is at least two hundred dollars more than you earlier anticipated.

Don't fall for this less-than-punctilious approach to pricing. Look immediately to learn if the fuel surcharge is included in the price which attracted you to the package. It's an important element of the cost of your trip.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money, websites

Would you believe a single meal -- one meal -- costing $1,000 per person? It’s being offered aboard Crystal Cruises (on intermittent, widely-spaced sailings, mainly because of the inclusion of ultra-costly wines), probably in an effort to attract hedge fund managers to its pretentious vacations. And whom do we have to thank for revealing this information? Why, the travel section of the New York Times, of course, advising us without commentary or criticism (in last weekend's travel section) that Crystal "recently began offering intimate $1,000-a-head dinners with hard-to-get wines and extravagant meals."

Elsewhere, in the same edition of the Times' wealth-worshiping travel coverage, the weekly review of new hotels ("Check In/Check Out") chooses to write up the Carlton on Madison Avenue in New York, which charges "from $399 to $799" per night per room. Up forward, on page 2 of the same edition, column 3, the Times' travel section states that readers "might be interested" in the new Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates and its "394 luxury rooms, which start at about $700 a person per night."

What a pity that Marie Antoinette did not lived to enjoy the current travel section of the New York Times!


Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money

Because it would obviously be so difficult to do comparison pricing on all the vast array of goods sold in so-called "duty-free" airport shops, a website called the Duty Free Price Guide (www.thedutyfreepriceguide.com) devotes most of its attention simply to cigarettes, perfume and liquor. But the huge price variations for those products are obviously representative of similar variations for electronic products and clothing. They show that certain airport shops or airlines mark up the initial cost of the property to such an extent as to cast doubt on whether the public receives any real benefit out of buying those goods from them.

Take the product identified as "Marlboro 200 packs Cigarettes." From various exotic airlines or remote airports (Ethiopian Airlines, Middle East Airlines, Qatar Airport), you can buy a 200-cigarette carton of Marlboros for $10 to $12, according to the website. Yet the very same carton is being sold for $24 to $26 by Northwest Airlines, American Airlines, and United Airlines; for $27 at the Los Angeles Airport; and for $41 by British Midland Airways and at Vienna Airport.

The same giant gaps between prices from airlines and airports are reported for perfume and liquor. A 50ML bottle of Dior Perfume ranges in price from $26 to $77, depending on the airline or airport selling it.

It's a crazy world out there. On several recent trips, I haven't seen a single product selling for much less than I would pay at Best Buy or Circuit City in New York, or at the perfume wholesalers on lower Broadway. And I haven't any present plans to fly to Qatar or Dubai to pick up a cigarette bargain.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: airlines, airports, money, shopping

As the dollar continues its plunge against the Euro and the British Pound, an occasional astute travel writer is advising winter trips to destinations where the currency is the U.S. Dollar itself -- or tied to the Dollar. David Swanson expounds on this strategy in a recent travel article in the Chicago Tribune about Caribbean and Atlantic getaways for this coming winter season.

That list of places where the U.S. Dollar remains in use includes, of course, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Panama, and a number of islands where the local currency is effectively tied to the greenback: the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, the Bahamas, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Netherlands Antilles (Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire).

However, the entire Caribbean does not present such a rosy exchange rate. Remember that many islands have currencies tied to the Euro (currently trading at $1.44), which means sticker shock still applies on such islands as Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Barts, and, in an odd case, the French-associated St. Martin half of that island (as a member of the Netherlands Antilles, the other St. Maarten half of this divided island uses a currency tied to the U.S. dollar).

The Tribune article goes into fair detail on taking advantage of this currency parity for travel to such attractive places as Tobago, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico's Playa del Carmen.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: caribbean, mexico, money

The full impact of the decline of the dollar against the Euro and the British Pound isn't felt when you're actually in Europe, but several weeks later, when you begin receiving your credit card statements for all the purchases you made. It is only then that you realize how puny our dollar has become. You discover that the Euro isn't calculated at around 1€=$1.40 (the mental figuring you did at the time) but is being charged on your credit card statement as 1€=$1.50. And the British pound wasn't £1=$2, but £1=$2.10. And the difference is startling.

In Spain a few weeks ago, I hosted a dinner for five persons at a fine restaurant in Seville. The total bill came to 200€, and I foolishly had a mental image of paying $200 (knowing it was actually more costly than that, but in the euphoria of the moment, you don't think straight). When my credit card bill arrived this week, the 200€ charge became $300.

The dollar has now sunk to a level of nearly $1.44 for one Euro. But when commissions and a credit card fee are added, the actual rate on your statement is converted at closer to $1.50 per Euro. You increase each Euro by 50%. The dollar has sunk to a level of $2.07 per pound. But when the credit card statement arrives, the actual calculation is at more than $2.12 per pound.

As I have earlier written, costs for U.S. travelers in Britain have become outlandish based on that exchange rate. Costs on the continent of Europe have remained more reasonable for us (they're about equal to what you'd pay in New York or San Francisco) when based on the current exchange rate, but they are still substantial. It is more important than ever that when you travel in Europe, your lower your expectations and requirements by at least one category: you no longer stay in first class hotels but in tourist class hotels; you eat modestly at restaurants where the locals eat, and you split courses with your travel companion. You use public transportation. Arriving at an airport, you pass up the taxis and board a bus. You shop for nothing -- because nothing is cheaper than what you'd pay at home. And by adopting those frugal attitudes, you continue to enjoy one of the greatest of all travel experiences: Europe.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: europe, money

Two friends travel to Italy in the month of May. One carries a Wells Fargo Visa card, the other a Bank of America Visa card. Both make use of their cards on May 7. The friend with the Wells Fargo card is charged no 3% transaction fee, but the Euros he spent that day are converted into dollars at a rate of 1€=$1.396. The friend with the Bank of America card is charged that infamous transaction fee but the Euros are changed into dollars at a rate of 1€=$1.36 -- a 2.65% saving.

One of them (Dean Smith of Porterville, California) sends me copies of both credit card statements. They raise disquieting questions. Are those credit card companies that don't charge a transaction fee making up for their "generosity" by using a worse exchange rate? In the final analysis, do they bilk you just as badly as the companies charging the fee? Is anyone playing straight with travelers?

I'd be grateful to hear from math-savvy readers who have recently traveled to Europe, used their credit cards, and kept the bills. Is anyone able to tell me whether the non-fee companies are also using a decent exchange rate?

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money

In a recent post about Capital One credit cards (the only ones I've found that do not impose a 3% fee for their use in foreign countries), I recommended them for the obvious advantage they bring to travelers. While all the early responses to my post confirmed that point, a disquieting number of later responses also told of poor customer service. Some said that Capital One occasionally blocks the use of your card in a foreign country, unless you advise them precisely on the eve of departure about the trip you are about to make. Others told of rigid and unjustified late fees imposed by Capital One. And still others described the difficulty they had in getting Capital One to remove a fraudulent charge from their monthly credit card bill. They indicate, to me, that Capital One's recent success has overwhelmed the staff available to deal with such matters.

So what to do? Perhaps the best advice came from the latest reader to respond to my post:

We too have a love/hate relationship with CO. Great card for travel -- lousy customer service. We decided to put up with the lack of CS in order to save money on our overseas travel -- though there are some days I'm not sure it's worth it.

I will be sending a copy of this post to the President of Capital One in hopes of prompting some corrective action on his part.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: money

There are hotels in big U.S. cities charging $500 a room, and restaurants charging $100 a meal. There are even chain cafes charging $3.15 for what is, essentially, a cup of coffee (their name is Starbucks). If I were to cite those examples in a blog about travel in America, I could easily make the case that our country has become impossibly expensive.

A somewhat similar distortion appears in most articles about Europe. Without drawing a distinction between some European countries and others, numerous travel writers have indicted the entire continent as impossibly expensive.

In actual fact, there are only two regions of Europe in which the price structure has become truly oppressive: Great Britain and Scandinavia. Elsewhere (and with the possible exception of Paris), prices are generally no higher than you'd encounter in several major U.S. cities: New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago or San Francisco. Although western Europe is no longer a bargain to Americans (the low exchange value of the U.S. dollar has eliminated the "steals"), the lodgings and meal costs in Germany, most of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, and elsewhere on the continent are no higher than in key U.S. citi