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A Severe Drop in the Value of the Japanese Currency Has Made That Country a Highly Desirable Low-Cost Destination for American Travelers

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 11/22/2014, 12:00 PM

Several weeks ago, when the value of the Japanese Yen plummeted to a rate of 100 to the U.S. dollar, people in the travel industry awoke to the emergence of a new destination for cost-conscious Americans. Most of us had last visited Japan when we received far less than 90 Yen to the dollar, and the experience was a searing one: Japan was a costly place to visit. At a higher100 t...

Is Last Minute, Spontaneous Travel Now a Thing of the Past? Yes....And No

By Pauline Frommer

Posted on 11/22/2014, 12:00 PM

It’s been a good several years since the airlines offered regular last-minute deals. According to a study of 180 million ticket sales by the Airline Reporting Corporation (the middleman that handles transactions between the airlines and thousands of travel agencies) the early birds are doing far better than those who delay. According to the ARC’s study, bookings 57 days in advance garner the...

Winter Europe on $75 a Day per Person, Including Quality Accommodations and Three Tasty Meals

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 11/19/2014, 9:00 PM

This coming winter, hundreds of thousands of Americans from the northeast or midwest will compete with one another for the few low-cost or moderately-priced condos or vacation homes in Florida and Southern California. They are determined to spend at least two weeks and more away from the frigid ice, snow and temperatures that everyone expects. And I recently discussed those urges...

Despite an Almost Universal Criticism of My Viewpoints About the Latest Trends in Cruising, I Remain Unmoved

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 11/19/2014, 5:00 PM

If you are dismayed by the decision of cruiselines to place bumper cars and basketball courts on their top decks, does that make you an "elitist" or a spoil-sport? If you prefer the cruise ships that provide you with quiet lounges, libraries, or reclining deck chairs for reading, if you value wide-ranging conversations with fellow passengers, if you enjoy attending seagoing lecture...

Et Tu JetBlue? Carrier Will Be Adding Bag Fees and Extra Seats to Cabins

By Pauline Frommer

Posted on 11/19/2014, 10:30 AM

Today, JetBlue released a bombshell-filled securities filing, one that will make investors happy but is going to take the swing out of the step of many travelers (this one included). Starting in 2016, JetBlue will be upping the number of seats on its Airbus A320 jets from 150 to 165, severely cutting back on leg room for those of us in steerage. In the second half of 2015, it's going to sell a ne...

Hilton and Marriott Announce Strict New Fees for Last–Minute Cancellations

By Pauline Frommer

Posted on 11/18/2014, 3:15 PM

Just as Cinderella had to high tail it home before the stroke of midnight, from January 1st on, travelers heading to a Hilton or a Marriott property will have to remember to cancel their reservations by 11:59pm local time on the day prior to arrival. Those who don't make that deadline won't be changed into a pumpkin, but they will be charged for a full nights' stay. This new policy will incl...

American Airlines Goes Its Own Way on Frequent Flyer Miles….For Now. And Travelers Should Be Grateful

By Pauline Frommer

Posted on 11/15/2014, 11:15 AM

Loyalty doesn’t always go both ways. That’s the sad truth that members of the frequent flyer programs for most of the major North American carriers found out this fall when two of the biggies—Delta and United—announced that they would be instituting major changes to their loyalty programs. To be fair, those changes brought them into line with the policies already being used by Southwest Airl...

Food, Travel and Marriage: Two Excellent New Memoirs Explore Journeys on the Silk Road and France

By Pauline Frommer

Posted on 11/08/2014, 12:00 PM

As a woman who was wooed and won by a man who laboured for three days preparing a lasagna — he made the pasta from scratch — I know, in a visceral way, that the connection between food and love is a potent one. Add well-seasoned prose and travel to the mix, and you have the makings for a compelling memoir. Or at least you do in the hands of Ann Mah and Jen Lin Liu, two accomplished author...

Winter's Coming and a Record-Breaking Number of Residents in the North Are Looking to Spend Several Weeks in Warmer Places. What are the Options?

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 11/06/2014, 5:00 PM

With memories still fresh of an unusually frigid December through March of 2013-14, a larger than normal number of Americans in the northeastern and Midwestern states are frantically hoping to escape a similar ordeal in the coming months. But when they make their phone calls to hotels and the like in the south, they too often find that prices for the winter of 2014-15 have skyrock...

River Cruises are the Hottest Current Product in Travel, Selling Like Proverbial Hotcakes, But for an Experience that Scarcely Differs from One Cruiseline to the Other

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 11/06/2014, 1:45 PM

Probably the most unusual recent event in travel was the announcement by the well-known Celebrity Cruises that it will soon add a river cruise to one of its familiar ocean cruises. Passengers will first spend a week-or-so sailing the Mediterranean and will then be delivered to a Riviera port for transfer to another one-week cruise on a river of France. Northing could better illustr...

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