Budgeting For Your Travels, TSA Rules, and NASA Stupidity

Paying Money January 8, 2008

Last week, I did a piece on the Today show on how to budget your travel when airlines, cruise lines and rental car companies don’t fully disclose the real cost of your trip.

For example, US Airways has a flight that’s advertised from Orlando to Zurich for $366. But they neglect to tell you that the taxes for the ticket, levied by our government, add another $120.

So you’re actually paying close to $500 for a ticket that you thought was $366.

It’s the same thing with hotels.

We can actually call up any hotel in the United States, or for that matter, the world, and ask them to give me the rate for that room. Which they will, but they won’t tell me the taxes for that room.

It can be excise taxes, occupancy taxes, let-me-build-your-sports-stadium tax. In New York alone, it’s more than 13 percent, not including an additional fee for the Javits Center. If you’re spending a quoted room rate of $270 a night, you’re actually spending more than $300 a night. They just won’t tell you.

And let’s not forget the airlines are adding little, insidious convenience fees. Convenient for whom? Some airlines are actually charging you—and you don’t know it yet because it’s built into their system—more than $8 to just book it on the Web.

Didn’t they used to offer you a discount to book it on the Web? They’re looking to “ka-ching” everywhere they can, so it’s not pretty for budget travelers.

BRITISH AIRPORT AUTHORITY FINALLY MAKES SENSE …

London England Two other things in the news, one I have to celebrate and one I have to laugh about. The one I have to celebrate, because I’ve been yelling and screaming about it for a year, is that on January 7, in London and many other UK airports, they finally relaxed the absurd, ridiculous, inconvenient, and outrageous one-carry on bag rule. If you’re flying on British Airways, you can have two carry-on bags. What a concept.

We all know what happened when they had that rule. British Airways led all other airlines in how many bags they lost every day. The British Airport Authority’s rule was forcing people to check bags that they never would have checked.

So if you’re flying to London, or especially if you’re flying through London and you’re going through Heathrow, you will not be stopped for the outrageous act of carrying two bags on board.

You know why they changed the rule? First of all, they never should have had the rule. But the reason why they changed the rule was because it was costing them so much money. It had nothing to do with security. They were losing between 8,000 and 10,000 bags a day, and that was just at Heathrow.

… BUT THE TSA DOESN’T

TSA slogan Now, let’s hear it for the TSA still confiscating … pies. That’s right. There were so many people traveling over the season with pies that grandma had baked for them, and the TSA was seizing them as security risks. Especially pumpkin pie. Don’t ask me why.

One thing they are banning at the airport is lithium batteries. If you have them in the carry-on bag, they have to be in a plastic bag. We’re talking lithium batteries for your cell phone, laptop and cameras. I’ve been traveling for the first three days in January with two lithium batteries in my bag and nobody stopped me.

Here’s a little fact that also makes no sense. Remember the shoe bomber Richard Reid? The guy who tried to light his shoes on fire on an American Airlines flight from Paris?

Well, believe it or not, there was a ban on cigarette lights—hard to believe the TSA did something sensible. They had this ban on cigarette lighters and the TSA was confiscating 22,000 of them a day. And in August, it was weird, they lifted a ban.

Can somebody tell me why? Was it a smokers’ lobby? I happen to think a cigarette lighter on a plane is a dangerous item. So you can bring your cigarette lighter, but whatever you do, don’t light up your pie. Those exploding pies can be dangerous.

THE 2008 STUPIDITY AWARDS

Last but not least, my award for the first act of stupidity in 2008. NASA.

Remember, the guys who did the space shuttles? Well they also ran an anonymous safety survey that reported incidents in the air. And they didn’t want to release it. You know why?

They were worried it would undermine our confidence in the airlines. But guess what guys, we paid for that. Well, they finally released the report last Wednesday.