Travel Tips
The Travel Detective on Olympic Cities, Airlines’ False Imprisonment and Hotel Safety
From The Travel Detective Blog …
Chicago lost its Olympic bid for 2016 to Rio de Janeiro.
In retrospect, it was not because Chicago has nothing to offer, but because of the way the world perceives us.
Over the last eight years the International Olympic Committee has not been thrilled because the U.S. was perceived as a not welcoming country.
We make visas too difficult to get, and we deny entry to so many people that we lost out on tourism, let alone the Olympics. Couple that with the fact that the Olympics have never been in South America and the scales were tipped radically toward Rio.
Learn more about the issues of international tourism with Obama’s Peace Dividend: Reviving Brand America & International Tourism.
However the good news is, if you look historically at what happens when locations get the Olympic nod, they go nuts. They get greedy. They get stupid.
They’re still trying to fill hotel rooms from 1996 that they built for the Atlanta Olympics. They’re still trying to fill hotels they built for the Sydney Olympics. It’s only three weeks, guys; it’s not going to save your entire economy.
However, what’s nice to know is that Athens actually got its act together for 2004, and we know that China became unpolluted for all of 21 days in 2008.
Also in the news this week: passenger rights. There’s legislation in front of Congress and a bill being introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer and Olympia Snowe.
This is a bipartisan effort in the works to give passengers rights if you are stuck on the plane for more than three hours. Interestingly enough, this particular legislation has been introduced two other times and never got out of committee. It looks like it might actually get to a vote this time. However, it has so many loopholes, you could drive a 747 through it.
Find out more with FAA Reauthorization Bill Includes Passenger Rights & Air Traffic Control Modernization.
For example, if you are stuck on a plane more than three hours the airline must provide water, food—and everything else short of aromatherapy. But the real key is not what you get ON the plane, because you want to get OFF the plane.
And you can’t get off the plane unless the pilot lets you off. The proposed law, as it’s currently written, says that after three hours the pilot can return to the gate and let you off the plane if he reasonably believes that he won’t be able to take off within the next 30 minutes.
Let me ask this rhetorical question: When was the last time you ever got on a plane and were told there would be a seven-hour delay?
You’re always told there’s a 30-minute delay; and then another 30 minutes; and then another … it becomes a creeping delay. As a result, you never have a reasonable belief that you’re ever going to get off. Or maybe you do, every 30 minutes, if you’re in total denial.
Read more from Peter’s Travel Detective Blog.
If you are trapped on a plane for more than three hours, I want you remember back to January 1999 when Northwest Airlines trapped more than 8,000 people at the Detroit airport.
On those planes that day, there were a number of lawyers (some would argue that the lawyers should have been left on the planes!). The lawyers filed a class-action suit against Northwest claiming, among other things, false imprisonment.
Northwest went to every judge they could find, but not a single one threw out the case. (I happen to feel some of the judges were in the airport that day.) The lawyers wanted it to go to trial because they were looking to set legal precedent.
You know what happened seven days before trial? Northwest spent more than $7 million writing checks to passengers. They did not want to go to trial because they were not going win. So even if legal precedent wasn’t set with the concept of false imprisonment, guess what was set: symbolic precedent.
So if you’re stuck on a plane for more than three hours, here’s what you do.
First of all, mention false imprisonment. They’ll remember that.
Second, do what I would do and declare you’re sick. They’ve got to get you off the plane. When the paramedics and police officers and airline officials come and ask you what your ailment is, tell them the truth: You’re sick and tired of being on the plane. Not a judge will let that one go to trial because chances are, he was sitting on that flight too.
Learn more about air travel in our Airlines & Airports section.
The other item in the news this week is your own personal security in hotels. There was the Erin Andrews case in which a man was taking nude videos of her through the peephole in the door.
This raises a number of questions about hotel security: How did he get access? How did he know she was in that room? What will hotels do, and not do, to protect guests?
Learn more with How Safe Is My Hotel? An In-Depth Look at Hotel Security.
Most importantly, there are things you can do for your own personal safety in hotels:
- Do not allow the clerk say your room number out loud. Never accept the hotel room key if the room number has been announced; instead, have the clerk write down the room number.
- Ask to be escorted by a uniformed staff member of hotel. This is due to the huge increase of what we call “push-in” crimes, i.e. robberies, burglaries and more. What happens is that when you get to the door, you put the bag down to put your card key in the slot. The minute you put the key in the slot, the criminal comes up behind you and pushes you in. You’re in the room, with the criminal, with the door closed, and you’ve got no way out.
- Lastly, the best thing you can travel with is duct tape! In the case of Erin Andrews, the ESPN reporter, the guy actually hacksawed the peephole to take videos with his cell-phone camera. The peephole is an option for you to look out, not for them to look in. So use that duct tape and cover up the hole. If someone comes to the door you can simply take it off, but never open the door without looking, even if the person claims to be hotel staff.
By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio.
Read more from Peter’s Travel Detective Blog.
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