TRAVEL BABBLE 101

When you see an ad for travel, your mind is quickly distracted by thoughts of happy, relaxed, leisure vacation time. Danger thus lurks, because you might not be paying enough attention to what the words in the ad really mean. Or don't mean. Here's a simple reminder of some of the most common double-talk in travel advertising. No doubt some of these common sleight-of-hand words in travel ads are familiar to you. It can't hurt, though, to get a little jog as to what might be lurking behind the ad-speak. "FROM" This is far-and-away the most common travel-babble word. Cruise lines, tour packagers, hotels, airlines---they all use it almost all the time. "From", of course, means that the price quoted is the lowest possible price among a wide variety of selections. If you select the "From" price, you will be getting the least desirable---and therefore the lowest priced---offering. When you see a "From" price it will usually look like this, in terms of the size of the type, say on a cruise ship cabin: from $1,199. The "From" is so small that you might not even notice it. The reason travel vendors use "From" is to grab your attention with the low price, and then get you to phone for details. Cynics might call this "bait and switch." And, in some cases, it certainly is. It's not illegal per se. But it can be dangerous. "UP TO" This is another price-bending play on words, as in, "Savings of UP TO 75%." You might thus think that the prices quoted in the ad represent a savings of 75%, or close to it. Such a deal. But the words mean something else. If the normal price of, say, a Florida vacation package, is $795, and the "discounted" price works out to $755, that's a saving of about 5%, not 75%. UP TO means ANY percentage or dollar amount from zero UP TO 75%. And whatever is offered at a full 75% savings, if anything, you might not want. Don't let the funny numbers fool you. "AIR INCLUDED" There's air, and then there's air. There are flights that leave from Los Angeles at a convenient 9 AM, that land in New York at a convenient 6 PM,---New York time---without stopping along the way. Then there are flights that leave from Los Angeles at 9 PM and land in New York at a very red-eyed 8 AM after stopping along the way in Phoenix and Chicago, just to make sure you don't sleep through the night. Needless to say, you'll fly in Economy Class. When air is included, as it often is in cruise packages, know full well that the packager or the cruise line will try to get the cheapest flights available. And that can involve red-eyes, extra long travel times due to layovers, having to make connections (often a challenge in their own right, particularly when baggage transfer is required), not knowing your flight schedule until the last minute, and overall fatigue. No way to start or end a vacation. Check to see what the cost is without the flight. It might be worth some extra bucks to pay the difference and choose your own flight times. "SIGHTSEEING ITINERARY INCLUDES…" Whether you're in San Francisco or London or Beijing or Washington or wherever, there are some things you're going to want to see and enjoy at your own pace. If you have a sight-seeing trip as part of your package, you must make certain that you'll be able to do your own thing to suit yourself, not the other 57 people on the bus. Merely mentioning a place on an itinerary----Fisherman's Wharf, or Westminster Abbey, or The Forbidden City, or the White House---doesn't necessarily mean that you will be getting off the bus to visit that place. It might mean that you are just DRIVING PAST it. ("….On your left you will see the White House…." says your friendly tour guide Swell.) If the tour brochure leaves you with any doubts as to what you'll visit, and for how long, check with the tour operator for specifics. If your desired spot isn't given enough time, plan to visit it on your own. And remember, a 30 minute visit to anyplace might include 15 minutes of 58 people getting on and off the bus. And someone will always be late while you wait to get moving again. Not fun. "PARTIAL OR RESTRICTED VIEW" On cruise ships that might mean that your view of the ocean is blocked by a lifeboat hanging over the deck. It might be just the tippy-tip of the lifeboat. Or it might be the whole life boat. Big difference. In a hotel it might mean having to stand at the far end of a window and looking out between two other hotels to glimpse a sliver of the ocean. (And in some cases that might even be called an ocean view room, with no asterisks.) Those cabins and rooms are priced to attract, but the view they promise might not be very attractive. "FOUR….FIVE….SIX STARS…" Who decides how many stars a hotel or a restaurant or a cruise ship deserves? It's usually some kind of travel trade organization, which offers some degree of comfort. But different places and different facilities can have different standards of measuring the number of stars. So what might be four star by one set of standards could be three stars by another set. And then there are hotels and restaurants and cruise ships that simply name their own number of stars. If you're paying a price for the number of stars, do some homework to be sure you're getting the right value for your money. "STANDARD….SUPERIOR….DELUXE…" Just like the Stars category, hotel rooms are rated, and priced, according to their size, location and amenities. But who decides the difference between the types? And does a "Superior" room at Hotel A equal a "Superior" room at Hotel B? For a short stay it might not matter, but for a longer stay you don't want to be ripped off. Look at the room you're assigned before you take occupancy. And if you don't like it, ask for an upgrade. Don't wait for them to offer an upgrade. They won't. Trust me. "DAYS AND NIGHTS" This can get tricky, particularly if you're on a package deal and flying across an ocean. Here's an example: You leave Los Angeles on October 1st at 11 PM for a flight to Rome. That day of departure, October 1st, might be counted as the first day of your trip. You get to your hotel in Rome at about 5-6 PM Rome time on October 2nd. That counts as the second day of your trip, but you're too wiped out to enjoy it. So far you've used up two days and one night of your trip, and it hasn't really begun yet. The same funny math can happen on your return. If you leave for home late at night and arrive the next day, you've used another two days and one night. So, when you see a package plan that says, say, "12 nights" or "10 days" you want to find out exactly how many usable days and "sleepable" nights you're going to have. (If you see some packages that honestly advertise "11 days and 9 nights" or vice versa, you'll now know how they arrived at that strange scheduling. Keep this mini-dictionary in mind when you plan your next trip. It could save you money, time and energy. This article supplements Chapter 3, pages 88-98 in Personal Finance. Access the textbook by clicking on the box in the right column.