Airline fee decoder

Name: Budget Travel LLC
Price range: $

By Sean O'Neill

October 3, 2012

So you're looking for airplane tickets, but you're not sure how fees will affect the final total. What to do? Well, meta search engine Kayak has put together an easy-to-read chart. Kayak has listed the five most painful fees to watch out for on each of 25 domestic and international airlines. [kayak.com/airline-fees]

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Wall Arch -- gone!

Long the star of Devils Garden Trail, the Wall Arch was one of the most photographed sights in Arches National Park, five miles north of Moab, Utah. It fell down a week ago due to gravity and erosion, says the AP. The arch had measured about 33 feet tall and 71 feet across and had been made of thin, vertical sandstone fins. Here are the before-and-after views, courtesy of a half-minute video on YouTube: Luckily, there are still about 2,000 other arches intact, including Delicate Arch

Inspiration

Brand news: Two innovative new hotel chains to watch

From the September 2008 issue of Budget Travel: Starwood's first Aloft and Element hotels are opening this summer, sporting a trendy design and amenities such as self-service check-in kiosks and a touch-screen concierge. Aloft hotels are in about a dozen cities [Montreal was the first one]; Element is currently only in Lexington, Mass.

It's payback time if you flew to London between 2004 to 2006

Last spring British Airways had to pay more than a quarter-billion dollars in fines, after having admitted to conspiring with Virgin Atlantic to hit passengers with fuel surcharges that were over and above the actual cost of fuel. The fees overcharged more than 2 million American passengers, plus millions more British travelers. Refunds will vary between $7 and $34 per passenger per round-trip ticket* and will be paid to anyone who flew between the U.S. and the U.K. between August 11, 2004 and March 23, 2006. Apply online by clicking here: airpassengerrefund.com. If you no longer have your ticket info, that's okay. You can use your passport number if you flew British Airways, your frequent flier number if you flew Virgin Atlantic, and other information if you don't have either of those things handy. Flights include all Virgin Atlantic flights and most British Airways flights between the U.S. and the U.K. during the dates listed above. A complete list of qualifying flights on British Airways can be found on the site. It was announced today that some folks may be going to jail because of the fraud. "Four past and present British Airways executives have been charged with price-fixing offences by the Office of Fair Trading," reports The Telegraph. "If found guilty, they could be jailed for up to five years and face an unlimited fine." *UPDATE Aug. 11, 8 a.m.: The above post has been corrected. It originally read "up to $20 per passenger per ticket." I regret the error. EARLIER British Airways is the same airline that says it will apply to be excluded from standard U.S. antitrust laws in the coming weeks.

Inspiration

Vacationers are renting more cars, despite pain at the pump

Despite the spike in gas prices leisure travelers are renting more cars. Or, more precisely, they're renting more cars from the largest rental car company in North America, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which targets the leisure travel market more than any other rental car company. In a recent interview, Steve Short, vice president of leisure business development, gave a quick explanation. Rentals have increased both in number and dollar volume over last year for the Enterprise brand. The number of rentals just in the leisure segment of the home city market is up more than 500,000. Rentals have increased this year in our home city business— meaning all non-airport locations—due to several factors: Leisure travelers— the group that represents the core readers of Budget Travel— are renting cars, vans and SUVs for family trips and special occasions. Enterprise has more than 6,000 neighborhood locations, we are within 15 minutes of 90 percent of the U.S. population. We pioneered the home city segment of the rental car business, along with pickup service. Customers who want fuel-efficient options find we have the largest fleet of fuel-efficient vehicles. When you think beyond the Enterprise brand and include our other brands, National and Alamo, we offer more than 440,000 cars combined. This fleet averages at least 28 miles per gallon. Currently, there are more than 4,000 hybrids in this fleet and we expect that number to increase significantly this fall. Have high gas prices changed your use of rental cars at all?

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