Travel Rip-Offs: The Experts Reveal Their Own Pet Peeves

Naming rotten deals in the world of travel is, unfortunately, like eating potato chips. Once you get started. . . .

“It’s tough to say one thing, since travelers get ripped off in so many ways,” said Gary Stoller, investigative editor of Conde Nast Traveler magazine, last week.

Our conversation was prompted by Travel Holiday magazine, which recently asked its readers to name “the biggest rip-off in travel.” In flooded the letters. A reader in Houston hated being told by cruise lines how much to tip on a cruise that has already cost him a fortune. An Indiana reader deplored the added costs that afflict people who travel alone, rather than in couples. (Many writers sounded that theme.) A Chicago man singled out foreign airport departure taxes, which sometimes reach $20. A California woman cited one-way air fares, which often run higher than round-trip fares involving the same city-pairs.

The diversity of those complaints (some printed in the magazine’s March issue) should serve as a reminder of just how many traps lie waiting for travelers who drop their guard. And if those complaints aren’t enough to turn you wary, consider the answers I got when I asked a few travel authorities for further contributions.

Stoller let loose half a dozen denunciations, starting with collision-damage waiver insurance, an “outrageous” and costly option that rental-car companies push on customers who don’t realize that they’ve probably already got coverage through their own automobile policies. Still thinking of rental cars, Stoller moved on to rental-car surcharges, particularly the $2.98-a-day facilities surcharge imposed on all who rent vehicles at Denver International Airport.

From there, Stoller turned to the airline business, decrying the cost of first-class tickets on short-haul flights, and hotel rates, which many local governments (including Anaheim, Houston, San Antonio, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio) have inflated by imposing bed taxes of 15% or more.

The next call was to Ed Perkins, editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter since its founding in 1985.

“Every year since we’ve been doing this,” he said quickly, “our No. 1 choice for the worst deal in travel has been a full-fare [unrestricted] coach ticket on any major airline. You’re paying top dollar for their worst product . . . in many cases a very bad product. I would also have to say that, in a different sense, business class to Europe [on major carriers] is also grossly overpriced. The last time I looked, it was about twice as much per mile as business class to Hong Kong, Taipei or Bangkok.”

Now Perkins, too, was rolling. “And the other thing we’ve always nominated is rack rates at an expensive hotel,” he said. Paying rack rate--the rate printed on brochures, with no discount for holding an Entertainment card or showing a business card or belonging to a group such as an auto club or arriving during a slow spell--”is like paying sticker price for a car,” Perkins said.

Two more things: “I think the one that generates more resentment per dollar than anything I know is telephone charges at hotels,” Perkins said. And another “absolute worst buy,” he said, “is any insurance that you buy from a car-rental company.”

Further complaints came from Tony Wheeler, co-creator of the globally popular Lonely Planet guidebook series, whom I found, by fax, in Paris.

“One-way air fares are a big rip-off, but at least they’re up front about it,” he faxed back. What Wheeler disapproves most of are “hidden rip-offs.”

He asserted that every airport in its “arrivals” area should have a big sign posted saying “taxi fare to downtown should be about $X to $Y.” Added Wheeler: “The airport/local government/tourist office has a responsibility toward their visitors. One of the worst places for this at the moment? Beijing. Predatory taxi drivers, and not a word of warning . . . . And I’m afraid China gets my award for being the No. 1 proponent of tourist rip-offs.”

Meanwhile, Randy Petersen, founding editor of InsideFlyer magazine, blames the U.S. government for allowing his most-loathed travel practice: Airline advertisements that make one-way air fares look cheaper than they are. Most of the major carriers do this. The ads say, for instance, LAX-New York, $180, in large print. But in the small print, one finds that they’re really selling $360 round trips, and there is no $180 one-way fare, or anything close.

“That’s poor customer service,” Petersen said. “I’m disappointed that the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration and everybody else has allowed that to go on.”

Petersen also slammed hotel pricing and hotel discount membership programs, arguing that marketers can only promise 50% discounts because the hotels “jack up the [brochure] price first. Nobody pays that rate that they take the 50% off of.” Finally, he pointed out that as occupancy rates have risen over the last five years, the usefulness of membership discount cards such as Entertainment (which many hotels honor fully only when occupancy is under 80%) has been undercut.

Reynolds travels anonymously at the newspaper’s expense, accepting no special discounts or subsidized trips. To reach him, write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053; telephone (213) 237-7845.