Letters: Tintin, Susan Spano, travel agents, airline fuel surcharges

A pronounced omission, oui?

I was surprised after reading “Adventures on Tintin’s Turf” [by Susan Spano, Jan. 1] not to have found any reference to the correct pronunciation of Tintin’s name. As a retired associate professor of Spanish and a frequent visitor to France and Belgium, I noticed this.

Americans pronounce it as in “Rin Tin Tin,” but the correct pronunciation is more or less “Tantan,” with the difficult nasal “n” at the end, as in “coq au vin,” because, of course, the name is French. Great article, however.

Lynne Buckie Baker

Huntington Beach

My heart sank when I read the Dec. 31 article in the Home section “You Can Go Home Again” by Susan Spano, because I mistakenly thought this meant she would no longer be writing for the L.A. Times Travel section. I have so enjoyed her Travel columns and stories, especially the ones from France. Then lo and behold in the Jan. 1 L.A. Times Travel section, there was her piece on Brussels and Tintin. What a relief.

Jacqueline Le Put

Granada Hills

Travel agents

I read with interest Catharine Hamm’s On the Spot column [“Travel Resolutions, Jan. 1] regarding a reader who wrote about booking a hotel on an unknown website. It always surprises me that people trust their money to these websites instead of using a travel agent.

Travel agents don’t use websites; they have access to inside real-time availability with the actual hotel, with the same and sometimes better rates than shown on these websites.

In addition, through their contacts with hotel representatives, travel agents can often provide assistance with requests such as early check-in or room-specific amenities.

Finally, if you book through a reputable travel agent, you will know upfront the terms of your booking, whether it is guaranteed by a credit card, whether a deposit is required and what if any cancellation terms exist.

Leslie Emer

travel counselor

Village Travel Service

Montrose

Fuel surcharges

As both a Flying Blue (Air France) and United Airlines Mileage Plus member, I must respond to the letter [“Blue Indeed,” Dec. 25] complaining about the tax charged by Air France for a trip from LAX to Frankfurt, Germany, using Flying Blue miles.

In 2011, many foreign carriers began imposing a fuel surcharge on award flights. Air France probably charged about $420 in fuel surcharge costs over and above the taxes per award, and the cost of the ticket ($622.14) most likely included 45 euros (about $65 in April) per person, an additional tax imposed by the German government last year. This makes Germany a more expensive destination than other European countries.

British Airways has what may be the highest fuel surcharge at $500 for those using award miles to fly. Domestic carriers may do the same if fuel costs continue to rise.

Domestic carriers are not blameless when it comes to excessive charges. We booked round-trip San Diego to Paris flights for September directly with Air France almost eight months in advance. These were purchased tickets, not award tickets. Unfortunately for us, Delta was Air France’s code share partner for the domestic parts of our trip. During the months before departure, there were annoyingly frequent emails from Delta changing our flight times (always by just a few minutes). Included in each minor time change were changes to our seat assignments on all four legs of our trip, even on the Air France planes. I complained about this to Delta but never received a satisfactory explanation.

The last change was our Atlanta to Paris flight, which had been Air France but was changed to a Delta flight. I telephoned Delta to protest and requested an Air France flight later in the day but was told it would be $250 per ticket to make the change, a cost to us of $500. It didn’t seem to matter that we didn’t request to change our flight from one carrier to another. The Delta agent didn’t seem to grasp that it wasn’t our idea to change carriers. I then contacted Air France, whose agent listened to my complaint, changed our reservations to the later flight, confirmed the seats we originally booked on both Air France legs, and said there was no additional charge.

Paying a fuel surcharge on an award ticket seems to me to make far more sense than giving an airline $250 per ticket to put paying passengers on a flight with the carrier they originally booked.

Diane Ohanian

San Diego