DOLLAR WATCH: Surprise! Travel Fees Keep Rising
Frontier Airlines has been busy on the fee front. It has raised its first checked bag fee to $20 and its second checked bag fee to $30. It also lowered some of its ticket-change fees. The supposedly fee-free carrier, Southwest Airlines, has invented an optional new charge. For $10, you can get so-called Early Bird Check-In, which will get you a spot on the boarding line behind Business Select and A-List customers.
Fees on frequent-travel miles and points are rising as well. Effective December 21, National says it will charge renters 75 cents a day (up from the current 50 cents) if they choose to collect airline miles on their rentals. And American Express has raised the fee for converting Membership Rewards points into frequent flyer miles. The so-called “excise tax offset” charge is now .0006 per point with a maximum of $99 a transaction. That’s up from .0005 cents and $75.
United Airlines continues to find new ways to sell the perks most other carriers offer only to their elite flyers. The Premier Travel plan sells a package of extras–Economy Plus seats, priority line access, admittance to the Red Carpet Club–on a flight-by-flight basis. Prices start at $47 a flight.
GOOD NEWS: Some Roomier Seats in These Gloomier Times
It’s not all gloom and doom up there. At least on some routes, some carriers are ratcheting up the comfort: (more…)