Travel Website

Airline travel fees - including charges to check a bag and to board early - have become so prevalent that travelers almost need an advanced degree in mathematics to calculate overall trip costs. Last year at least 36 airline fees increased, and 16 others were redefined, bundled or unbundled with other services, according to a recent study by the consumer travel website Travelnerd. One bright spot in the Travelnerd study of 14 U.S. airlines is that most fee increases were only $5 to $10 each.

Airports will be crowded this summer and empty airline seats rare as Americans take to the skies in numbers that are expected to edge closer to the pre-recession peak. Nearly 209 million people will fly on U.S.-based airlines this summer, up 1% from a year earlier, according to an estimate released Thursday by Airlines for America, the trade group for the nation's airlines. That would mark the fourth year in a row that passenger totals have increased, climbing close to the pre-recession total of 210 million in 2008.

Gas prices may be rising, but that hasn't dampened Americans' dreams to hit the open road. About 25% of men and 33% of women say they have not driven across the country but "always wanted to," according to a survey released last week by the travel website Expedia. And 41% of Americans and nearly half of men who were surveyed said they've already driven cross-country at least once in their lives. The survey of 2,262 adults by Harris Interactive on behalf of Expedia went beyond Americans' automotive bucket lists.

Sandy Valdivieso and her husband intended to fly from Los Angeles to Dakar, Senegal. They ended up almost 7,000 miles off-course in Dhaka, Bangladesh. How something this bizarre could happen illustrates how a single mix-up on an airline's part can cascade into a travel nightmare of epic proportions. It also highlights how customer service can be found lacking, particularly in light of the fact that Valdivieso spent months trying to secure some sort of compensation from the carrier, Turkish Airlines, but received nothing but runaround.

Question: I have a complaint about being forced to pay $60 extra for an Economy Plus seat for a United flight from New York to L.A. The only seats offered were Economy Plus. It's not that the economy seat options were exhausted - there were none to start with. I thought this was a technical glitch, so I confirmed my purchase and called United to get my seat assignment. The ticketing agent had no clue why those seats were Economy Plus only. It's like paying the fare to get on a public bus, and then once you get on the bus, being told that you have to pay an additional $60 just for a seat.

The cost to visit Grandma this Thanksgiving is up 9% over last year. But if you are flexible on your travel days, you could save up to $288 on airline tickets, according to the Travelocity website, which calculated the average airfares for the period of Nov. 17 to Nov. 27. The average round-trip domestic airline fare for that period is $386, including tax, a 9% increase over the same period in 2011, according to Travelocity. But that fare is $5 below the average domestic fare around the Fourth of July holiday, the website said.

FORT WORTH — With pointy red gnome hats, a cruise giveaway and plenty of balloons, Travelocity turned sweet 16 last month. But it hasn't been all cupcakes and champagne for the travel website. Once considered a trailblazer, Travelocity has struggled for the last few years to keep up with competitors such as Expedia and Priceline. "We weren't moving as fast as we needed to," Chief Executive Carl Sparks said about newer, nimbler competitors. "We're 16 and so sometimes we think of ourselves as one of the elderly companies in the space because we were around since its inception.… Yet 16 is quite young for a multibillion-dollar company.

Air travelers, rejoice: Relief from soaring airfares may be just around the corner, at least temporarily. For travelers, it can't happen soon enough. In the first three months of the year, the average domestic airfare in the U.S. climbed to $373, up 4.8% from the same period last year, according to the U.S. Transportation Department. That was on top of an 8.3% increase in fares in 2011 and another 8.3% increase in 2010, according to statistics from the agency. But air travelers should get a break next month, when airfares are expected to drop 10% to 20%. That is the prediction from Rick Seaney, chief executive of travel website FareCompare.

With airfares to Europe on the rise, it looks like Americans are planning to rediscover the good ol' U.S.A. this summer. As a result, perhaps more Americans will use the opportunity to visit some of the country's landmarks such as the Alamo and the Grand Canyon that sometimes get overlooked. Summer airfares to Europe have climbed about 11% compared with last summer, according to travel website Kayak, which attributes the jump to airlines trying to cash in on travelers visiting the London Olympics starting in July.

As an information technology supervisor at Pitzer College in Claremont, Dennis Crowley had so much work to do last year that he finished 2011 without using nearly five days of paid vacation. "And to be frank, I was too busy to even realize I was losing time," he said. Crowley's situation is not unusual. A survey by Harris Interactive Inc. found that by the end of 2012, Americans will leave an average of 9.2 days of vacation unused, up from the average of 6.2 days in 2011. Nearly 90% of those questioned said they would take more leisure trips on their vacation if they had the time and money to do so, according to the survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults that was commissioned by travel website Hotwire.

Airline travel fees - including charges to check a bag and to board early - have become so prevalent that travelers practically need an advanced degree in mathematics to calculate overall trip costs. Last year at least 36 airline fees increased and 16 others were redefined, bundled or unbundled with other services, according to a study by the consumer travel website TravelNerd. One bright spot in the TravelNerd study was that the average airline fee increases were only $5 to $10 each.

Domestic airfares have been climbing steadily since 2009, and there was no letup last year. But the uptick in ticket prices was not as steep as in the last few years. Domestic airfares increased 4.2% in 2012 compared with the previous year to an average of $427 per ticket, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., an Arlington, Va., company that completes the financial transactions between 16,000 travel agents and 187 airlines. The good news is that the fare increases have been shrinking.

Washington, D.C.,l seemed far too quiet Thursday for a city on the brink of what's supposed to be a big street-jamming people party that happens every four years when a president is sworn into office. President Obama will take the oath of office Monday on Capitol Hill and dance at two inaugural balls in the evening. But the excitement and crowds have yet to materialize. The National Gallery of Art's east and west wings were empty Thursday afternoon, as were the Renwick Gallery opposite the White House and the American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery too. The temporary White House Visitor Center at the Ellipse, just steps from the president's home, had three visitors around 2 p.m. And no one seemed to be grabbing up presidential trinkets from street vendors either.

Americans reportedly plan to travel in big numbers this holiday season, setting new records in Southern California and the state at large. But the hottest Christmas destinations are in the Sunshine State, not the Golden State. Orlando beat out New York and Chicago as the top Christmas destinations among travelers using the travel website Kayak.com. And, compared with last year, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Orlando had the biggest increases in searches for Christmas travel, according to the website.

Media mogul John Malone's Liberty Interactive Corp. has acquired a controlling stake in TripAdvisor, the popular travel website, from Barry Diller and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation. Liberty Interactive is spending $300 million for 4.8 million shares of TripAdvisor at $62.50 per share. Liberty will now hold nearly 60% of voting stock and more than 20% of the company's total equity. The purchase price represents a premium of more than 60%. After news of the change of control was announced Tuesday, TripAdvisor stock was up more than 20% from its Monday close of $38.39.

If you have the money to travel, you'll want to spend it the way you want to spend it. That means making sure rip-off artists keep their mitts off your dough. With this in mind, the members and editors of travel website VirtualTourist have compiled a list of the worst travel scams and schemes and how to avoid them. Pickpockets: Pickpockets no longer limit themselves to the simple "bump and grab. " VirtualTourist members mentioned that in many instances, pickpockets are working in teams: While one shows you a gold ring or points out mustard on your shirt, another cohort is stealing your wallet.

The family-travel website that moms and dads didn't even know they wanted - let alone needed. Name: Minitime.com What it does: Introduces kid-friendly destinations - along with kid-friendly hotels - in the United States, Canada, Caribbean and Mexico. What's hot: What slingshots this new family travel website to the head of the line is that its travel suggestions are based on the age of your kids. Just punch in the ages (up to three should cover the range) and check out its destination and hotel suggestions, accompanied by photos from real families.

For years, travel experts have pointed out that flying on Thanksgiving Day is cheaper than flying several days earlier. A new study now shows that flights that depart on Thanksgiving Day also have a much higher on-time arrival rate than flights that take off before the holiday. The study by the online financial advice website NerdWallet.com found that travelers who flew on Thanksgiving in 2011 had an on-time arrival rate of 94%, while travelers who departed the Tuesday and Wednesday before the holiday arrived on time 78% and 85% of the time, respectively.

After a 16-year career in the airline industry, Claudia Helena Oxee doesn't mince words about what's wrong with airline passengers today. “Let's face it, passengers dress the way they want and do what they want,” said Oxee, who worked on the station crew at John F. Kennedy International Airport for TWA, Pan Am and LTU International Airways, now Air Berlin. “The level of passengers has been degrading.” Now retired and promoting a book about her experiences, she said she would “crack the whip” on unruly passengers if she were still working at an airport.