Travelers Checks

Tell the truth. Have you been leaving home without them? Many savvy American travelers have stopped carrying traveler's checks. Millions more are still buying them but using them less. In fact, leading industry experts have quietly arrived at a watershed conclusion: As a consumer tool and icon of American tourism, the traveler's check has reached its twilight years. "I just think they're doomed. . . .

Deciding what forms of money to take with you on a trip is key to planning. So we asked six experienced travelers to tell how they would spend their way through five imaginary trips--and one actual journey. We invented five different itineraries for our experts, excluding air fare. Once abroad, they'd be paying for hotels and meals, and generally following their usual travel habits--what they do, not what they tell other people to do.

Signs of a declining market in traveler's checks are there: From 1990 through 1995, for example, the European Travel Commission counted a 13.5% increase (to 8.51 million) in Americans traveling to Europe. The U.S. Department of Commerce counted a 51.2% increase (to 7.37 million) in Americans traveling to Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Annual reports show that American Express traveler's check sales over the same five years grew by just 1%--from $25.3 billion in 1990 to $25.

The traveler's check was born of annoyance. According to company lore, sometime in the late 1880s, J.C. Fargo, the often impatient president of American Express, made a journey to Europe. For money, he relied on the same financial routine that European travelers had employed since the Renaissance: He carried a letter of credit from his bank and presented it at banks on the Continent when he needed cash.

Police this week arrested one man and seized more than $35,000 in counterfeit traveler's checks and the computer gear used to make them at a local home, officials said Thursday. Police discovered a sophisticated "home print shop" at the home of Robert Tana, 22, in the in 8000 block of Monticello Circle, with computers and stacks of photo copies of actual documents, Westminster Police Det. Mark D. Nye said.

Hotel rooms, like washing machines, are famous for spiriting off miscellaneous things you could have sworn were in your luggage when you left home. And, like washing machines, hotel rooms may eventually yield up the mystery items. A large hotel, such as the 2,000-room Hyatt Regency Chicago, finds an average of about 200 items a month, said Walter Brindell, corporate director of rooms. "It's a lot--anything from makeup pencils to prescription drugs.

If you're a traveler who makes night-by-night decisions about your lodgings, beware of Hyatt and Westin hotels, and some Hiltons. In the past several months, each of chose chains has been experimenting with policies that penalize guests as much as $50 for checking out a day or more ahead of their scheduled departure. As 1996 begins, Hyatt and Westin will go nationwide with the measures, and Hilton will be testing the fees at five hotels in New York and Washington, D.C.

The Redondo Beach police recently issued a warning to South Bay merchants to be wary of travelers checks that carry the Bank of America Visa logo after several checks that cashed in the area were deemed bogus. About 10 $100 checks have been passed by a counterfeit ring made up of Vietnamese nationals, according to Detective Peter Grimm. He said about seven people have been arrested over the last few months for passing bad checks.

It was the kind of moment that business travelers have nightmares about. An Israeli diamond merchant leaving Chicago stepped from his taxi outside a terminal at O'Hare International Airport, putting down a green canvas bag while he arranged for a skycap to carry away his luggage. In a flash a stranger scooped up the bag and tossed it into a waiting car. A second car momentarily blocked traffic to prevent pursuit.

Waiting in line is the bane of business travelers. The last thing most people want to do on a business trip is stand around waiting to check in or out of their hotel. Hotels have wrestled for years with finding the the most efficient checkout method, and with some success. It's not unusual anymore for hotel guests to stop by the front desk only when they arrive. Bills are slipped under the door at night, dropped in boxes in the lobby or handled electronically on room television sets.