Is Free Parking for Overnight Hotel Guests Going Extinct?

Paying to park when staying overnight at a hotel has long been commonplace in heavily populated areas like downtown Chicago, New York City, or San Francisco. Travelers, though, were able to park their vehicles for free at most other locations, though, adding to the savings of driving to their destination. For my family, it also made the decision to rent a car fairly simple as we preferred the convenience of having our own transportation. It appears, however, free parking for overnight hotel guests is disappearing.

Be Prepared for Longer Airport Security Lines and Additional Checks

The U.S. Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has been rolling out new rules over the summer at various airports globally as well as domestically. My friends who have been traveling out of Orlando have already been reporting long security lines and we haven’t even hit the holiday travel season yet. At my home airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor, I have yet to notice long lines, but I have noticed some changes to what they are screening in the carry on bags. Here’s what you need to know before your next flight.

Do You Know Your Rights and Limitations When It Comes to Overbooking Travel Issues? Part 3 – Rental Cars

Even Jerry Seinfeld had an issue with a rental car company overbooking. Remember this episode?

Jerry: I don’t understand. Do you have my reservation?
Rental Car Agent: We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That’s why you have the reservation.
Rental Car Agent: I think I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don’t think you do. You see, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.

Do You Know Your Rights and Limitations When It Comes to Overbooking Travel Issues? Part 2 – Hotels

You’ve made it to your destination, you’re tired, it’s late, and you can’t wait to get settled into your hotel room. You get to the front desk only to be told there are no rooms available. How can that be? You have a reservation.  You could also run into a scenario that happened to me a couple of years ago. Two weeks before I was leaving on a business trip, I received an email from the hotel stating that they cancelled my reservation. No reason was given. It was just cancelled and I had to scramble to book a room somewhere else and ended up in a hotel quite a distance from my meetings.

Do You Know Your Rights and Limitations When It Comes to Overbooking Travel Issues? Part 1 – Air Travel

By now, I’m sure everyone has at least heard about the unfortunate incident on a United flight last week where a man was forcibly removed from a plane. I’m not going to get into what was wrong with that particular scenario, but being a frequent traveler and travel blogger, I read people’s comments on social media and quickly realized that the casual traveler knows very little about overbooking and denial of service. In addition, it’s not always easy to find information about a travel company’s policies to find out one’s rights if that happens so I hope the overview below will help.

First, know that overbooking doesn’t just happen with the airlines. Hotels do it. Rental car companies do it, too. Companies in the travel industry have learned over the years that they can count on a certain percentage of no shows and cancellations. Then, they sell more seats or rooms or cars than they have available, gambling that there will be enough cancellations or no shows to cover it. Sometimes that happens; other times it can turn into a nightmare for a traveler who has very little recourse.

Since this is such a huge topic, today I’m just going to cover airlines. Next week, I will cover hotels and then the following week I will cover rental car companies so be sure to check back for more information.