“Victims identified in crash of small plane traveling from Utah - Salt Lake Tribune” plus 4 more

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• Victims identified in crash of small plane traveling from Utah - Salt Lake Tribune
• Priceline profit rises on leisure travel demand - Reuters
• Networking event highlights gay travel market - Birmingham Business Journal
• How to avoid the newest travel ‘gotcha’ - MSNBC
• Sto-Rox school board member to pay back travel expenses - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Victims identified in crash of small plane traveling from Utah - Salt Lake Tribune Posted: 10 Aug 2009 09:09 AM PDT Preston, Idaho » The two people killed Friday in a single-engine plane crash near Preston have been identified as 57-year-old pilot Stanley K. Chambers and his brother-in-law Steven Dansie. Josh Cawthra, the lead investigator on the crash with the National Transportation Safety Board, says the small Piper airplane was headed to Alpine, Wyo. from Ogden when it crashed in a remote backcountry region roughly 20 miles northeast of Preston. A group of people on all-terrain vehicles spotted the wreckage Friday afternoon. Cawthra said a preliminary report on the accident could be available on Friday. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Priceline profit rises on leisure travel demand - Reuters Posted: 10 Aug 2009 07:36 AM PDT By Kyle Peterson CHICAGO (Reuters) - Online travel agency Priceline.com Inc (PCLN.O) said quarterly profit rose 35 percent, topping expectations and matching rivals' similar strong results amid an apparent rebound in demand for leisure travel. The company attributed its profit and those of Expedia Inc (EXPE.O) and Orbitz Worldwide (OWW.N) to travel bargains offered by hotels and airlines to blunt the impact of the recession. Priceline shares rallied 13.4 percent to $148.92 in Monday morning trade on Nasdaq. "Online travel agencies are definitely benefiting from the relaxed travel pricing that has lured vacationers over the last several months," said Morningstar analyst Warren Miller. "As consumer confidence returns, we expect to see a quick but dramatic uptick in growth for online travel agencies as consumers lengthen their booking window and some incremental demand returns," Miller said. The travel business has been suffering as the recession erodes demand, particularly for business travel. Online travel agencies have been trying to stimulate bookings with incentives and fee waivers. Priceline said second-quarter net profit was $67 million, or $1.38 per share, compared with $49.8 million, or $1.00 per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, Priceline earned $2.02 per share, easily topping an average Wall Street forecast of $1.79, according to Reuters Estimates. Priceline, best known for its name-your-own-price auctions, said the total value of its bookings rose 12.8 percent to $2.38 billion. Priceline's revenue jumped 17.5 percent to $603.7 million. "Despite a difficult economic climate, leisure travel demand for the summer peak season has been stronger than expected, driven in part by the availability of compelling discounts," said Priceline Chief Executive Jeffery Boyd. Priceline said it expects the value of its travel bookings to increase in the third quarter by 20 percent to 26 percent. (Reporting by Kyle Peterson, editing by Gerald E. McCormick and John Wallace) This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Networking event highlights gay travel market - Birmingham Business Journal Posted: 10 Aug 2009 08:55 AM PDT The Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau and the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association will co-host a networking reception in Santa Fe on Aug. 12. Scot Weaver, host of the series "Out and About," which is shooting its first episode in Santa Fe, will speak to participants. The event is designed to help businesses learn how to gain global visibility in the market for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered travelers. The sector is now worth $70 billion in the U.S. alone, organizers say, and it remains strong despite the recession. The International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association has more than 1,600 members in 66 countries. They range from small businesses to major corporations, travel agents, tour operators, hotels, airlines, cruise lines and car rental agencies. The reception will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Aug. 12 at the Hotel St. Francis, 210 Don Gaspar. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

How to avoid the newest travel ‘gotcha’ - MSNBC Posted: 10 Aug 2009 07:36 AM PDT Kenneth Miller thought he had squirreled away more than 100,000 Delta Air Lines frequent flier miles, which he planned to use for a special 20th anniversary trip. He thought wrong. When he checked with the airline, it claimed he had no miles. "My balance was at zero," he says. "It turns out that even though I used to have points with no expiration date, Delta had made changes to its program, and because of inactivity on my account, my points were deleted." Why hadn't the airline told him? A company representative explained that Delta had gone "green" and stopped sending customers account notifications by mail. How about a friendly warning? No, a Delta agent said, adding that it was Miller's responsibility to keep up with the program rules. "I feel like our dream anniversary has been shattered," says Miller, who lives in Albuquerque, N.M. Delta is by no means the only airline, or for that matter the only travel company, to do this. One of the travel industry's favorite new tricks is waiting to tell you about onerous new terms until it's too late — whether they're trying to modify a reservation or redeem their loyalty points. This kind of late notification seems to benefit only the travel company, never the traveler. Perhaps the most accomplished at this troubling new practice are airlines. They like to play what my colleague Janice Hough calls the "expiring mileage game." Hough, who is a travel agent, recalls the case of two clients who lost their miles on American Airlines, more or less the same way as Miller. "Only after they lost the miles did they get an e-mail asking if they wanted to take advantage of a limited-time offer to reinstate the miles for 1 cent per mile plus 7.5 percent tax and a $30 processing fee," she says. I asked Delta about Miller's case. Katie Connell, an airline spokeswoman, said Miller could have avoided his account deletion by signing up for e-mail notifications from Delta's SkyMiles loyalty program. Connell fixed Miller's account "as a goodwill gesture," adding that this was "definitely a great opportunity to reiterate how important it is for our customers to keep their SkyMiles information current." (I'll have more on Miller's case and how he could have prevented his mileage loss in a future column.) Whether these "gotchas" are an intentional new policy adopted by travel companies to increase their revenues — or decrease the number of outstanding frequent flier miles — or just a case of a few careless travelers being on the wrong side of a new rule, is debatable. But you can avoid late notices. Here's how: 1. Assume nothing That's a lesson Lena Mandala learned when she tried to buy business class tickets from New York to Milan using American Express rewards points on Delta Air Lines. "In the past, this would be an 80,000- to 90,000-point ticket," she told me. "Now I'm being charged 200,000 points." The revelation came as a shock to Mandala, a frequent flier. Travel companies probably count on you making assumptions such as hers — otherwise they would warn their customers that redemption levels had more than doubled. But no. They wait until they've selected their seats (or worse) before springing the surprise. 2. Double-check your terms Deborah Novak-Godden, a travel agent based in Chicago, booked three airline tickets for her clients through a ticket consolidator (a company that buys tickets directly from airlines and resells them to travelers and agents at a discount). The wholesaler claimed the tickets were refundable. "But three days before their departure, I found out that the ticket was nonrefundable," she says. Checking with the airline would have confirmed the terms of the ticket, and allowed her clients to make an informed decision about buying them. The problem is that there's no requirement that the full ticket tariff — the rules governing the use of the ticket — be disclosed in a meaningful way. You have to ask for it. 3. Read all of the fine print Geraldine Smith wishes she had before buying tickets from London to Seoul on Lufthansa. But then the miles to which she believed she was entitled never showed up in her account. "After numerous attempts to get credit for the miles, I was told we had paid 'too little' for the tickets," she says. "I had never been given that information before we purchased or traveled. This would have been a lot of miles for each of us, so we were very upset to learn this after the fact." Travel companies don't volunteer such details when you're booking a ticket or hotel room. Only later, when you try to collect award miles or change your reservation do they say, "Oh, did we forget to mention ... ?" Bottom line: expect a surprise the next time you travel. Talking directly with the airline, car rental company or hotel — and reviewing the contract — will only get you so far. Travel companies should clearly disclose all relevant terms right up front. No surprises. At time like this, when travel spending has plummeted and companies are trying every trick in the book to make an extra buck, this "gotcha" strategy appears to be gaining in popularity. Why? Largely because people aren't protesting them loudly enough. They feel they've gotten such a deal, what's a few extra dollars? But what happens when prices go up again, and travel companies feel as if they can continue broadsiding their customers at every turn? Worse, what if the government looks the other way while they do it? We probably won't have to wait long for the answers. Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. You can read more travel tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at . This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Sto-Rox school board member to pay back travel expenses - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Posted: 10 Aug 2009 08:48 AM PDT Sto-Rox School Director Edward Maritz in a press release announced that he has voluntarily entered into a consent agreement with the state Ethics Commission to repay the district $2,126 for charges related to his travel to national conferences in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Mr. Maritz, who has been a school director in Sto-Rox for 16 years, acknowledged that he spent an extra day twice in Orlando, Fla., when he attended conferences, and two extra days in Chicago. He said he traveled to Orlando in 2004 for the National School Boards Association conference and arrived a day early. He will reimburse the district $531.85 for hotel, meal and car rental expenses. In 2005, he said, he attended the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development conference, also in Orlando, and stayed for a day after the conference was over. He will repay the district $595.72 in expenses. In 2006, Mr. Maritz said, he attended the NSBA conference in Chicago and arrived a day early and stayed a day later than the duration of the conference. For those expenses Mr. Maritz said he will repay the district $998.90. Mr. Maritz said he decided to send out his own press release on the issue rather than waiting for the ethics commission to make the matter public because he wanted to take "full responsibility" in the matter. He said the ethics commission sent him a copy of its final order on Aug. 4. John Contino, executive director of the ethics commission, could not confirm or deny an investigation involving Mr. Martiz or Sto-Rox. But, he said, the commission has a 30-day window following the issuance of a final order before the document becomes public. Mr. Martiz said the reason he took the extra days when he attended conferences is because it has been "standard practice" in the district to allow school directors to arrive early or stay late at conferences and that several other school directors did so at the same conferences he attended but were not the target of the investigation that identified his travel offenses. Mr. Martiz said it is ironic that he was the target of an ethics commission investigation because he stopped going to national conferences in 2006 and has tried several times since then to initiate a policy in the district limiting board members' travel to national conferences. He said he quit traveling to conferences after members of the public complained about the money that school directors were spending on travel. Mr. Maritz said he is "embracing" the ethics commission ruling and hopes it will prompt the Sto-Rox board to approve a strict policy limiting board travel. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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