Plan Business (and Vacation) Travel

Prevent some aggravation; get even with AOL; try a trebuchet.

Steve Bass

Steve Bass writes the "Hassle-Free PC" column in PC World's print edition and is the author of PC Annoyances, 2nd Edition: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Personal Computer, available from O'Reilly. Sign up to have Steve Bass's Tips & Tweaks newsletter e-mailed to you each week. Comments or questions? Send Steve e-mail.

I've got a load of trips planned for the next few months. I'm looking forward to the destinations, but not to the hassles of flying. So I may need a handful of psychotropic medications while I gear up for these adventures.

This week: Web sites to help smooth the wheels of travel for what my wife insists is my glass-half-empty attitude.

Travel to These Sites

I'm pretty sure you know what I mean about travel hassles: scrambling around the Web for cheap airline tickets; anticipating and fretting over flight delays; and gearing up for the worst part of the trip, the airport.

There are lots of sites for buying airline tickets, but I've been happy with Kayak. I wrote about Kayak, plus SideStep and TripAdvisor, earlier this year in "The New Web Challengers."

Brief AOL Digression: If you've ever tried canceling an AOL account, you may have hit some roadblocks, like having the customer service rep round-file your request. New York's attorney general and consumer hero, Eliot Spitzer, went to bat for you and coerced AOL into make it easier for customers to terminate their service. Details are in "N.Y. Attorney General Prods AOL on Cancellation Policies."

Dig This: Will you increase the mass of the counterweight? Maybe you ought to fiddle with the launch angle. Those are two of six adjustments to make when playing the harder-than-it-looks Treb Challenge. (Okay, I didn't know what a trebuchet was either.) [Thanks, Brad.]

Travel Site Advice

Anne Kandra, our crackerjack Consumer Watch editor, has some really smart ideas for using Web-based travel services. Among other things, she's adamant about comparing "a travel site's fare against the price listed at the airline's own site" because often buying directly from the airline gets you a better price. Anne also knows how to deal with "fare jumping," a trick used by some travel sites.

You might be surprised to see which airline and travel sites scored well on the Online Customer Respect Study. In "Use Web Travel Sites? Your Data May Go Places Also," Computerworld reporter Linda Rosencrance (and no, she's not related to Guildenstern) digs into the study to reveal the ways these sites share data about you

You didn't get that Guildenstern throwaway? I'm referring to Tom Stoppard's "Hamlet" spin-off, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." A little sophistication won't kill you, so read up. (BTW, some of you who are even more sophisticated may take issue at calling Stoppard's play a "spin-off," but my copy editor thinks it's technically correct.)

If you'd like to watch a video on the topic, take a look at "Travel Shopping Strategies," from PC World's Digital Duo, Stephen Manes and Angela Gunn. That clip is from the Digital Duo's "Tips for Traveling in Style" episode. There are a few more clips worth a look; "Internet Eases Travel Planning" and "A Guide to Top Travel Guides" are my favorites. They're under 4 minutes long, so even with my attention deficit challenges, I can sit through them.

Some of my travel plans include speaking engagements, so I need to have either Wi-Fi or high-speed access at my hotels. (Oh, you're so nosy. I'm doing presentations and pitching my book at user groups, Rotary clubs, and other organizations.) For help in finding prime hotels and hotspots, I'm relying on Jim Martin's "Mobile Computing" column, specifically, "Hotels With Hotspots."

Dig This: Do you have one of those fancy new phones that can do video streams? Well, be careful where you set the phone down. [Warning: mildly racy content.] [1.6MB WMV video]

Travel Sites You Can Use

There are a handful of sites that have helped reduce my anxiety as I make my travel plans. Many airlines include seating plans, but I still depend on SeatGuru for the straight scoop. It's slick because I can immediately spot the seat pitch, so I know if I'm getting any legroom. SeatGuru also has a site for mobile users.

Have you ever been trapped on a plane and fuming while the plane's stuck on the tarmac? Whip out a copy of Rule 240 and hand it to the flight attendant. Briefly, it describes the compensation you can get if the plane is delayed or the flight cancelled. I don't have room to explain it thoroughly, so visit My Travel Rights.com to see for yourself.

Frequent-flier miles are getting more difficult to use. But don't despair, SmarterTravel.com has plenty of advice on the subject. Read "Online Resources for Mileage-Earners" first, then check out "Frequent Flier Awards: How to Get Yours."

One strategy I used to use to avoid airport hassles was to book a really early flight and get to the airport about 4:00 a.m. But it turns out that the closest airport, LAX, is less crowded at midday. I found out by checking the Transportation Security Administration's Security Checkpoint Wait Times page.