Transportation entries
Considering travel insurance? Make certain that you get terms in writing before you pay — terms that prominently include the word ‘refund’.
That’s the takeaway message from the latest ‘Haggler’ column in the New York Times, where journalist David Segal goes to bat on behalf of beleaguered consumers. I was particularly appalled by the story of a cruise agency which markets its ‘protection plan’ to vacationing seniors for a 10% upcharge:
The plan is described this way: “In essence, should you have to cancel your cruise for a covered medical reason — anytime prior to departure — you need not worry about forfeiting the cost.”
If you read these words without appreciating that the world is a dark and cynical place, you might think “protection” amounts to a money-back guarantee. But the world is dark and cynical. The verbiage here implies “refund” without saying so.
What does the protection plan really offer? A voucher for future travel — not so much use in this case, since one of the vacationing seniors suffered a heart-attack and died, and presumably his widow is Not in the Mood to be trolling online dating sites for a replacement travel partner.
The writing, by the way, elevates this from a merely useful column to a thoroughly delightful one:
“… one of the more entertainingly combative lawyers the Haggler has encountered. Mr. Nashawaty, bless his contentious heart, howled at the unfairness of a universe in which the Ms. Bendors of the world can badger the likes of Vantage Travel.”
I really enjoy Segal’s cynical, biting style and will be watching for future columns. “The Haggler” appears in the Sunday New York Times every other week.
(Photo by ecstaticist.)
One of my research projects-in-progress for Pocketmint has been a comprehensive chart of airline bag fees. Since I can’t keep straight who charges what for which item of luggage, I figured other people must be having the same problem.
Turns out someone else saved me the trouble! Travel search engine Kayak (of which I am very much a fan) has a chart that shows not only bag fees but also charges for food, pets, unaccompanied minors, seat assignment, and legroom. The chart appears to be regularly updated; as of this writing, none of the entries are more than a week old.
One interesting thing I learned from this chart is that Southwest offers free service to unaccompanied minors. Claire’s first solo trip this summer, to visit her aunt and uncle in Eugene, was in dire jeopardy because the unaccompanied minor fee would have added $150 to the ticket price. (We worked out a way to drive her instead.) Southwest doesn’t fly SEA–EUG, but we may send her to family in Austin next year, so that’s good to know. Since Southwest is the one airline that has been protected from high fuel prices, this may even still be relevant a year from now.
Also, Airfare Watchdog has a list of other fees to watch out for. Did you know that many airlines now charge for reservations made on the phone or in person? Luckily for me I actually prefer the Internet.
(Photo by Drewski2112.)
A friend of mine has begun posting photos of gas pump digital displays after each fillup, which costs her an astonishing $70-$80 now. I noticed that she’s been consistently buying the middle grade of unleaded gasoline, labeled ‘Plus’ at the Chevrons she frequents. As someone who invariably buys the cheapest gas possible, I started wondering if the higher grade was strictly necessary.
Here’s what Consumer Reports has to say on the subject:
Don’t use premium fuel if you don’t have to. If your car specifies regular fuel, don’t buy premium under the mistaken belief that your engine will run better. The only difference you’ll see is about 20 cents more per gallon. Most cars are designed to run just fine on regular gasoline. Even many cars for which premium is recommended will run well on regular. We have found that the differences are imperceptible during normal driving. Check your owner’s manual to find out if your engine really requires premium or if you can run on other grades.
Next I looked up the owner’s manual for my friend’s late-model Ford sedan:
Your vehicle is designed to use “Regular” unleaded gasoline with pump (R+M)/2 octane rating of 87. We do not recommend the use of gasolines labeled as “Regular” that are sold with octane ratings of 86 or lower in high altitude areas.
If you are experiencing starting, rough idle or hesitation driveability problems, try a different brand of unleaded gasoline. “Premium” unleaded gasoline is not recommended for vehicles designed to use “Regular” unleaded gasoline because it may cause these problems to become more pronounced.
One more web search confirmed that Chevron “Regular” gasoline is 87 octane, and “Plus” is 89. In my friend’s most recent gas pump photo, Plus was listed at $4.639 per gallon, Regular at $4.439. That’s 20 cents per gallon she can save, just by switching gas grades.
If you’re currently buying a higher gas grade, double-check your owners’ manual to make sure it’s recommended for your particular vehicle. And even if it is, you might consider trying 87 octane gas anyway, since as CR says, “the differences are imperceptible during normal driving.” The savings will add up!
(Photo by glenn.batuyong.)
Gasoline prices are on the mind of nearly every American right now. Here in Seattle, where gas is currently climbing past the $4.50 mark, we like our hybrid cars. A lot.
But Seattle had an environmentally ‘green’ culture long before the recent spike in gas prices, which suggests that a lot of those hybrids are being purchased by people who already had reasonably fuel-efficient cars.
Which is fine, but upgrading your existing 30 mpg vehicle to a 50 mpg hybrid won’t help nearly as much as upgrading from 15 mpg to 25 mpg.
Wait, what? Shouldn’t an increase of twenty miles per gallon be twice as good as an increase of ten miles per gallon?
Actually, no — in this case, it’s only half as good.
Turns out that our intuitive math is all wrong, thanks to the ‘miles per gallon illusion’. As explained last week on NPR’s All Things Considered, the number that really matters is ‘gallons per mile’.
Like this: a 15 mpg minivan uses .0667 (1/15) gallons per mile — or to make the numbers a bit easier, 6.67 gallons per 100 miles. A 25 mpg station wagon needs 4 gallons to go 100 miles. Trade the minivan for the wagon, and you’re saving 2.67 gallons per 100 miles. (That’s worth about $12 in Seattle right now.)
Now, a 30mpg sedan uses 3.33 gallons per 100 miles, compared to 2 gallons per 100 miles from a 50mpg hybrid. That’s a savings of 1.33 gallons per 100 miles (currently $6).
Or, only half the improvement of the 15-to-25 mpg upgrade.
The way cars are advertised in the States (the rest of the world, apparently, gets it right) leads people to make the wrong decisions about which cars to upgrade. A 3 mpg improvement hardly seems worth the bother … and if you’re already getting 30 mpg, it’s likely not. If you’re going from 12 mpg to 15 mpg, though, the difference is a lot bigger than you probably think.
I confess that I am periodically tempted to trade our 1999 Civic (rated as a respectable 24 mpg in-city, but in practice we get over 30 mpg) for a shiny new (or at least new-ish) hybrid. But even though we could literally cut our gas bill in half, it wouldn’t come close to making up for the roughly $16K more we’d have to spend to trade up to, say, a 2006 Prius. Gas will need to be a lot more expensive for that math to work out.
Update 14-Jul-08: Rick Larrick of Duke University offers a more thorough mathematical explanation of the problem.
(Photo by Casey Hamilton.)
