Vacation Plans For 2008

It’s been a long while since we’ve made an entry on our travel blog but Marge and I have been extremely busy these past few months.   We’re planning vacations for 2008 and we’re planning on Hawaii, Acapulco and perhaps a South American cruise later in the year during winter.

We’ve begun planning our Hawaiian vacation and a funny thing has happened to our favorite travel tools, they’ve become fairly useless.

I’ve written about being an avid fan of Expedia and TripAdvisor and while the sites generally provide useful information, the competitive pricing has completely disappeared.   It is cheaper to book flight directly through airlines and hotels directly from the hotels rather than booking through Expedia.

What really hurts Expedia is the fees they charge for booking and exorbitant fees they charge for making any type of change (usually $30 per transaction).   Why pay a fee to change your itinerary when you can avoid or pay less directly with the vendor?

It’s really disappointing that the travel industry is in such a mess and we’re really concerned about getting bumped, delayed, or otherwise hassled during our vacations this year.

We’ll keep you posted on our travel adventures.