The "open skies" agreement between the U.S. and Europe goes into effect this weekend. And for those wondering whether this deregulation measure will result in lower transatlantic fares, it seems that the answer is yes...at least for now.

It used to be that only four airlines -- United, Virgin Atlantic, BA and American -- could fly between the U.S. and London Heathrow. Now under "open skies," US Airways, Delta, Northwest and Air France are jumping onto this route. And in an effort to establish some kind of position in the market, they are offering competitive fares in the $400-$600 range for travel in April and May.

Carol Sottili, the travel deal guru over at the Washington Post, blogs about the details, including specific London services now on offer from the above carriers.

For the time being, it seems that the opening up of transatlantic routes will really only benefit those heading to London. While "open skies" mean, in general, that more airlines will be able to fly to more European destinations, Sottili points out that those flights are spread out across the continent, so competition between carriers isn't as fierce as it is with London service.

But as a hub for many budget airlines, you can still leave London for other European destinations relatively cheaply. This way, your first leg to London is now more affordable.

Thinking of slapping down that debit card for incidental hotel charges? Maybe you should think again.

It's a common practice for hotels to put a "hold" on whatever card you turn over to them, to cover not only those incidentals (mini bar, in room movies, etc) but to insure that you don't bolt without settling up.

When you use a credit card, that hold -- as little as $50 a night but usually more in the $100-$150 ballpark -- is charged and then credited back. But of course when you use a debit card, the hold effectively freezes money in your checking account, and you cannot access it. It's like you spent the money – and sometimes you'll have to wait days, or as long as a week, for the hotel's accounting office to get around to lifting that hold.

Understandably, this takes some customers by surprise: They find themselves at dinner or out shopping, they go to pay with their debit card, and they have their card rejected for "insufficient funds." Since a lot of people keep their checking accounts on the lower end, it's possible to find yourself flat broke thanks to a hotel tying up $300-$500 of your cash.

Hotels are increasingly requiring credit cards for their holds in an effort to avoid customers angry at not having access to their money. While it is obviously possible for a hotel hold to lead to you exceeding your credit limit, most people's credit card limits are considerably higher than their checking account balances.

USA Today has an interesting article on travelers who've had their money frozen by hotels. The advice seems simple: Use credit cards whenever you can.

One of the more difficult parts of my trip to Russia last year was the language barrier. Aside from having to navigate a whole new alphabet, it was difficult at times to find anyone that understood English. I frequently found myself pointing and gesturing or making use of a few phrases of poorly pronounced Russian I had picked up from my guidebook. That's why I was excited to hear about Steape, a Dutch company that produces a line of language dictionaries and phrasebooks you can download to your mobile phone.

According to the Steape website, the company offers two main products, Steape Travel and Steape Mini Speaking Dictionary. Steape Travel offers a catalog of around 100 commonly used travel phrases, whereas the Mini Speaking Dictionary offers a database of around 500 traveler-friendly words. Both can be purchased on the Steape site for only $4 each. If you purchase Steape Travel or Mini Speaking Dictionary, you'll also get Steape Knowledge as a free bonus, which has basic vocabulary like numbers and days of the week. The interface for each application works basically the same way - you search for a word or phrase you want to use and press the action key to have it pronounced using your phone's speaker.

Currently, the applications are supported on more than 160 phone models and in 17 different languages. Check out the site to verify compatibility for your particular phone model and language needs. For only $4, Steape seems to have a cheap and highly useful application on their hands. Then again, as Jamie suggested recently in her post, there are "alternative" methods to help you learn foreign language phrases for your next trip.

[Via: Xellular Identity]

Music is absolutely essential to me when I travel. I find it hard to leave my house, let alone the country, without my trusty iPod and headphones in hand. Listening through headphones suits me just fine for those long plane rides, bus trips and other solitary moments. But what about when you're traveling with others and you want to share your music? After a long day walking around, there's nothing better than pouring a few cocktails while you listen to your favorite playlist.

For many people, the answer to the portable music dilemma is a pair of travel-size speakers like the ones found here. However, the sound quality you get from these units is sub-par at best. Not to mention the fact that you have to carry them around with you in your luggage and many require batteries that suck up power like it was going out of style.

For the optimum in portability, good sound and low price, go buy yourself a RCA to 1/8" stereo cable. This particular cable, which can usually be purchased for less than $10, plugs easily into the headphone jack of your favorite music player and connects to the back of stereo systems worldwide. In a pinch you can also plug this cable into many hotel television sets too. For those not technically inclined, the "RCA" connections are the red, yellow and white colored holes on the back of your favorite electronic device. The cable you want is the "stereo" version with two RCA-style plugs on one end and headphone (1/8") plug on the other. When you add your cable, match up the plug colors to the connections and then check the "input" settings for your stereo/TV - flip between a few of the A/V channels and you'll usually find it. That's it - now add your favorite MP3, CD or Minidisc player and you've got an instant party. Happy listening!

I'm sitting right now at the spanking new airport in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, having just finished a simple breakfast and a cup of coffee for which I paid with credit card.

Credit cards are growing more accepted in an increasing number of countries around the world (though, strangely, not in Germany, the world's third largest economy). More than ever before, you can reach for the plastic to cover pretty much all of your foreign purchases, not only in well-heeled tourist haunts like Rome and Paris, but in the darker corners of eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, to name a few. This is a nice option for those averse to carrying large amounts of foreign currency in their pockets while traveling.

Of course, CCs will hit you with a fee for every international purchase you make (some -- like Bank of America -- in the form of a specific line item on your monthly billing statement, others worked into the exchange rate you're given on the purchase itself).

Just how much varies with the card policy and the card's issuing bank. Typically it hovers around 3 percent, with the Visa, Mastercard et. al. taking maybe taking 1 percent of that and the issuing bank the rest.

It's a good idea to know what your card policy for international purchases before you head overseas, so you're not surprised when the monthly bill comes, and because, if you're a frequent traveler, you can shop around for a card offering a better fee structure.

Want to know how your card stacks up? This is a good comparison chart offered at Bankrate.com that was accurate through December 2007. You can also call your credit card company directly and get more updated rates.

Did you book a cruise on Royal Caribbean or Celebrity before Nov. 16? If so, you're getting some money back.

On a day that saw more news of soaring oil prices, the two major cruise lines voluntarily settled with passengers and agreed to refund $21 million in fuel surcharges, the Florida Attorney General's office said yesterday.

The agreement came after a probe by the AG's Economic Crimes Division, which began investigating the pricing disclosure policies of cruise lines after hundreds of customers filed official complaints that they were charged fuel surcharges retroactively after they had made their bookings and, in some cases, their initial deposit, according to a report in the Orlando Business Journal.

The AG said the surcharges were not properly disclosed. Authorities also looked into whether those charges violated a 1997 agreement among major cruise lines where they vowed not to add additional fees beyond advertised cruise fares in an effort to make prices easier for consumers to compare, the Journal said.

"This resolution will serve as a model for the rest of the cruise line industry, and I expect the other companies to take this example and follow suit," Florida AG Bill McCollum said in a news release.

Any guest who booked on these two cruise lines before Nov. 16 will get the refund. Those consumers who have already sailed will get the refund for the full amount of the fuel surcharge in the form of a payment. Those who have not yet sailed will get the refund in the form of an onboard credit voucher, the Journal said.

The two cruise companies are said to be contacting eligible customers directly, and must report back to the AG in a month.

Are you sick of having to take your laptop out of its case every time you pass through airport security? Apparently, the Transportation Security Administration is sick of it, too -- or at least tired of how this ritual is slowing down screening lines.

The TSA is busy soliciting prototypes for laptop bags that would be able to pass through X-ray with the laptop still inside. The plan is to begin testing these bags in June with the aim of rolling out a TSA-compliant model soon thereafter.

What would the bag look like? It's unclear, though USA Today floats one idea: A bag that looks like a large book, with the laptop fastened to one side when opened and gear fastened to the other (though this still sounds to me like you'd at least have to open the bag, if not remove the laptop). Maybe there is a line of clear bags in the offing, like the ones that popped up in high schools after Columbine, to make viewing what's inside easier.

Whatever bag companies come up with, TSA-approved bags are likely to have a few identifying features that screeners can spot, allowing the bag to go right onto the X-ray conveyor. (Right now, you have to remove your laptop because it is too difficult for X-rays to see through them and catch what else might be in your bag.)

Clearly there would be a huge market for this, as it's hard to imagine frequent travelers (the vast majority traveling with laptops) not shelling out for a bag that is pre-approved by the TSA. But then again, who knows how much of an inconvenience travelers really see in removing their computers.

Blogger Andrew B. Einhorn over at OhMyGov has to be joking when he says that removing laptops is the most time-consuming requirement in security lines. Removing shoes and belts is far more cumbersome, in my view.

What do you think? Does removing your laptop each time through security annoy you? Let us know.

Frequent travelers of Europe's budget airlines have known for years that the industry relies, to a certain extent, on misleading, if not outright false, advertising.

Usually this has to do with their pricing. Log onto any of the big European budget carriers -- easyJet, Ryanair or Germanwings, for instance -- and you'll be hit with a great offer. Take Germanwings, for instance. You'll see them pimping April flights from Zagreb, Croatia to Cologne for €5. Not bad. Click on it, choose a random set of dates (say an April 8 departure and an April 16 return) and you can get both legs for €14. Ah, but then the tax is figured in, and that trip is now €77.36 (more than $120).

European budget airlines don't usually come under fire for this because (1.) technically there was a flight in this case for €5 and (2.) they make it clear that the prices they pimp often do not include taxes. But that doesn't completely wash off the stench of 'scam' in my book, if simply because I always feel like the promotions these airlines run and the ridiculously cheap prices they quote reflect how stupid they think consumers are. Obviously we're not smart enough to view a €77 round-trip plane ticket as still a pretty good deal.

So, it's nice when one of these carriers gets busted for not playing it straight with customers. This has just happened to easyJet, which was running a special recently along the lines of "book by Friday and if you find a better price, we'll pay you up to triple the difference."

Well, a Swiss woman did just that, and then played hell trying to get the Luton, England-based airline to pay up. It claimed the woman hadn't delivered proof, and then tried something along the lines of saying she had not found a comparable ticket, since it was a competitor's return fare she found rather than the two single fairs (there and back) she booked on easyJet. Gimme a break, right?

That's what Britain's Advertising Standards Authority essentially said. They've ruled the easyJet promotion was misleading, since the fine print implied that the refund was easy to claim, when it really was like dealing with the IRS. Only bookings made at certain times and dates were eligible. Refund requests had to be made within an hour of the original booking. And so on. The Guardian newspaper reports the whole sordid tale.

There was good news for the Swiss woman, however. EasyJet told the Guardian that she would receive close to $1,500 in her bank account within a week.

John F. Kennedy International Airport has long been a joke in terms of on time departures and arrivals. But there are signs that JFK might be getting better.

The Associated Press is reporting that JFK is finally off the list of the country's 50 most-delayed airports, while previously it was a perennial Top 3 contender. The secret? It finished 2007 strong, with 73 percent of all flights arriving and departing on time between Nov. 1 and Jan. 31, 2008, the AP says. That's up from 67 percent.

O.K., so that's not going to have travelers rushing to reroute their trips through Kennedy. But that should still give us all hope of greater improvements to come.

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation reportedly targeted New York City airspace for a massive improvement initiative starting around Thanksgiving last year, which, among other things, included allowing commercial flights to use military airspace, the AP says.

The Federal Aviation Administration also jumped on the bandwagon in December with its own plans to overhaul NY airspace.

There's still more in the offing. By the end of this week, DOT is expected to begin cutting the number of hourly flights at JFK from 100 to 83, which means less flights at the most congested times, the AP reports.

Still, it seems that there is little in the way of good news to report over at Newark Liberty International Airport, which topped the 2007 most-delayed list. It hasn't seemed to improve a lick.

What's the worst airport in the U.S.? Let us know.

The Transportation Security Administration is making a big fuss over its new Zip Lane screening line, which made its national debut yesterday in a trial run at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California.

Now, I'm one of those who never considered Bob Hope that funny. But this Zip Lane has the makings of being a gut-buster. It's essentially an express lane for business travelers carting one very small bag, i.e. a brief case. The lane is open from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., -- peak business travel time.

A TSA spokesman told KABC TV in Burbank that since there will be less bags for screeners to check, the line will move twice as fast as regular security. Uh-huh. I've traveled at those peak business times, and seen many corporate types with only a laptop bag in the regular lines. In fact, seldom do the regular lines move faster than early in the morning. So, the TSA is banking on less baggage to screen at times when there often is...less baggage to screen.

Still, the Zip Lane does not eliminate the procedures that really slow down lines: Shoes, belts and jackets still need to come off. Laptops still need to be pulled out.

Not surprisingly, few interviewed on KABC TV yesterday found much to praise about the express lane. "Well, so far it's not very express," one traveler, Dorothy Johnson, told the channel. "I've been waiting in line about half an hour."

The TSA response? "When you're talking a 15 minute wait at the security checkpoint and you save somebody five minutes, that's a third of the time they don't have to wait at the security checkpoint," a spokesman told the channel.

Security officials admit the Zip Lane is not perfect, and they will be ironing out bugs in the coming months. But the TSA hopes that if it proves successful, express lanes can begin popping up at airports across the country.

But I have my doubts. I mean, how good a litmus test is Bob Hope Airport in Burbank? Let's see them test this sucker at O'Hare.