Get ready for some major airline fuel surcharges

If you thought airfares were high, you ain’t seen nothing yet! The military action in Ukraine is causing fuel prices to go sky-high. Historically the airlines have found that adding a fuel surcharge is an easy way to pass on higher fuel prices. In the coming days, you could see fuel surcharges of $50 to $100 on domestic airline tickets as well as international fuel surcharges ranging from $250 up to $1000 roundtrip. This is also bad news for people redeeming frequent flyer miles for tickets as I have seen a fuel surcharge of $1000 on a frequent flyer business class ticket. CLICK HERE to read more. 

Taxes on travel are officially outrageous – Taxes on a recent one-night stay at a hotel in Omaha totaled $62.66. They included charges for NE sales tax $17.51; NE Lodging tax $12.51; City Occupancy tax $11.97; Omaha Blackstone tax $6.53; Omaha Clean energy fee 14.14 for a total of $62.66. This added 29% to the total hotel bill. And if you think this is bad, car rental taxes are even worse. Basically, communities realize they can raise a lot of money by taxing people who visit their town. I only wish they would be required to put all those taxes and fees into the rate so people would not be surprised when they check out.

Executive Travel plans to plant one million trees to help the environment – This year we have made a plan to plant one tree for every airline ticket we process. This is our way to help mitigate some of the carbon footprints that airplanes make when they fly. Please CLICK HERE to see a short 50-second video that explains the tree planting program we call ETGreen.

The federal travel mask mandate set to expire on March 18, 2022, has now been extended until April 18, 2022 – Last week we asked our readers if they wanted the mask mandate to end and 432 people responded with 281 people saying they hoped it would end on March 18, while 151 saying they hope it was extended. Now we will wait another month to see if we can get back to normal when flying. CLICK HERE to read more about how the travel mask mandate was extended. 

Beware! If you are trying to funnel money to Ukrainians by booking Airbnb’s – Many people want to support Ukraine by booking stays on Airbnb that they hope and think are owned by individual hosts only to find out later they are owned by large professional companies who may not even be located in Ukraine.  Airbnb does not disclose whether the ownership is individuals or companies so you are taking a blind bet if you try to use Airbnb to help our friends in Ukraine. CLICK HERE to read more.