E-TRAVEL TIPS AND INFORMATION February 2010 Dear Travel Travel Friend Every month, Travel Travel will email you up-to-date travel industry information which should not only be interesting but could affect your future travel arrangements and decisions. WHEN CHILDREN FLY ALONE Children who fly alone are children traveling without a parent, guardian, or another trusted adult that the child knows and are known in the airline industry as an "Unaccompanied Minor" or a "UM". Most airlines will charge for their UM services, usually assessed per flight direction. Special rules apply to these young travelers. UM age requirements are children between the ages of five and eleven and up to fifteen years old on some airlines. Most airlines need to know UM information at the time of booking. If two or more UM's are traveling together, most airlines will access one fee and not charge per child. If your UM is traveling on more than one airline you will probably be paying more than one fee and be subject to different airline policies. Some airlines will accept UM flight connections, others not. Some airlines have age restrictions on UM flight connections. You should contact your travel agent or the airline for more information. AIRPORT PROCEDURES FOR UNACCOMPANIED MINORS Most airports have a special assitance area for checking in UM's. Look for signs or ask an airline representative before joining the regular check-in line. The parent or guardian will have to provide UM information including the child's ID, flight itinerary, parent or guardian's authorizationm and the ID, information and relationship of who will be meeting the UM at the destination. Airlines will provide a hanging neck tag or other means of ID to keep track of the UM so they can be easily identified by all airline staff. Airline representative will accompany the UM through security, to the gate and on board the aircraft. The parent or guardian must stay in contact with airline staff until advised that the UM is safely headed for their desination. During the flight, the UM is supervised by the in-flight crew. At the destination the UM is handed over by the crew to airline airport representatives. Airline staff will escort the UM to the arrivals area where the UM will be realeased to the designated party after proper ID verifacation. TRAVEL GUIDEBOOK GUIDELINES Guidebooks can never substitute for the experience of a good travel agent in planning your vacation. Don't spoil your vacation for the price of a guidebook. Using a good guidebook while travelling is a great idea. Your guidebook could be invaluable to find places of interest, good hotels and restaurants, how to get around, local customs, culture and much more useful information. Never use an older guidebook for your travels. Guidebook information is updated on an ongoing basis. If the year is printed on the cover of a guidebook, the information in the book is probably updated on a regular basis. Make sure your guidebook information is reliable. Don't believe everything you read. Study the guidebook before you buy it. Research authors and their travel experience. Your guidbook must be informative, understandable, readable, up-to-date and it should be easy to find any needed information. Make sure your guidebook dosn't have too much information. Rather spend extra money on several good guidbooks for each country you intend visiting rather than buying one guidebook covering a whole continent. A good idea is to remove all relevent pages of information for destinations you will be visiting from your guidebook and keep them seperated for use when needed. When you leave that destination, you could leave the information at your hotel reception for use by another tourist. Buy soft cover, slim, pocket sized guidebooks which combine good maps and images with sightseeing information and are easier to carry when traveling. A few great recommended quality guidebooks are: Frommer's, Lonely Planet and Rick Steves   QUESTIONS? Please email us at tvltvl@travelx2.com or contact us should you have any travel questions, suggestions or comments. Our professional consultants are at your service and ready to help you with your travel needs. TRAVELING WITHOUT TRAVEL TRAVEL, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN! Travel Travel, Inc. 5140 N. Union Blvd., Suite 200 Colorado Springs, CO 80918 719 593-1591 Website: www.TRAVELX2.COM. Email: tvltvl@travelx2.com. Please forward Travel Travel E-Tips and Information family or friends who may be interested.   You are receiving this newsletter because you are either a past client of Travel Travel or have networked with us. Should you not wish to receive future Travel Travel E-Tips & Information, please email us at tvltvl@travelx2.com, enter subject "Stop Newsletter" with your name and email address.