Boarding Pass

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 391st issue of your monthly overseas travel magazine.

No good deed goes unpunished.

In the city of Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, the number of beggars and street children rose from 870 in 2006 to 2,600 in 2008. In an effort to reverse the trend, in June the legislative council made it against the law to give money to beggars. The penalty is up to three months’ jail time or a fine of up to 1.5 million rupiah (about $170).

The beggars, themselves, can be jailed for up to three years or fined up to five million rupiah. The council, at least, has introduced a program to provide job skills to the beggars.

“Drop the salami and back up slowly!”

In Croatia, tired of having, each year, half a million Czech tourists in vacation apartments doing their own cooking with food purchased at home, rather than purchasing goods at local grocery stores and dining out in restaurants, the government has decreed that tourists may no longer bring their own food into Croatia.

Croatia is the most popular vacation destination of Czechs, who prefer Czech products and, of course, saving money.

Some red tape is harder to cut. Here’s a case where deviating slightly from the form meant getting nothing at all… at first.

John Foster of Waterford, Connecticut, arrived in San Salvador on a flight from Boston via Miami, but his checked bag did not. He had his necessary medications, camera gear and other important materials with him, but until his bag was delivered to him he needed to purchase some other items to carry him over.

When the bag arrived, four days later, John had moved on to Guatemala. The bag was sent to Guatemala City, where he made arrangements for delivery to him in Antigua.

Upon his return to the U.S., he filed a claim with American Airlines “for the reasonable amount of $41,” covering the cost of the delivery plus sundries.

John’s claim was rejected. He wrote back to the airline, “You say that I was ‘unable to provide receipts for these purchases,” which is incorrect. An original receipt for $13.50 for the cost of delivery of the bag was enclosed. Since I was in a remote area of Honduras, I bought the clothing items from a street vendor ($23.50) and sent you an affidavit from a fellow traveler testifying that I had purchased the items. Since the vendor did not issue receipts and spoke no English, that is the best I can do, and I think you should understand the situation.

“I do not have receipts for the toothbrush or razor (those cost $4), so if American Airlines feels that I am trying to defraud it with this claim, you can deduct them, but I am still claiming $37 from you.”

Citing the need for itemized, dated receipts, a rep from the airline’s Central Baggage Service office again rejected John’s claim but did give him a transportation voucher worth $50.

John wrote to ITN, and ITN wrote to the airline, who wrote again to John, apologizing and enclosing a check for $41. They also credited his AAdvantage® account 5,000 bonus miles.

The upshot — get receipts for everything you expect to be reimbursed for.

The ITN staff would like to hear from any of you whose copy of ITN arrives or has arrived mangled due to careless handling by the post office. We want to determine if there are particular areas in the country where issues are damaged in delivery more often than in others.

Following a small number of complaints about torn and disassembled magazines, and fearing that even more had not been reported, ITN contacted the post office. A rep confessed that a couple of years ago the post office installed across the country new machines that handle magazines differently, grabbing them from a different angle than before and, it seems, chewing them up more often.

Of course, ITN will replace any damaged copy, if in stock. And the post office has always advised that our subscribers report the delivery of any mutilated magazines directly to their own post office branch so that the source of the problem can be traced and corrected.

We’re taking that a step further. With your help, we hope to determine if there are any delivery trouble spots in the U.S. At the least, we want to know the true extent of the mishandling of our magazines.

Join the fight for responsible mail delivery. If you have recently received a torn copy, write to Mangled Magazine, c/o ITN, 2116 28th St., Sacramento, CA 95818, or e-mail editor@intltravelnews.com. Please state approximately when (which month or months) the violated issue(s) arrived.

Unfortunately, the cost of routinely mailing ITN in a plastic wrapper is prohibitive. It would add at least $4 to the cost of a year’s subscription, the price of which, as longtime subscribers know, we have hesitantly raised over the years. (The post office’s raising second-class mailing rates 25% last year did not help!)

Fortunately, most of you find the arrival of ITN a happy event. James Horner of Acton, Massachusetts, wrote, “We love ITN and recommend it constantly to new travel companions.”

Jane Copping of South Haven, Michigan, wrote, “We eagerly await your issues. At mid-70s, we still take three or four overseas trips per year. Incidentally, some of the folks who write to ITN spend far too much on food and lodging. We travel to see, not dine. We eat with the locals or buy at markets and cook up the local offerings.”

Wanda Bahde of Summerfield, Florida, wrote, “While I have access to a variety of travel magazines, including Travel & Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, Budget Travel and National Geographic Traveler, International Travel News is the only magazine that I read from cover to cover immediately upon receipt.

“In addition, I use the ITN website as my computer’s homepage and connect to the Message Board daily. Then I file copies of select suggestions, ideas and travel advertiser contacts in my ‘Someday Dream’ files. Keep up the great service! ITN is an invaluable resource for people like me.”

Most of each issue of ITN is written by its subscribers, which include some of the most-traveled people in the world today. Join the forum. — David Tykol, Editor