Want to avoid paying extra fees when flying?

Greetings,

Have you had a chance to go to the airport lately?

If your planning on air travel being part of your travel plans, you may be in for a surprise, especially if you pack like my Debbie does.

The airlines have found a new revenue stream, charging extra for baggage, and it can climb fairly quickly.  You’ll be paying for any excess weight or extra bags you take along this time.

Depending on which airline you choose, your going to need to budget extra money, here are a couple of examples…

Alaska Airlines - $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second.

Delta – First one is free, second is $50.

Northwest - First one is free, second is $50.

US Airways – Better plan ahead, if you pay for it in advance its $15 but if you wait until your vacation, add another $5.

Think you can just carry on that extra bag like we used to? Forget about it… Now the TSA is helping the airlines by limiting the number of carry on’s allowed.

So what to do? Here are a couple of common sense things.

•       Do you really need to bring 17 different outfits?  Once we brought 4 suitcases to go on a beach vacation, all we wore was our bathing suits and tank tops…
•       Wear a sport coat / jacket on the plane to save room & weight in your bags.
•       Cut back on the toiletries.  You can get travel size lotions and potions now, or just transfer your favorites into smaller bottles.  Don’t forget to put everything into a zip lock bag.
•       Put your luggage on a scale at home, most airlines draw the line at 50 pounds per bag. You don’t want to have to go thru stuff at the counter then try to figure out where to put all that stuff to get under the limit.
•       Take advantage of frequent flyer programs, some airlines will wave fees for their cardholders, Ask about these discounts. Also if your active military, they are now waiving fees since they got bad press for changing military returning from overseas.
•       Sometimes airlines run specials that waive extra fees, remember that if you don’t ask, you won’t get it.
•       You can use the hotels laundry services instead of bringing more clothing. Many hotels now even have washers and dryers available if you want to save money
•       Check with your travel agent, hotels are hurting for business and many will reimburse for baggage fees, again you have to ask to receive.
•        If you must have to have something heavy, try mailing it to your destination.  While you may have to pay a little more, you can count on your stuff being there when you get there (have you ever had to stand in line when you bag didn’t show up?).

There are still some airlines that don’t charge for bags, like JetBlue and Southwest.  I know that for us we'll try to book our flights on these if we have to fly, personally I'd rather drive. (If you haven't read our posting on Naked body scanners, you'll want to read that one before you fly)

Hope these tips help, enjoy your travel.

All the best,

Lou & Debbie

Would you go thru a naked body scanner?

Greetings,
Are you planning on flying in the near future?  
I had to go to Dallas not long ago but did not have to deal with this issue.
I know that I don't even like getting x-ray's, so why would I submit myself to something like this?
Whenever something like this makes the news, it makes me wonder -why do we allow them do this to us?
Do you feel any safer now that they are installing these? 
I know I don't!


Let us know you thoughts.


All the best


Lou & Debbie 

TSA Admits Bungling of Airport Body-Scanner Radiation Tests

• By David Kravets 
• March 15, 2011

The Transportation Security Administration is re-analyzing the radiation levels of X-ray body scanners installed in airports nationwide, after testing produced dramatically higher-than-expected results.

The TSA, which has deployed at least 500 body scanners to at least 78 airports, said Tuesday the machines meet all safety standards and would remain in operation despite a “calculation error” in safety studies. The flawed results showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

At least one flier group, the Association for Airline Passenger Rights, is urging the government to stop using the $180,000 machines that produce a virtual-nude image of the body until new tests are concluded in May.

“Airline passengers have enough concerns about flying — including numerous ones about how TSA conducts its haphazard security screenings — so it is TSA’s responsibility to ensure passengers are not being exposed to unhealthy amounts of radiation,” Brandon Macsata, executive director of the group, said in a statement.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has been a loud voice opposing the machines. Last week, it urged a federal appeals court to stop using them until further health studies were conducted. Marc Rotenberg, EPIC’s executive director, is expected to tell the same thing to a congressional panel Wednesday.

“The agency should have conducted a public rule-making so that these risks could have been more carefully assessed,” (.pdf) according to a transcript of his expected testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Still, the government said the results proved the safety of the devices.

“It would appear that the emissions are 10 times higher. We understand it as a calculation error,” TSA spokesman Sarah Horowitz said in a telephone interview.

The snafu involves tests conducted on the roughly 250 backscatter X-ray machines produced by Rapiscan of Los Angeles, which has a contract to deliver another 250 machines at a cost of about $180,000 each. About 250 millimeter-wave technology machines produced by L-3 Communications of New York were not part of the bungled results.

Rapiscan technicians in the field are required to test radiation levels 10 times in a row, and divide by 10 to produce an average radiation measurement. Often, the testers failed to divide results by 10, Horowitz said.

“Certainly, the errors are not acceptable. It’s not every report. We believe the technology is safe,” she said.  ”We’ve done extensive, independent testing. It doesn’t raise alarms in terms of safety.”

Rapiscan, in a letter to the TSA, admitted the mistake and is “redesigning the form” used by its “field service engineers” when surveying the Rapiscan Secure 1000 that is deployed to 38 airports.

“Oftentimes, the FSE will bypass the step of dividing by 10. While the resulting entry, at a pragmatic level, is understandable on its face and usable for monitoring purposes, the value, if read literally by persons unfamiliar with our system and the survey process, would imply energy outputs that are unachievable by the Secure 1000 Single Pose,” (.pdf) Rapiscan wrote.

A recent Wired.com three-part series examined the constitutionality,effectiveness and health concerns of the scanners, which the TSA mandated as the preferred airport screening method in February 2009. Among other things, the Wired.com series concluded that there was discord among the scientific community about the scanners’ health risks to humans, and that they were not tested with mice or other biological samples before being deployed.

The government, however, maintains a thousand screenings equal the amount of radiation of one standard medical chest X-ray.

A federal appeals court hearing EPIC’s lawsuit suggested last week it wasnot likely to halt the scanners’ use.

Scientists challenge TSA on scanner radiation

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  So let me ask you a question,  "Are you going to be flying home this week?"

I have been listening and watching what people have been saying about the TSA and the naked scans they are employing to "make us safe".

Somehow I don't feel safe with what I have been hearing.

Read this and let us know what you think.

Lou & Debbie

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINES

Scientists challenge TSA on scanner radiation

Warn of 'potential health consequences' to elderly, pregnant women, children

Posted: November 22, 2010       11:09 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn                     © 2010 WorldNetDaily


Federal officials claim radiation risks from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's new full-body scanners are low, but several scientists are calling on the administration to rethink whether the numbers really add up.

The TSA says the radiation from its security scans amounts to about a thousandth of the amount a patient receives from a standard chest X-ray, or an amount "equivalent to two minutes of flying on an airplane."

But a physics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe not only conducted his own study, finding the radiation exposure 10 times what the TSA estimates, but also argues that the health risks aren't mathematically worth taking.

Prof. Peter Rez explained to MSNBC that while the risk of getting a fatal cancer from the screening is minuscule, it's about equal to the  probability an airplane will get blown up by a terrorist. Either way, the professor argues, dead is dead.

"There is not a case to be made for deploying [the scanners] to prevent such a low probability event," Rez says.

Furthermore, a team of scientists from the University of California San Francisco have written a letter to the White House warning that the scanners present – above and beyond the risks to the general population – "potential serious health risks" to certain segments of society, such as the elderly and the pregnant.

"There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations," say the cosigners of the letter, which include experts in biochemistry, imaging, X-rays and cancer research. "We are unanimous in believing that the potential health consequences need to be rigorously studied before these scanners are adopted."

The backscatter X-ray technology used in airport security scanners penetrates the skin only about 1/4 inch before the rays are scattered,  whereas medical X-rays transmit completely through the body. The TSA has determined, therefore, that the amount of radiation emitted from the airport scanners is significantly less than at the doctor's office.

The University of California scientists, however, disagree.

"The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray," the professors' letter states. "However, this comparison is very misleading: Both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest X-rays have much higher X-ray energies, and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/volume, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high."

The professors are calling on the administration to specifically reexamine potential risks to the following groups:

Older travelers, those greater than 65 years of age, who may be at particular risk from the mutagenic effects of the X-rays;
A fraction of the female population especially sensitive to mutagenesis-provoking radiation leading to breast cancer, women typically exempted from X-ray mammograms, for example;
The population of immuno-compromised individuals, such as HIV and cancer Patients;
Children and adolescents;
Pregnant women and their unborn children;
And men in general, because of the proximity of the testicles to skin, which is most highly effected by the backscatter rays.
The TSA claims that the machines' safety has been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, the Commerce Department's National Institute for Standards and Technology and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

"In summary, the potential health risks from a full-body screening with a general-use X-ray security system are minuscule. Several groups of recognized experts have been assembled and have analyzed the radiation safety issues associated with this technology," the FDA states. "As a result of these evidence-based, responsible actions, we are confident that full-body X-ray security products and practices do not pose a significant risk to the public health."

When New York Times reporter Susan Stellini called these research organizations to ask about their evaluations, however, she discovered the machines were primarily tested for whether the amount of radiation emitted meets guidelines established by the American National Standards Institute, an organization she suspects may be operating with a conflict of interest.

"Guess who was on the committee that developed the guidelines for the X-ray scanners? Representatives from the companies that make the machines and the Department of Homeland Security, among others," Stellini writes. "In other words, the machines passed a test developed, in part, by the companies that manufacture them and the government agency that wants to use them."

Both Rez and the team from University of California have also brought up yet another "red flag" with the airport scanners.

"The scary thing to me is not what happens in normal operations, but what happens if the machine fails," Rez told the Times. "Mechanical things break down, frequently."

"Because this device can scan a human in a few seconds, the X-ray beam is very intense," the California professors' letter states. "Any glitch in power at any point in the hardware (or more importantly in software) that stops the device could cause an intense radiation dose to a single spot on the skin. Who will oversee problems with overall dose after repair or software problems?

"The TSA is already complaining about resolution limitations; who will keep the manufacturers and/or TSA from just raising the dose, an easy way to improve signal-to-noise and get higher resolution?" the professors continue. "Lastly, given the recent [underwear bomber incident], how do we know whether the manufacturer or TSA, seeking higher resolution, will scan the groin area more slowly leading to a much higher total dose?"

The scientists' letter, addressed to Dr. John P. Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology, concludes, "We urge you to empower an impartial panel of experts to reevaluate the potential health issues we have raised before there are irrevocable long-term consequences to the health of our country. These negative effects may on balance far outweigh the potential benefit of increased detection of terrorists."