Jennifer Waters's Consumer Confidential: Tools to help you navigate airline baggage fees

By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — It’s easy to reckon what it will cost you to buy airfare from Chicago to New York, but try tacking on baggage fees without a cheat sheet and you’ll be at a loss.

“There is no standard,” said Alicia Jao, vice president of travel media for NerdWallet.com, which tracks travel and financial products. “That is the problem with the industry. It’s really up to travelers to figure it all out on their own.”

/conga/personal-finance/consumer_seo.html 204807 And it isn’t easy, but there are online tools available to help you navigate.

Each airline has its own set of rules and they can impact what you end up paying by hundreds of dollars. And — this won’t surprise many fliers — the rules can be quite confusing.

Some airlines will charge you the same amount for the first and second bags, while others will up the ante for the second bag and really hit you for more than three bags.

Two airlines — Spirit Airlines /quotes/zigman/5264014/quotes/nls/save SAVE +1.10%   and Allegiant Travel /quotes/zigman/101442/quotes/nls/algt ALGT +2.02%   — charge for carry-ons and bags checked at the gate, ranging from $35 to $45 with maximum weight restrictions.

Almost all airlines will sock you if the bag is a tad too heavy than the general 50-pound limit or 60-inch size. The pain is sharper if you’re traveling outside the U.S. and Canada, so pack lightly for that Caribbean beach vacation.

Before you jump on Spirit Airlines, which offers airfares you can pay for with pocket change, do the math on what it will really cost you. The discount carrier throws down a complicated set of baggage-rate rules that vary by when you pay (online versus at the airport), what you’re carrying, and whether you’re a club member or an international flier.

“Obviously, the airlines want to make money on these fees, but they also want to discourage people from bringing heavy bags,” said George Hobica, chief executive of travel site Airfarewatchdog.com. Heavier bags add more weight to the plane, which adds to fuel costs.

Baggage fees have become the gift that keeps on giving for most airlines, which continue to tinker with charges as they reap revenue, both in total dollars and as a percentage of operating income.

The fees have become such a dependable and necessary source of revenues that even Southwest Airlines /quotes/zigman/241463/quotes/nls/luv LUV +1.79%  , which has been touting “Bags Fly Free” in its ads for two years, is embracing fees already in place at AirTran Airways. (Southwest does not charge change fees, another growing revenue stream for airlines.)

Southwest, which bought AirTran Airways last May, said it will keep the baggage and change fees for AirTran — which rang up almost $167 million in the first nine months of 2011 — until 2014.

Those fees and others, including seat-assignment fees and on-board sales of food, drinks, entertainment and even pillows and blankets, add up to about 32% of AirTran’s total operating revenue.

Compare that to Spirit Airlines, which generates almost 90% of its operating revenues from such ancillary charges, and Delta Air Lines /quotes/zigman/463579/quotes/nls/dal DAL +2.98% , which rang up 24% of its operating revenues from those extras in the first nine months of 2011, the most recent figures available from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

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UMich sentiment ticks higher to 76.4 in April

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The final reading for consumer sentiment in April rose to 76.4 from 76.2 in March, according to reports on a gauge released Friday by the University of Michigan/Thomson Reuters. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a final April reading of 75.7 - matching a preliminary reading for this month. The sentiment gauge, which covers how consumers view their personal finances as well as business and buying conditions, averaged about 87 in the year before the most recent recession. Economists watch sentiment data to get a feel for the direction of consumer spending. High gas prices and stock-market volatility have been weighing on consumers.

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UMich sentiment ticks higher in April

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Personal Finance Daily: Health insurers may be coughing up rebates

By MarketWatch

Don’t miss these top stories:

Two of our personal-finance columnists take a look at the Affordable Care Act from different perspectives today.

Kristen Gerencher reports on a study that shows health insurers may be forking over $1.3 billion in rebates this summer. A provision in the health-reform law means rebates to consumers whose health plans have exceeded the limits of a formula designed to ensure that premium payments go mostly to pay for actual medical care. Consumers and businesses in Texas and Florida will see the largest rebates, with $186 million and $149 million coming back, respectively. Also today, Andrea Coombes writes in her Ways and Means column that if the Supreme Court declares the health-reform law unconstitutional, it could really upend numerous tax provisions. Who stands to benefit from that? Well, the richest Americans — the top 0.1% — would avoid about $125,000 more in taxes per year on average if the health law is overturned.

And finally, Robert Powell writes in his Your Portfolio column that investors should be aware of, and prepared for, both inflation and deflation pressures.

— Anne Stanley , managing editor, personal finance

Rates on fixed-rate mortgages average just above record lows this week, according to Freddie Mac’s survey of conforming rates on home loans.
Read more: Rates on 30-year mortgage fall to 3.88%.

This summer, your health-insurance costs could go down for a change. A provision in the federal health-reform law stands to return big bucks to customers whose health plans have exceeded the limits of a formula meant to ensure that most premium dollars go to pay for medical care instead of overhead and profit.
Read more: Health insurers could rebate $1.3 billion.

Neither an inflationist nor a deflationist be. That, to mangle the well-known quotation, sums up the view of some investment professionals who are struggling to make sense of current market conditions.
Read more: Inflation or deflation: Be ready for either.

Whatever their opinion of the health-care reform law, wealthy Americans have a lot of money riding on the Supreme Court’s coming decision on the law’s constitutionality. And taxpayers of all income brackets could see tax laws upended by the Supreme Court’s decision.
Read more: Health law’s demise could save big bucks, for some.

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Realty Q&A: Disclosing the drug house next door

By Lew Sichelman

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Question: We have a convicted heroin addict living in our neighborhood. The house next door to the heroin house is about to be put on the market. Is the owner/seller obligated to disclose the presence of this criminal? —C.L., Pleasanton, Calif.

/conga/personal-finance/real_estate_seo.html 202607 Answer: Interesting you should ask. Agents in Saskatchewan are pushing for a drug house registry so that they can be aware of a house’s past before they are showing it to prospective buyers.

While the rules of disclosure are more concrete about the property being sold, they are less clear about a condition on a property or a resident in proximity to it. State law governs the specifics, so check with your state real-estate commission or the agency which regulates the real-estate sector, which in your case would be the California Department of Real Estate in Sacramento.

If the house is listed by a member of the National Association of Realtors, the Realtor Code of Ethics would apply. According to Bruce Aydt, an expert on the code who is senior vice president and general counsel at Prudential Alliance Realtors in St. Louis, Mo., members must avoid exaggeration, misrepresentation or concealment of pertinent facts about the property or the transaction.

“In general, if the condition on or near the property would affect the value and desirability of the property being sold, the best course would be to disclose the condition,” says Aydt, who writes a column on ethics that appears in NAR’s monthly magazine. “If asked, the owner/seller and/or broker certainly cannot lie or be deceptive about answering the question.”

If the seller is going it alone, or he lists with a non-Realtor, the seller will have to look to state law for guidance. And absent a law, I suppose the seller and his agent can keep their mouths shut and hope the buyer never finds out about his potential neighbor or doesn’t care.

Question: I am 76 with a house worth about $500,000 and a mortgage of $65,000. I hate to spend $20,000 in fees to obtain a reverse mortgage, as it is unlikely my home will ever be worth less than I receive in proceeds from such a loan. I need additional funds, but I don’t know if I’m ready to sell just yet. Can you suggest some alternatives? —M.M.

Answer: You question is very timely because NCOA, the National Council on Aging, has just created a new online educational tool that is ideal for older persons like yourself who are looking for answers about how to make the most of what is usually their largest financial asset.

HomeEquityAdvisor.org is a user-friendly site that is designed to help older middle and low-income owners make sound decisions when using their home equity to achieve a wide range of financial goals. The tool helps when considering an immediate financial challenge or when planning ahead for the future.

It will help you decide whether to sell outright, use the property as a basis for loans such as a reverse mortgage and, above all, find respected and unbiased information.

Once you are at the site, you can use the “Quick Check” feature to define what help you might need or want. You can specify your situation as “at risk of foreclosure” or as “preparing for unplanned expenses” to view a range of possible solutions. Based on your answers, you will receive an individualized report offering information, further tools and consumer advice on how to protect the value of your property.

Quick Check also helps seniors determine the consequences of using their home equity in their retirement, assess timing and retirement issues, explore options such as renting a room to earn extra income, learn how to avoid home-equity scams, and take family, health, and financial considerations into account in their decision.

HomeEquityAdvisor is operated by NCOA thanks to a grant from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Investor Education Foundation. NCOA is a non-profit service and advocacy organization with a mission to improve the lives of millions of older adults, especially those who are vulnerable and disadvantaged.

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Minneapolis terminal opens after Shek causes evacuation

Minneapolis (AP) — officials say ??????? Minneapolis-Saint Paul terminal after suspicious bag request evacuation in the early morning hours.

Lobby cards on two small stations and traffic inbound to the airport is closed automatically at around 5: 30 a.m. Friday after a scan is done by way of an alarm the police evacuated the Airport screeners.

Airport spokeswoman Melissa Scovronski (skah-von "-skee) says hundreds of people were evacuated in the area of non-secure console. A bomb squad unit was taken away for examination, bag.

The transportation security administration says suspicious items found in baggage. Says the owner of the bag was Scovronski and it is by the airport police. Officials say they do not know yet what caused the alert.

The TSA says the defense mechanism of checkpoint reopened around 7

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TV networks for children take a hit as young men fall in love with Netflix

Children's programming, but big business flow will pay off in the end?

Do you have a Netflix account? It looks like the answer "no" to this question gives you a small group more and more by the day, according to some new, children are quickly jumping on bandwagon, too. Bernstein Research with analytics use TiVo viewing data to compare the TV habits of families with Netflix to those without, and houses with TV networks, Netflix programming children took a major hit.

All networks Nickelodeon — including the original channel Nick Toons, Nick enrichment — saw viewership in the Netflix-enabled to reject the previous year as compared with 11%. Residence-streaming options available, viewership climbed anywhere between 2% to 26%. This is quite impressive, and one of the shows shift to young people are falling in love with how fast demand programming.

It is hard to say if this is good or bad for the channels themselves, given that, of course, providing a certain type of Netflix content means. However, if the revenue flow from the agreements does not offset the cash was lost due to fewer people viewing cable TV ads, Nickelodeon and other children abruptly leaves the ship Netflix. Time will tell.

(Source)

This article first appeared in Tecca

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Video: newborn fawn naps on the doorstep of California Home

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