Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 30, 1994 TAG: 9402030015
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: F5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: L.R. SHANNON THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
One can gather information on flight schedules, hotels and automobile rentals; examine a restaurant guide; see if the State Department has issued an advisory about a foreign destination; find visa requirements; and exchange messages with other members.
The three major consumer services discussed here, Compuserve, America Online and Prodigy, give the traveler access to Eaasy Sabre for airline information and reservations. This is not as complex as Sabre, also operated by American Airlines and the system that many travel agents use, but is nevertheless a mass of codes and abbreviations. (Ordinarily, a travel agent still must issue the tickets.)
On Compuserve, for example, 13 travel categories are offered: seven basic products that are included in the membership fee and six extended products that cost extra. One might also stray from the travel section and look into Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia for articles on the city, state or country, and go elsewhere to determine the weather at the destination.
When one enters the Information U.S.A. section of Compuserve, six subsections are offered: tourist adventures; parks and camping; boating and fishing; international travel; domestic tourism and trends; and state travel hot lines.
Selecting domestic tourism and trends leads to 10 more choices, rather like getting enmeshed in an automatic telephone tree: airline passenger safety; air travelers' rights and complaints; Amtrak passenger services; Amtrak customer relations; auto safety hot line; charting course international (information on getting the Department of Commerce's handbook ``Charting a Course for International Tourism in the Nineties''); consumer rights on airlines; handicapped visitors; multilingual receptionists; and rail tickets or travel information.
I had left a message in two of the travel forums that my wife and I were thinking of taking a Caribbean cruise in the fall. If I took a portable computer with me, could I communicate with the office via modem? Jerry Schneiderman replied: ``Many modern ships have satellite direct dial, but the rate is about $18 per minute. When you're near an island with cellular facilities, many ships allow you to direct dial that way. The cost is about $6 per minute. Still interested?''
America Online groups its travel and shopping sections together, and one finds a menu of 15 subcategories with such strange bedfellows as Bose Express Music and USA Today Travel News.
The Travel Forum itself, ``for the traveler who enjoys the fun of planning his or her own trip and the adventure of independent travel,'' has 12 categories, with articles on money issues, packing tips and electricity abroad. The Travel Cafe is ``our very own chat room'' where people who aren't offended by phrases like ``chat room'' can talk on line.
Prodigy pays its bills with income from advertisements. Virtually every screen has an ad at the bottom.
If you don't go directly to a favorite section, the service opens with 10 options. Select travel, and the next screen is a menu offering city, regional and specialty guides; reservations; travel sources; experts; travel B&B; weather; deals and discounts, and services.
I selected services, and faced a new menu. Still concerned about the Caribbean cruise, I selected Cruisescan, ``a century of luxury travel and experience,'' with four further options. I selected option No. 4, ``Send us a message,'' and repeated my plea for information about computer-to-office communications. The next time I dropped in, Cruisescan had answered: ``Royal Caribbean says a laptop might work but you cannot plug in a computer. Renaissance has surge protector plug so that should work for you. Princess and Carnival cannot accommodate your computer.''
Compuserve, (800) 848-8199, charges $8.95 a month for its basic services, $6 to $22.80 an hour for other services; America Online, (800) 827-6364, $9.95 a month, including five hours, $3.50 an hour beyond that; and Prodigy, (800) 776-3449, $14.95 a month, including two on-line hours, $3.60 an hour beyond that. Special services often carry a surcharge. One must also pay for the computer's phone call, but members in metropolitan areas usually can find a local or near-local number.
by CNB