Updated Sites Make Travel Planning Easier

If you're looking for a new or updated travel site or offer, just wait a minute or two. Hardly a day goes by that I don't get at least one press release about something new or improved on the Internet. Although some updates seem to be gimmicks destined for a short half-life, others can probably improve your travel or travel buying, at least a little. Here's a rundown, in no particular order, of some recent additions and updates.

Rentalo, the big online vacation rental site, introduced a new worry-free guarantee program. If you rent an accommodations through Rentalo and the property turns out to be falsely advertised or won't honor your reservation, Rentalo will reimburse you up to $5,000 for any prepayments you can't recover from the renter or your charge card. You can see the fine print online. That's a useful, if limited, guarantee; it's about the same as the guarantee that the rival HomeAway vacation rental agencies have been offering for several years.

FltAdvisor says it monitors flights you register and can notify you of delays and cancelations before you can find that information on an airline's own site. It also notifies you of alternative flights you might want to consider, including the status of those flights (but not whether any of the airlines will accept your ticket), and calculate connection time based on the real status of both flights. Although FltAdvisor is offering a 30-day trial period, the regular price for the service is $8 a month, $88 a year, or $15 for a pack of 10 individual flight alerts (for less-frequent travelers).

If you have stashed away any obsolete pre-euro paper currencies from any of 11 European countries, the Currency Commission will exchange it for U.S. or Canadian dollars or euros. Obviously, the exchange rate isn't what it was when you first got the currency, but it's better than just wasting the money. You could probably get a better rate if you went to the country involved and exchange it, as I did in France a few years ago, but the process is tedious. It's better to just unload that box of "kept for next time" money and ship it off to the Currency Commission.

Brian Ek, longtime publicist for Priceline, is running a new blog. Needless to say, it features Priceline deals, but it gives you a chance to post comments and ask questions. And over the years Ek has proved to be a reliable and knowledgeable source of information.

Cathay Pacific extended its All-Asia Pass for 2009, but the base price is up, now starting at $1,499. At this single price, the pass provides round-trip travel from Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco to Hong Kong, plus out-and-back round-trip flights from Hong Kong to any two of 24 basic cities in Asia. These destinations range from Sapporo and Seoul in the North to Jakarta and Denpasar (Bali) in the South. Extra-cost add-ons are available for one or two extra base cities or 26 add-on cities as distant as Karachi and Delhi. You can check out the details online, but you can buy only through a travel agency.

And one update: Hertz's consumer-friendly refueling policy—refueling at prevailing gasoline prices—didn't last long. For now, Hertz is back to the industry's usual policy of charging a gouge price if you return a car with less than a full tank. All too often, good ideas seldom last very long in the travel industry.