FedEx has just announced a new round of rate hikes, but they won't be in effect until after the holiday peak shipping season. The company plans to increase shipping rates on its Ground and Home Delivery services by an average of 5.9% in 2009. FedEx Express services are expected to increase by 6.9% next year, according to a previous projection from the company.

These increases may come as a surprise to consumers, who have seen fuel prices plunge over the past few weeks, and might have been hoping for lower shipping prices in turn. The problem is that FedEx hasn't been increasing its prices in pace with the higher fuel prices before the drop, and diesel prices haven't dropped as much as regular gasoline. Most FedEx vehicles require diesel fuel. FedEx says that its price increases will be somewhat offset by a new formula for fuel surcharges, which should reduce these charges by about 2%.

It hasn't been long since FedEx competitor DHL announced that it would cut its entire Express service in the United States, a move that could give FedEx a huge boost right at its busiest time of year. Will it be enough for the shipping giant to back off on some of its price hikes? Probably not at first, anyhow, because DHL is in negotiations with UPS to contract out some of its services. Still, this isn't exactly bad news for FedEx. Once the dust settles from DHL's American dissolution, maybe FedEx will be in better shape, and we can always hope the shipping rates get cheaper...

Again, the new rates don't take effect until next year, so you'll still be able to get all your online holiday orders and gift mailing done at the current prices.

When it's backed into a financial corner, what's an airline to do? Gas prices are saner now, but they won't give our money back for the fuel surcharges because now they're using that cash to plug mortal wounds. Americans have grudgingly accepted the implementation of luggage fees, too. As consumers, we've all been led down the primrose path with the airlines, and they're finding that we're actually pretty compliant when it comes to these extra charges.

So why not try out a hefty optional one? United Airlines has partnered with FedEx to sell passengers door-to-door overnight delivery of your luggage. FedEx retrieves your luggage from your house, preferably the day before your flight, and you pick it up the next day at your destination, such as a hotel or at a specified address. The one-way price deviates from the usual FedEx rate scheme: $149 for flights under 1,000 miles and $179 for longer flights. As always, without this splurge fee, your stuff can travel in the cargo hold just below your feet for $15 each way for the first bag and $50 each way for each second bag.

Marketing-wise, I'm not sure what the message is here. With this new optional charge, United seems to be tacitly acknowledging that you might be better off entrusting your valuables to someone else. Is United admitting that paying ten times the usual price is the only way to make sure your bag actually makes it to your destination? Like the cruise lines' efforts to offer premium restaurants on its ships, United seems to be saying that its usual service isn't good enough. And it's not like the lack of a bag will speed your passage through security in any meaningful way, because you can only move through it as quickly as the person in front of you.

Wow! I know businesses everywhere are feeling the need bring in more cash but charging paying customers just to open their files is a bit on the ridiculous side. Joel Watson, creator of Hijinks Ensue a "Geek Webcomic", went to his local FedEx Kinkos to print copies of a several comic strips and was not so politely informed that for every file after the first there would be a "digital rendering" fee of $2.50. To further emphasize the stupidity of this charge, the "digital rendering" fee essentially covers the clerk double clicking on a file!

To me adding $2.50 onto a customer's print order is as dumb as tacking a fuel surcharge onto a taxi ride. Both of these services require what the extra fee is supposed to cover; you can't print a file without opening it just like you can't get anywhere in a taxi without gas. If a company needs to charge an extra fee in order for a service to remain viable then the price should simply be raised rather than hidden on a receipt or behind a technical sounding phrase like "digital rendering"!

Although New York is definitely not the book wonderland that it once was, it still has quite a few places for the hard-core bibliophile to curl up, search the stacks, and find a great book at a great price.

However, as a cheapskate and recovering bookaholic, I tend to check out books from the library first, choosing only to buy the ones that I really, really need. By following this method, I've managed to cut down my yearly book purchases to only a few dozen volumes; by my standards, this is just a small fix, a little something to get me through.

This, by the way, is the bibliomaniac version of methadone treatment.

Farewell, Kinko's, my friend.

I get kind of nostalgic whenever the name of a business goes belly up. Well, not every company. I didn't weep when the name Enron went under, for instance, though I sure felt sorry for its shafted workers, who watched their savings disappear. But when a business has been a good one, when it's served the needs of its customers gallantly, and then it winds up being swallowed up, because of progress, or dumb luck, or whatever, then, sure, it's kind of sad. Not as sad as the moment Wilbur loses his best friend in Charlotte's Web, but it's still a little sad.

But, yes, at the same time, I realize that's the free market for you.

Anyway, as you may have heard, FedEx Corporation is changing the name of FedEx Kinko's, a chain that provides document solutions and business services, to FedEx Office. That means the Kinko's will be no more, or at least we can say it's the deathknell of the name. But Kinko's, which was practically a second home for me in the 1990s, between college and my early days of work, is in good company. Since we're bidding it adieu, I thought I'd take a quick romp down Memory of Lane and look at other corporate names who are no longer with us but surely belong in some sort of business name hall of fame.

Burma-Shave. Actually, this one probably shouldn't be up here, since as some people know, you can still buy Burma-Shave as something of a novelty nostalgic product. Still, the name isn't what it once was.