From June on, the choice will be a) carry a passport or b) don't go. The smart ones (this describes you, right?) will brave the bureaucracy and get their passports right away before the system gets jammed with applicants. The first quarter of every year is always the smoothest time to get or renew a passport with a minimum of grief, with the average application taking only a couple of weeks. Don't wait longer than March, though, because by the spring, the paperwork logjam is sure to be extreme considering the twin demands of summer travel prep and the frenzied run-up to comply with the long-delayed rule.

Why the requirement? Lots of people think that the government just wants to make it easier to spy on our movements. I don't know if I agree with that (or if I did, should I say so in print?), but there is no doubt that security is driving the mandate. There are currently some 7,000 types of birth certificates in circulation right now, so presenting one of them, plus a passport, currently clearly presents some validation issues for border agents.

You might have read that the low-cost carrier Ryanair is floating the notion of starting flights between the United Kingdom and America for just $13 each way before taxes. The Irish airline wants to begin service between London and Dublin and New York City, California, and Boston for prices beginning around €10. The story, still not much more than a rumor since nothing has been confirmed, has floated to the top tier of the news ladder mostly because consumers could use some silver linings.

Even if the transatlantic flights happen (and starting up flights between continents is a laborious bureaucratic process that requires a lot more than simply renting gate space), don't count on the flights necessarily being a savings salvation. The no-frills Ryanair is one of the biggest airline names in Europe, yes, but it's also one of the most reviled, thanks to its lousy customer service and insidious pricing schemes.

Let's look under the hood at the real cost of Ryanair's flights. The carrier is always advertising its flights within Europe for similarly scandalous rates. But of course, when customers try booking the elusive €1 rate, they almost invariably find them sold out. That's because the airline allocates very few seats to the lowest price, and rates escalate dramatically from there. That's called lead-in pricing, and it's one of the most basic tricks in the travel-selling playbook.

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.

Until this summer, I didn't consider a domestic flight a good deal unless it was under $100 for a one-way ticket. Since June, though, I know I'm lucky if I can find a flight anywhere that won't cost more than a mortgage payment.

A new study from USA Today shows exactly how much those prices have gone up because of fuel surcharges:

• Los Angeles to Bangkok -- up $352 over last year's fuel surcharge with a fuel surcharge of $542
• Washington, D.C to Tokyo -- up $400 over last year thanks to a $630 fuel surcharge
• New York to Dublin -- up $138 over last year because of a $230 fuel surcharge

Prices jumped sharply when jet fuel prices took off and airlines were forced to increase fuel surcharges in ticket fares. But now jet fuel is down sharply, comparable to last year's prices, yet the high prices remain all across the industry. What gives?


Outraged travelers accuse airlines of greed, but the airlines argue the surcharges are still necessary. A Northwest Airlines spokesperson says that prices "continue to exceed the surcharge levels in place," adding that many existing surcharges were not in place when oil was at its record high earlier this year. Other airlines say that the surcharges they were charging when jet fuel was at its high of $4.34 per gallon in July could not keep up with the costs to the airlines, so that now even though jet fuel is down below $2.40 per gallon, they are still trying to catch up with all the costs incurred over the summer.

It's a bad time to be a bank. With jobs failing, homeowners struggling, and inflation putting even basic necessities out of the reach of many consumers, some banks are scrambling just to stay afloat. The government is helping, but even with Treasury Secretary Paulson's massive influx of money, America's financial institutions are having to find ways to ensure a steady income when the economy is rising and falling like a rowboat in the North Atlantic.

One major revenue stream that they've been tapping is fees. According to USA Today, most bank fees hit all-time highs in 2008; for example, consumers using an out-of-network ATM can now expect to pay an average surcharge of $3.43, 13% more than a year ago. By comparison, bounced check fees hit $28.95, 2.5% more than last year, and minimum balance requirements for free or online checking have also gone up considerably.

Luckily, there are a few things that you can do to reduce the subsidy that you, personally, pay to the bank:

Carnival Corp., which in 2007 was among the first cruise companies to implement a fuel surcharge when prices spiked, has announced it'll be one of the first to get out. For 2010 bookings on the company's six major lines (Carnival, Costa, Cunard, Holland America, Princess, and the Yachts of Seabourn), the much-dissed fuel surcharge will be gone.

At the same time, Carnival said it would also be raising fares a little. The increase amount hasn't been announced yet, so it's hard to say from this vantage point whether it's just robbing Peter to pay Paul. But raising prices at this time of year is nothing unusual in travel biz, which sets its rates for the future well in advance.

For their part, the airlines of America are not budging. Last month, reps at several of them said that although fuel prices were indeed lower, they were still running higher than their accountants had expected when they set the current budgets, so the fuel surcharges would stay.

That doesn't entirely square with the rest of the air industry, though. Several international carriers, including Qantas, KLM, Air France, and Malaysian, have cut them. Northwest recently reduced its fuel surcharges for cargo, but not for people. All this while the major players in America and the United Kingdom are keeping them as-is. Some analysts are staying it'll stay this way at least until (and if) oil drops below $80 a barrel and stays there for a while.

Did you ever think we'd see the day when people would beg for airline food? Yet here we are.

In mid-August, United announced it would start forcing coach passengers on international flights to pay for their meals. Customers went ballistic. First U.S. Airways makes people pay $2 for so much as water, and then United deigned to lock people up in a steel tube for eight hours without providing free grub. United rebuffed the complaints saying the changes were "necessary."

The new "test" charge was supposed to begin on many transatlantic flights as of Oct. 1. But after fierce feedback from would-be customers that the airline politely described as "candid" but were actually downright scalding, United announced Tuesday that it would not, after all, charge customers to eat on long-haul flights. Some passengers who protested the new fee, many of whom travel for work, were e-mailed a capitulation today ("We heard you," it reads, "and have decided not to move forward," before prattling on about its business class amenities).

The Federal Reserve gave consumer a few months to mull over this proposition: Should credit card companies be allowed to raise the rate on debt you already owe? Is it fair for them to constantly reshuffle your debt so you are always paying the highest possible interest rate and the most fees? Should banks keep secret the way to opt out of their overdraft protection plans, where they can charge a huge fee for a tiny overdraft? And can they send you an offer of one rate, then switch you to another?

Guess what? Consumers overwhelmingly hate all these current practices. They think credit card companies should be reigned in. Nearly 20,000 people wrote in on the three parts of the proposal: credit cards, overdrafts and truth in lending rules. Many call for stricter rules and use florid language like "usury."

Also guess what? Banks think the rules are a stupid idea. Bank of America is not just worried about itself, of course. BofA is concerned about the "broad impact on the economy both at the retail level and in highly complex securitization markets, slowing growth and limiting access to financing. To quote Bill Murray: "Dog and cats, living together!"

BusinessWeek's Jessica Silver-Greenberg says that it's the most significant credit card rule change in 20 years. Till now, she writes, regulators were content to simply force banks to clearly disclose their terms (which resulted in those pages of small-type that practically nobody reads). So now regulators and getting around to actually regulating. The comment period ended August 4, (though the comment form is still up).

When you travel for work, you know the drill: Get receipts for everything. When you spend cash for stuff like meals, beverages, hotels, and rental cars, your employer is likely to pick up the tab as long as you've got proof of purchase.

But what if you have to spend money on the road but can't get a receipt? It's happening more and more. The major airlines have deployed their newest fees with such haste that they are not always equipped to issue receipts for on-board purchases. Ask a flight attendant for one, and on some carriers you're more likely to receive a blank stare than appropriate documentation.

Take U.S. Airways. As of Aug. 1, the carrier began charging for drinks of any sort, including $2 for water. Passengers are not permitted to carry their own beverages through security, and buying drinks in the terminal is not always possible either because of a time crunch or because of personal dignity over gouging. If you, a business traveler, decide during Hour Three of a flight that you're thirsty, the staff will sell you a drink but they won't be able to give you a receipt.

I called U.S. Airways to ask if any of its flight attendants were equipped to furnish receipts for this newfangled charge. The answer was no. Right now, an airline rep told me, there are "plans" to give on-board staff hand-held devices for printing receipts by the first quarter of 2009, but for now, they have nothing, and those nebulous "plans" could not be elucidated for me. U.S. Airways' flight attendants also have neither the training or the equipment to write receipts by hand.

I know that car rental companies are having a hard time with people driving less. Their stocks are falling. But their absolute warfare against their customers fought with ridiculous fees and soul-crushing hassles can't be helping. There's hope that the gas refueling charge will go away, but it seems like Avis is trying to recoup their potential losses with pet hair and other absurd fees.

Last month I wrote about how I had figured out that Avis considers a Vibe a small SUV and in the SUV-hating mania priced it lower than a compact car, even though the it got better gas mileage. I figured that it couldn't work out that easily, surely the folks at Avis would try to force us into another car. And I was right. They did try to get my husband to take a much larger SUV, but lucky for us when they couldn't find it after 20 minutes, they let him take the vehicle we had actually reserved.

My husband and I have a deal: I drive in and out of Manhattan, his ultimate idea of torture. He picks up and returns the rental car, my seventh circle of hell. We both feel like we are getting a bargain. This time, however, since I had run the gas down to the point where the gas light was on, I went with him to return it. We always get the pre-pay fuel option just to avoid their refilling hassles--though once had to pay them when the clerk insisted we didn't. So I was feeling like a consumer champion driving in with the tank so empty. If I could have willed it to run out of gas when I pulled in, I would have.

My first indication of trouble was a flurry of overdraft fee notices from Chase. I knew the balance was low, but nowhere near zero, so I checked my recent transactions. I found that they had cashed a check that I had postdated three days early. To avoid any troubles, I send in my rent check early, but postdate the check with the date my rent is actually due.

I called them with a smug but calm demeanor of someone who knows they have proof of an injustice. But I was in for a shock. Postdating a check is meaningless, the Chase rep explained. Chase looks at it as an informal agreement between the person who writes the check and the person who cashes it. I've found similar stories online. More people are running into trouble because of Check 21, which clears checks much faster.

UAL Corp's United Airlines (UAUA) announced Thursday it was going to follow American Airlines' lead and charge $15 for the first checked bag. United had already started charging steerage passengers $25 for a second bag. The fees are each way, so the standard two checked bags will now cost $80. Want to bring a third bag? You may as well Fed Ex it. That'll run you somewhere between $125 and $250, the press release says, without explaining the particulars.

United estimates their plan will rake in $275 million a year. That would be a huge amount of money for United, which has revenues of $20 billion, but net income of only $400 million.

The trouble is, when you set up such stark economic incentives, customers react. How many weekend passengers are just going to stuff what they need into their carry-on bag instead of checking a bag? Who is going to check two small bags when one large one will cost $50 less? United is incentivizing customers to behave badly. The shuffle of carry-on bags slows down passengers and airlines alike. In the name of efficiency, wouldn't it make more sense to charge for carry-ons and keep checked bags free?

Also read
Is there an alternative?

The Treasury Department is rolling out a debit card today in 10 states so that people without bank accounts won't waste their sustenance checks on huge check cashing fees. The DirectExpress Debit MasterCard automatically loads new payments onto the card each month, so there are no checks to be lost in the mail or wasted.

In theory, it's a great idea. When check cashing fees take a big bite out federal benefits checks, they're effectively taking a big bite out of what taxpayers shell out to take care of seniors and the disabled. We don't want the people who most desperately need the money most getting gouged.

But the new system isn't totally free, either. This card comes with lots of new fees. You get one free ATM withdrawl per check. After that, it's 90 cents each withdrawl. And you have to find an ATM that's in their free networks or get hit with the bank's fee. Its network has 50,000 ATMs -- Comerica Bank, Charter One, Privileged Status, Alliance One, PNC Bank, MasterCard® ATM Alliance, and MoneyPass. Nationwide there are 360,759 ATMs as of 2007, the Bost Globe Reports. So, only about one in seven will not charge users a fee.

Over the years, I've made more than my fair share of mistakes in banking. I once put a large check in a backup account instead of the main one and the next day, I had a bank fee bloodbath. At various times, I've been derelict at balancing my checkbook, and there have been times I've lost track of what check was still out there, only to fully understand when it came through, and I didn't have enough money in the bank to cover it. I've also -- well, look, I'm not here to talk about my dumb mistakes. I wanted to bring up my bank's dumb mistake, and ask the question:

When my bank screws up, why can't I charge them a fee?

Friday, I rushed over to my bank and made a deposit of $646.



.

Tell me if this scenario sounds familiar:

You deposit your paycheck into your account. The check is drawn on a major bank; however, for some reason, your bank doesn't feel like cashing it for a week or so. When they finally do credit your account, your rent check (which was presented a week after your paycheck) appears to bounce because your paycheck still hasn't been credited to your account. Your bank covers the rent check, but hits you with a $25 (or $35 or $50) fine for insufficient funds, even though they've basically been holding onto your money for a week.

Maybe this has never happened to you. Perhaps you have direct deposit or bank at the same company that handles your paycheck. Still, chances are that you've been hit with a questionable or extravagant fine from time to time. If nothing else, you may have simply withdrawn money from an ATM that isn't owned by your bank, leaving you with a $2-3 fee from the ATM and another buck or two from your bank. A few moments later, and $3-5 lighter, you find yourself wondering why, exactly, the bank needs to charge you so much for a measly $20.