MONEY USA TODAY ❚ MONDAY, MARCH 2, 2020 ❚ 3B
Get a clearer picture of the 401k fees
you might be paying.
Fees are only one consideration when making the decision to roll over. And in certain situations, fees may be higher in a rollover IRA. Review your retirement
plan rollover choices at tdameritrade.com/rollover. The 401k fee analyzer tool is for informational and illustrative purposes only, and does not constitute advice.
TD Ameritrade, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. © 2019 TD Ameritrade.Your retirement savings should stay in your pocket, which is why TD Ameritrade provides the401kfeeanalyzertool
poweredbyFeeX.Itfindsoutifyou’repayingunnecessaryfeesonyourold401kandhelpsyoudecideifrollingoveris
therightmoveforyourretirement.Visittdameritrade.com/401kfeesto learn more.
TRAVEL
What is the oddest or rudest thing
you have seen on a plane or in an air-
port?- Bob, Iowa
In my time, I have seen and dealt
with a few passengers who were very
belligerent to crew members. In some
cases, I had them removed from the
flight.
One memorable case was a lady
who was berating one of the flight at-
tendants about not waiting on her fast
enough or providing her with more al-
cohol (which she did not need). The
flight attendant advised me of the situ-
ation and I went back to talk with the
lady. She told me to have the flight at-
tendant bring her a drink.
I told her she would not be flying
with us, and she informed me that she
would sue if she didn’t get her drink
and demanded that I “leave her alone.”
It is the captain’s responsibility to en-
sure a safe flight. Passengers such as
this lady cause a safety concern.
Therefore, she was not going with us.
The police were called, I told them
to remove her from the plane and they
asked her to go with them. She was
belligerent with them, too, but after
they professionally informed her that
she would be arrested if she didn’t
comply, she wisely decided that listen-
ing to the officers was the better idea.
John Cox is a retired airline captain
with US Airways and runs his own avi-
ation safety consulting company,
Safety Operating Systems.
ASK THE CAPTAIN
Former pilot
recalls
removing
his rudest
passenger
John Cox
Special to USA TODAYservations.com.
Five years ago, the Federal Trade
Commission issued a warning about
sites that pose as the real thing. The
agency said it heard from customers
who searched online and thought they
were booking on a hotel website, only to
find they’d unknowingly been doing
business with someone else.
It’s not the legitimate online travel
agencies such as Expedia and Booking-
.com perpetrating the scam, says Ari
Lightman, professor of digital media
and marketing at Carnegie Mellon Uni-
versity.
“It’s the sites deliberately set up to
dupe consumers,” he says.Beware of “impostor” sitesFor example, when Kate McCulley
needed a visa to visit Azerbaijan, she
went online and found several official-
looking options, which she calls “im-
postor sites.”
Airlines aren’t exempt from scammy
booking sites.Remember the case of Naomi Poel?
The Ada, Michigan, traveler fell for a
site that claimed to be an official Delta
Air Lines site last summer. She took
the site at face value when it claimed,
“We, at Delta Air Lines.” The mistake
cost her family $300.How to avoid the worst
booking mistake everPopiel just wants people to know
about impostor sites.
“I would like to raise awareness
among travelers of this deceptive
practice,” he says. But, beyond that, he
wonders why legitimate businesses
would accept a reservation through a
third party that tries to deceive their
customers. That’s a valid question.
The IHG spokeswoman described
the online travel distribution system
as “quite complex,” adding “we are al-
ways assessing options as the distri-
bution landscape evolves.”
If you’re booking an airline ticket,
hotel room or getting a visa, read the
website address. If you’re not on the
official site, odds are you’re dealing
with a third party.How to spot an impostor site❚Do your research. “It’s worth
Googling the name of the website to
see if anything has been written about
it online,” says Clive Wood, global
commercial manager at OTA Insight.
“Travelers should also always check
the small print before processing their
transactions.”
❚Know your destination and book
direct. Type the web address directly- and carefully. Bear in mind that some
unscrupulous third party sites have
snatched up domain names with com-
mon misspellings of the companies
they’re spoofing.
Use website oversight to
avoid big booking mistake
On Travel
Christopher Elliott
USA TODAYLook at the website you’re on very
carefully before booking. Some travel
sites look legit but aren’t.
PROSTOCK-STUDIO/GETTY IMAGESFrancis Popiel made the worst book-
ing mistake ever when he booked the
right hotel on the wrong site.
The right hotel, in his case, was the
Holiday Inn Alexandria in Alexandria,
Virginia. Popiel, an engineer from Co-
lumbia Station, Ohio, had found the
property by Googling “Holiday Inn Alex-
andria.” But instead of taking him to the
official hotel site, the search results led
him to a third-party site called Guestre-
servations.com.
“When you click on this link, it ap-
pears to be the Holiday Inn website,” he
says. “The photos and layout are the
same.” He says Guestreservations.com
charged him a “deceptive” $159 fee on
top of a $338 room rate.Don’t want to make a booking
mistake? Careful where you clickPopiel’s story is a cautionary tale for
the rest of us to look carefully before
booking. There are sites out there that
look legit but may not be. But you can
easily spot them.
Guestreservations.com didn’t re-
spond to messages seeking comment on
Popiel’s case. The site describes itself as
an intermediary focused on “connecting
travelers” to bargains.
I tried to duplicate Popiel’s reserva-
tion. But in the time between making
the reservation and his complaint, Goo-
gle changed its secret algorithm to pro-
mote the official Holiday Inn site at the
top of its ranking.
Soojin Yoon, a spokeswoman for In-
terContinental Hotels Group, which
owns Holiday Inn, said it is not involved
in transactions that customers make on
third-party websites such as Guestre-b 03 03 02 2020 1 _ro.pdf 1 02 - Mar- 20 01 : 05 : 24