A few tips for Sunday

MOST experienced business travellers never check baggage and don't have to deal with add-on checked baggage charges. But the airlines are clever, and every once in a while even the most veteran road warrior gets nickle-and-dimed by a surprise ancillary fee. Have no fear, gentle readers: if you remember the Boy Scout motto ("be prepared"), you'll beat this beast, too.

FlightView's Amanda Rogers, writing for Fox Business, warns that "ancillary fees are here to stay" and offers a few tips: know your corporate reimbursement policies, make sure you get receipts for all charges (especially things like in-flight WiFi), and make sure you understand the "real" cost of your airline ticket, including fuel surcharges—especially if you use miles to upgrade to first class.

Ms Rogers' full article is here, and worth a click-through, but her focus on in-flight WiFi got me thinking. Gulliver has long wondered about the practicality of charging for in-flight WiFi, but, anecdotally at least, it seems to be catching on—especially as providers move to more logical pricing strategies and travellers' attitudes change. Twenty bucks for two hours of internet access seems like a rip-off to a lot of people. But $4 is another story entirely. Too bad (and this is where Ms Rogers' "know your corporate reimbursement policies" tip comes into play) that many employers still won't reimburse for in-flight WiFi, however cheap it is. Do any Gulliver readers get reimbursed for in-flight internet? What about other ancillary fees? Have you been forced to take the hit when your bosses don't pony up? Let us know in the comments.

On a different note, LifeHacker's Melanie Pinola reports that a company called Room 77 is putting together a sort of Google Street View for hotel rooms—a database that will "show you the actual view from your room before you book." (The software actually relies on Google Earth technology.) The database will also supposedly let you look at your room's location on hotel floor plans—something that will probably matter more to business travellers than getting a room with a nice view. What would be most useful, of course, would be real photos of the actual rooms in question. Paying people to take those photos would require a massive investment of time and money, but Room 77 hopes that its users will contribute their own photos and reviews of their rooms to the company's database. If the service catches on, that crowdsourcing element could add a lot of value. But like all crowdsourced review sites, Room 77 will likely be vulnerable to cheating and manipulation by the reviewees.

Anyway, Room 77 is currently in a public beta, and only features views from hotels in a small selection of cities so far. But if you're travelling to London or a few big American cities, it's probably worth checking out. If you end up using it, come back and let us know what you think.