Tag Archives: frequent flyer miles

Freelancer Freebies–No Longer Free?

freelance travel writingby Joe Wallace

I’ve done a lot of travel writing in one form or another–from half-hour long television scripts for the Korea Destinations series aired by the American Forces Network to quick little blog posts about road tripping across the USA, I’ve taken every kind of transportation imaginable.

Part of the trick to being a successful traveler, never mind being a good travel writer, is to take full advantage of every discount and price cut you can. You learn to pounce on frequent flyer miles, AAA, any and everything you can find.

But the times are definitely changing. Just ask the author of this ABC News post about fuel surcharges for supposedly free air travel purchased with frequent flyer miles. British Airways apparently tacked on a whopping $500 surcharge to an otherwise “free” flight.

It’s bad enough that flyers must pay to check baggage, eat overpriced food, and endure intrusive security pat-downs. Now this? In America it’s more isolated according to the ABC story, but it’s definitely an industry trend worth keeping an eye on.

The purpose of this post isn’t to rant about how unfair that particular surcharge is. Instead, I’d like to draw attention to the nickel-and-dime practices as a whole to raise some awareness about how much it’s costing you to do things directly related to the freelance life.

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