05
For our 50th wedding anniversary in June ’04, my wife and I were each given a $400 gift certificate for Icelandair travel. The gift certificate says that tickets are “to be issued in exchange for any international round trip ticket on Icelandair.” The gift certificate receipts state, “$400 good for air travel on Icelandair to any destination from any of our gateways.”
1. On Feb. 17, ’05, we went to Gare de Lyon in Paris to activate our multi-country saverpass (seven days, four countries, two people, good for two months) and make seat reservations for travel starting on Feb. 21 to/within/from Italy and Belgium.
FrenchRail (SNCF) said they will not validate passes until the actual day of travel for trains that do not need a seat reservation or until the day you are ready to make a seat reservation for future travel. I told them that we were going to Chartres that afternoon just to get the pass activated.
• Just once in your life you owe yourself a flight on Singapore Airlines in “Raffles Class.”
While my wife, Joan, and I were in Thailand in February ’05, our guide told us that as of that month, all Thai banks charge a fee of 33 baht (near 87¢ U.S.) for each travelers’ check cashed, so it’s cheaper to carry 100-dollar checks than 20-dollar checks.
For example, one bank with an exchange rate of 38.29 baht per dollar charged us a fee of 5 x 33 = 165 baht when we cashed five 20-dollar travelers’ checks. That’s a fee of 4.31%. If I had cashed one 100-dollar check instead, the 33-baht fee would have been only 0.86%.
by Lee Daley, Sausalito, CA
On ITALY, March ’05. . .
Dear Globetrotter:
Welcome to the 351st issue of your monthly overseas travel magazine.