Do any of you suscribe to the Consumer Reports Travel Newsletter?
 

Will anyone give me any input on this travel newsletter? I keep getting requests to suscribe.<BR>Thank you.

I subscribe. I find it to be useful strategically, but I have not found much short term tactical advantage to it. It does keep me up on what is going on in the travel world.<BR>For that reason alone, I think it is worth what I pay for it. <BR><BR>If you are a cruise line user, I think it might be more valuable relatively speaking. <BR><BR>My needs are mostly for airfares, and I find that my travel agent consistently comes up with better fares than what I can find despite frequent scanning on Internet. Get me a good airfare, and I can do the rest, except for rental cars, where, once again, my agent beats what I can find. <BR> <BR>That is of course my reaction. Your take on it may be different. <BR><BR>Does a local library have a copy that you could scan and get more of an idea of what the newsletter covers?<BR>

I subscribe, but it's coming to the end of the subscription and I will not renew. As Bob said, it's good if you like cruises, or cheap domestic travel (airlines and hotels), but does not have features, except every so often, for European travelers and European airlines. This month it did have an article about budget travel in London and Paris, but it was nothing I haven't discovered on my own.<BR><BR>The best information I received from the newsletter was telephone numbers for discount hotel brokers in the U.S. and Canada, which paid off on our travels to the D.C. and eastern seaboard area, and up in Seattle/Vancouver.

Thanks. I already suscribe to Frommer's Budget Traveler and National Geographic Travel magazine.<BR>Thought maybe it might offer something different.<BR>I went on one cruise in my life and after five years I still say "never again".<BR>

ITN (International travel News) is a very good monthly publication that relies a lot on input from readers. You can request a free copy at http://www.intltravelnews.com

Thanks JP. I sent for a copy.

Yes, I subscribe. I think the valuable content has gone downhill over the past few years. They used to have yearly articles on European hotel consolidators which saved me tons of $ but for some reason they discontinued it. I still subscribe worrying that I'll miss something but I haven't really learned anything new for quite some time.

I also subscribe and it used to be great but it has gone down seriously in quality over the last several years. Ed Perkins as the editor did a terrific job. Under Ed's care there were a huge number of useful articles such as list of places to stay in a variety of locations such as Rome and the least expensive ways of getting rooms at those hotels,surveys of vacation rentals in a variety of locations, analysis of half off hotel room programs, consolidator air tickets, etc. The current work is probably about 20% as good as the work done by this newsletter 5 years ago. It occasionally now will publish something useful like the july 2001 isuue which gave a good analysis of economy seating in all the major aircraft of the major airlines but these excellent pieces of travel info are now uncommon.<BR>It used to be the best source of how to get to where you were going and where to stay or how to travel when you got there at the best possible price. I find the publication to be of minimal use these days.