I can't find their M-W-F Newsletter or the Letters to the Editor. I loved these two items, does anyone know where they went or why?<BR><BR>Thanks in advance,<BR>Curious

Maybe the overly zealous Fodor's censors deleted them?

they are doing some funny things over at Frommers -- I can only presume they are having financial troubles with the online site and that newsletter. I peruse their forums at times and they just revamped the format in a bad way IMO. I wrote a letter of complaint as it was rather nice before (the looks and features). Aside from the colors which are really ugly (brown tones on headers), they reduced the typesize of the post headings so it is barely readable to me. They did this to add a lot of advertising running along the side, I think, to gain revenue.<BR><BR>ALong with that, they revamped the look in general (which is also of the mud tones) and deleted all references to the newsletter. I wrote an email to ask about that, also (along with complaining about the redesign)--they haven't responded, probably wont. But, prior history was they got carried away and had a Europe newsletter for a while, which was redundant and boring as the regular one had European features in it. They got tired of that after a while and stopped writing the Eur. one.<BR><BR>Then, a while ago, they went from 5 times a week to only 3 for the newsletter. Now, if you subscribe you still get a mishmash of odd features 3 times a week, but you can't find it online. They have eliminated reader letters, which was the main feature I read consistently. So it isn't that good any more, any way. Some of the features are lame tips from their editors on packing, etc, rather than real travel or bargain items as before when all the features were useful.<BR><BR>I suspect removing it from the web site is the first step towards it disappearing entirely. All of this is complete speculation as they did not respond to my email on these issues from several days ago.

Frommer's guides had until recently been published by a company called Hungry Minds. Hungry Minds was recently acquired by a publication house called John Wiley & Sons. This may have something to do with what's going on.<BR><BR>BC

I wouldn;t think that failure to respond to an e-mail means much. There has been widespread failure (by Fodors) to respond to e-mails from visitors to THIS forum - - and I don't think it means much here either.<BR><BR>Just guessing - - but I would put more stock on the fact that the Frommer's "forum(s)" don't get even a small fraction of the traffic (participation? I guess none of "us" really knows what is the true traffic volume) - - of this forum.<BR><BR>But nonoe of these online services pays for itself, I wouldn't think. Fodors is finally generating a little bit of "pop-under" advertising revenue - - but it can't be all that much.<BR><BR>And I think that sales of travel books are down (but I don't have any actual data on this) - - so it's a tough time for them.<BR><BR>I used to subscribe to the Frommer's newletter on my hotmail account. not sure why I didn't re-subscribe to my usa.net account.<BR><BR>There was usually something interesting to read, at least a few times a week.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

topping<BR>

<BR>I heard Arthur Frommer was retiring.<BR><BR>The site, which used to be so excellent, particularly for budget travelers, has been going downhill for months.

Rex, I never said that failure to respond to my email meant anything. All of my comments and speculations were in regard to my experience with the site and newsletter.

I used to start everyday w/getting my coffee, loggin on, looking at Frommer's Newsletter, then on to the Fodor's Forums (then on to my work) . . . then Frommer's went to M-W-F and I learned to hate Tu/Thrs. . . now I have no Frommer's at all . . . thank goodness, I still have you!<BR><BR>I wrote to Frommer's and received a reply that I would have to register and then I would receive the newsletter by email (I didn't quite understand because I was already registered to receive the newsletter via email).<BR><BR>I registered again and when I did receive the M-W-F newsletter, it was nothing like what I had been receiving and NO LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, which was the very best part. So sad to see a great site go astray.<BR><BR>I surely hope it doesn't happen to Fodor's!!

I was also sorry to see the change in Frommer's site. I found it was a good resource for a number of things that I was interestd in. I am no longer accessing it as I now find it blah. Hope Fodor's doesn't revamp any more than it did recently.

Did Frommers eliminate a Budget Travel section from the web site? I visited earlier today, and couldn't find anything helpful for the budget traveler, which didn't used to be the case.

as Frommers goes down, down, down the drain...

The most recent problem I encountered there was no longer being able to search prior newsletters, where much of the current topical information is. Now it seems to be a search of items from the guidebooks, with an occasional deal thrown in.

According to the most recent issue of Budget Travel Magazine (the hard copy one) they are changing from 6 issues a year to 10 and redoing their web site. The changes are scheduled to be complete by September. Perhaps this is what's going on.

I never did think Frommer's website was as good as Fodor's (although I like Frommer's guidebooks better), but I did check Frommer's website first thing every morning for the newsletter and was disappointed when it went to only three days a week. The more recent vanishing of the newsletter altogether is unfortunate. Thank goodness Fodor's is still here (although I still don't understand why we can't access the old hosted forums just for reference -- there was lots of good advice there).

I am subscribed to the Frommer's newsletter by e-mail, but when I open the mail and read the list of articles, none of the links will work. Anybody else having this problem?

I also saw the note about the Mag. going from 6 to 10 issues per year. A few months ago I also read something where Arthur Frommers wife was not going to be working on the web site anymore. Seems it started downhill at that point.