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Airfares to Greece are going up quickly, but there are still deals to be found if you can be flexible with your plans.
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Headed to Europe? What You Need to Know
BY STEVE DINNEN
Yes, you can vacation in Europe. And with a little flexibility and some research you might actually grab an affordable airfare. I learned this when I decided to go to Greece in August. Business class to Athens seemed reasonable – a shade under $2,000. But then Greece decided to reopen to tourists like me, and before I bought my passage, the fare doubled. Right before press time I rechecked and a ticket from Des Moines to Chicago, and then nonstop to Athens on American, had ballooned to $5,091. Delta and United were in the $4,300 range.
For some reason, fares from other cities were way less. So I grabbed one out of Los Angeles for around $2,400. Yes, I have to fly west to start a journey that is completely the other direction but even with the added fare of getting to Los Angeles, I saved enough to buy all the calamari I can swallow as I sit at a beachside cafe on some little Greek island.
Airlines are being aggressive with their pricing this summer. They still have reduced frequencies, and thus capacities, so the planes that are filling up as the world eases its COVID restrictions are fetching primo prices. But they do sometimes offer deals, so if you’re flexible, and can go to Los Angeles, you might save serious money. These deals can disappear quickly, so you or your travel agent need to be alert.
Along with reopening, the Greeks implemented a COVID protocol. The airline guided me to a Greek government site, where I registered and gave them the dates of my COVID vaccines. While there is no "vaccine passport" for entry, you’ll need to follow their formula or you won’t be allowed in. Spain is doing this as well.
The United States may soon join the European Union’s “white list” of countries whose citizens are free to visit. For now, COVID-permitted travel to Europe is decided by individual member nations. Just as you are keeping a watchful eye on airfare deals, you’ll want to do double duty and look for changing travel restrictions. To help matters, it will pay to fly directly to the country you intend to visit. You do not, for instance, want to fly to Greece by way of a stop in London. That would mean you'd have to satisfy both Greek and British travel authorities. That complicates matters. And we don’t need any more complications this year.
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Consider how your company’s own parental leave policy can evolve from a check-the-box benefit to becoming a competitive edge for candidates.
... Read more »
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Skip First-Class Seats on Regional Flights in Europe
BY STEVE DINNEN
If you’re flying to Bordeaux this summer, you’ll enjoy the wine way more than the crummy first-class seats that European airlines have foisted off on travelers. For all the comfort and grace they offer on getting you across the Atlantic, they take it back once they tuck you into a regional jet that ferries you those last miles from the gateway cities of Paris, London and Frankfurt.
Seating arrangements that every European airline uses on regional or inter-European flights are at fault. Economy seats are a little less roomy than those offered by U.S. carriers, but business and first class are completely inferior. First class on a United flight on a plane to Chicago merits a seat that is 20 inches wide, with 37 inches of legroom (the overseas portion is 20.6 inches wide with 78 inches of leg-bedding room). Once in Europe, United’s partner Lufthansa will stuff you into a seat with 17.5 inches of width and 31 inches of legroom. That’s what you get in economy on U.S. carriers (and is no different from what economy passengers get on Lufthansa, either).
Lufthansa figures it’s giving you royal treatment because the seat next to a first-class passenger is left open. Big deal. You still have an economy seat, which you paid a premium price for. British, Air France, KLM, SAS – they all have these same substandard seats. There’s no avoiding them.
Your workaround on this is to just get off the plane at the gateway city when you first land in Europe and rent a car. Or maybe take a train. That is a better experience than Amtrak.
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Report: 14% of Financial Advisers Recommend Crypto
BY ELISABETH BUCHWALD FOR MARKETWATCH.COM
Despite Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin’s wild ride last month, more financial advisers than ever are recommending that their clients have some crypto in their portfolios.
Some 14% of financial advisers have already added cryptocurrencies to their clients’ portfolios or are recommending it to them, according to a surveyreleased Tuesday of 529 financial advisers conducted by the Financial Planning Association in March.
That’s up by 13 percentage points from last year when fewer than 1% of advisers were recommending it, the poll found. More than a quarter (26%) of advisers are planning to recommend or add crypto to their clients’ portfolios in the coming year. Last year, however, none of the 242 respondents to the same survey anticipated that they’d recommend crypto to their clients in 2021, the survey — commissioned by Onramp Invest, a crypto portfolio management software company — concluded.
So why the change of heart? Clients appear to be less concerned about asset market volatility this year compared with last, despite the rollercoaster ride in cryptocurrencies in recent months. READ MORE.
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Pandemic Exacerbates Economic Divide
BY MICHELLE SINGLETARY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Millions lost their jobs because of the pandemic. Tens of millions of Americans needed federal stimulus payments to put food on the table.
Many renters are bracing for possible eviction notices. Of all U.S. adults living in renter households, about 15% (almost 1 in 7) said they were behind on rent payments as of the two weeks ending May 10, according to a Census Bureau survey that aims to capture pandemic-era hardship.
Then there is the other America, where people not only kept their jobs but were able to create more wealth for themselves despite one of the worst economic downturns in this country’s history. The stark economic divide can be seen in the most recent quarterly retirement analysis by Fidelity Investments.
“Despite the financial challenges caused by the continued impact of the pandemic on the global economy, average balances across more than 30 million IRA, 401(k), and 403(b) retirement accounts reached record levels,” reported Fidelity, one of the country’s largest administrators of workplace retirement accounts. READ MORE.
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