This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertising Disclosure, visit this page.

Share Your Own TipsShare Your Own Tips!
With all the great feedback we’ve received on our Travel Tips of the Day, we’ve seen a lot of really great tips submitted by you—our readers. All great travel wisdom deserves to be shared (that’s why I started this site in the first place), so starting a week from today, we’ll be featuring a reader-submitted tip as our Travel Tip of the Day every Friday!

To share your own tip, send it in an email to whitney@johnnyjet.com. Simple as that!

To kick things off, here’s a little piece of wisdom from reader M. Miller, who noted that when checking a bag, you should “ALWAYS” check your luggage claim tag to make sure that there isn’t a mistake—and your bag isn’t tagged to the wrong final destination!

With so many places to go these days, and so many different ways to travel, it’s more important than ever to pay your travel wisdom forward (travel is all about learning, in the end). So please, share away, and help make travel just a little bit easier for someone else!

 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Tried this tip? Let me know in the comments!
Want to see more tips? Click here for all 157!

Want even more travel tips? Subscribe to the Daily Travel Tip newsletter! All you have to do is sign up for the weekly newsletter by filling in your email address and checking the Daily Travel Tip box in the top-right corner of the homepage.

If you already subscribe to the newsletter, fill in your email and check the Daily Travel Tip box in the same top-right corner of the homepage and you’ll receive an email with a link to update your JohnnyJet.com preferences. On that page, just click the Daily Travel Tip box and Update Profile and you’ll have Johnny’s best tips, straight to your inbox each day. And don’t worry—it’s easier than it sounds!

15 Comments On "Travel Tip of the Day: Share Your Own Tips!"
  1. naoma foreman|

    How do you choose your people to write a column about their travels? Some are interesting — others – not so much. I’d like to contribute\

    1. Johnny Jet|

      They are usually folks in the travel industry who travel a lot. How much do you fly a year or how many countries have you been to?

  2. wgchinn|

    Remember that bus or rental car shuttle driver that put your luggage in/out and gave you a speech on the sights along the route with multiple stops to the hotel/airport? Plus he got you there during local rush hour safely. Although you are in a rush to check-in, thank him with a couple of dollars so he feels appreciated.

  3. Paul Friedman|

    I came to this page because of your link requesting using the tip of checking luggage tags before leaving the ticket counter. There is no specific place to comment on your guest tip of the week.

    I discovered this tip years ago and continued to practice after my baggage tags neglected to include the second portion of my flight that day. So it stayed in the intermediate city until the airline went looking for it. This is a modern corollary to the 16th century proverb ‘A stitch in time saves 9’.

    1. Johnny Jet|

      This area works. Thanks for the feedback

  4. Sue Ciappara|

    Make yourself known to the hotel prior to your arrival. A hotel can welcome several arrivals on one day, that’s plenty of rooms to assign on a daily basis! How do you differentiate yourself from the rest, and get what you truly deserve and want ?
    Our Tip – Make yourself known, send the hotel an email and introduce yourself.
    Content Tips :
    – Your arrival time, will help getting your room ready.
    – If you have been their guest before, mention it.
    – If reading trip advisor comments helped in your decision of choosing the hotel, mention it.
    – If you are celebrating an occasion, go ahead and let them know.
    – Items that you would like to have in your room
    – Ask about their internet service
    And the list can go on and on
    By all means, this does not necessary mean you will get a free upgrade, but you definitely stand a better chance on getting the best room for the day ( especially if a hotel is looking at high occupancies on the day)
    Stand out from the crowd and get what you want.

  5. Angelica|

    Here are some of my tips:
    – Being loyal has it’s advantages! You can get spa discounts or free WiFi
    – Dont book from large reservation portals as they may up-charge you. Try booking trough http://www.reservationcounter.com/
    -Try out the free app Hotel Quickly!
    – Collect Points! You can get a 700$ room for around 100$ so it is worth it!

    I hope this helps :)

  6. Bonnie Shoemaker|

    About your lost driver’s license, so sorry for what you had to go through and the expense! That happened to my boss while traveling and it delayed her return trip home. She remembered using it to check in for her flight out and sticking it in her jacket pocket. It fell out somewhere and trying to check in for the return flight was when she discovered it was missing.

    Thankfully, it has never happened to me, but the lesson I learned from her experience was to use your passport at the airport to check-in, even if you are traveling domestically. The passport is bigger and heavier, easier to find in your bag, and you have a better chance of hearing/feeling it hit the floor than you would if you dropped your DL. If you put your passport in a pocket you are more likely to feel it and find it easier. So far, so good!

    1. Johnny Jet|

      Thanks for the tip!

  7. Dave D|

    Pain in the ears while flying is caused by lower pressure at higher altitude. The equalization of pressure on the eardrum is via the eustachion tubes which drains the space behind the eardrum into the throat. A cold or allergies causes mucous to clog the eustachion tubes. Using the 3 methods mentioned can force mucous farther toward the eardrum and cause more problems (and inner ear infections). I have found that doing the opposite by sucking while holding the nose will draw the mucous out of the tubes and better equalizing the pressure which needs to be lowered not increased.

  8. Dave D|

    Pain in the ears while flying is caused by lower pressure at higher altitude. The equalization of pressure on the eardrum is via the eustachion tubes which drains the space behind the eardrum into the throat. A cold or allergies causes mucous to clog the eustachion tubes. Using the 3 methods mentioned can force mucous farther toward the eardrum and cause more problems (and inner ear infections). I have found that doing the opposite by sucking while holding the nose will draw the mucous out of the tubes and better equalizing the pressure which needs to be lowered not increased. Chewing gum (an old tried and true method) exercises the muscles that help cause drainage as well.

  9. Tak Nomura|

    Jet recommends AAA for travel discounts, but when we booked with AAA, the price turned out to be 30% more than if we had made our own hotel reservations. Since we followed his recommendations, we would like to get a $300 refund from him. The hotel was Miyako Hotel in Los Angeles on 1st Street for September 19 to 22.

  10. Faizan Langawala|

    I am following your blog from a long time and the tips you have shared with your travel experience are always helpful for the travelers like me. I am a tour operator myself and I always advice the travelers to put the local currency with you so you don’t have to face problem in case of any urgent need or emergency. Never change your currency from Airports and always try to look for money exchange counter rates, whenever you find a one good place just exchange your currency from there. I am grateful for you to helping me in developing a nature of helping people by giving them the advises or tips that you have learn from your experiences during travel. With your inspiration i start writing my own blog and i would love if you check my website (www.0km.com.pk) and share your feedback about how to improve my learning skills. I also tried to send you email but there is no reply. thanks

  11. Tom Ellison|

    Your readers should try to avoid Avis Rental Car’s roadside assistance service if at all possible. I recently had a month-long rental and needed a jump start one morning. I could have asked a neighbor or used my own car insurance roadside assistance, but I saw on the Avis folder that “all rentals include roadside assistance,” or words to that effect, WITHOUT noting that the renter would be responsible for any charges. I ended up being charged $218 for the jump start, and numerous emails to Avis complaining did absolutely no good.

  12. Jim Cook|

    We just flew to Italy on an American ticket that included three legs (Charlotte to O’Hare, O’Hare to Madrid, and Madrid to Naples, with the transatlantic flight labeled an American flight operated by Iberia, and the flight to Naples listed as operated by Iberia Express). I had read on the One World site that my Platinum Pro status with American would allow me to have access to American and One World lounges, and would allow me to select seats, and obtain preferred seats. When we received our itinerary, it said that I couldn’t select seats on the Iberia legs or on a return leg on British Airways, and that I needed to contact those airlines directly. I tried Iberia on their website, and although they had our tickets in the system, they said I could not select seats, and I needed to call the airline. I called, and they said I needed to do it on their website, but couldn’t until I checked in online the day before flying. I called American to see if they could help, and they could not. I also asked if they could help with British Airways seat assignment. Fortunately, they found that we had been assigned exit row seats, and then they appeared in the American itinerary in the American app. On the day before flying, I tried to check in on the Iberia website, and it told me then that I couldn’t select seats nor check in online, and could only check in and obtain seats at the airport (despite the Iberia site saying that Sapphire members could get early seat assignment). So, we flew from CLT to OHare, and found that we needed to go outside of security to get checked in with Iberia and get our seat assignments. We did that, and by then, no surprise, there were no preferred seats available for either our transatlantic or Madrid to Naples flights.

    I write this to say that the One World assurances of benefits have their limits, and Iberia seems to be particularly stingy. We were able to use the Iberia lounge in Madrid (although finding it took a long time, including three requests for help to get to the right lounge). But the lack of ability to select seats and obtain preferred seats made the trip much less pleasant, and the contradictory directions from Iberia that were just wrong added unnecessary stress to our trip. In addition, the flight to Naples (on Iberia Express) had no complimentary drinks of any kind, and both flights were late (from OHare was about 2 hours late, and from Madrid was about a half hour late). I’m inclined to not fly Iberia again, and will be more attentive to which One World carriers American is using, so I can avoid Iberia. I did get the sense that perhaps Iberia was being difficult with seat assignments and checking because the basic economy fare purchased from American translated into Iberia’s lowest fare. But that doesn’t explain their miscommunication and the other problems.

    Do you know if this is a common occurrence with One World partners? Is there any place that unsuspecting travelers can discover the restrictive policies of the carriers ahead of time, in a way that could be trusted, so unpleasant surprises don’t occur?

Leave a Reply

Required fields are marked *

Recent posts