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A Travelers Guide To Currency Exchange
Exchanging currency is something frequent travelers must become
familiar with. There are many different currencies around the
world. Finding out how to exchange currency and where to do it
can help travelers get the most out of their money.
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Getting a Bargain Vacation: Travel at the Off Times
For many people, a vacation is just too expensive. They don't think they can afford to go someplace nice because they don't have the money to do it. But often, this is just because they are looking only at the "peak" times to travel.
What is a...
RoomSaver.com Reels in Travelers Who Prefer to Plan Ahead
July 6, 2005- RoomSaver.com, an online showroom of over 10,000 hotel coupons across the US and a division of Trader Publishing Company announced today that interest in online reservations has increased by 10 percent in the last two years. Members...
Travel to Turkey for the 2006 Total Solar Eclipse
Wednesday March 29th 2006 will be a very special day in Turkey. Shortly before two o'clock in the afternoon local time an eerie darkness will descend across the land. Birds will begin to roost and streetlights will flicker on as the sun slips behind...
Travelling To Spain - The Spanish Regional Travel Guide
Up to 60 million visitors travel to Spain every year to delight in the country’s 315 sunny days and its rich and diverse history and culture. As a result the Spanish government spend millions of Euros per year on the travel and transport...
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Will You Be a Trusted Traveler?
Editor: The following article is offered for your free use providing the Resource Box at the end is included.
WILL YOU BE A TRUSTED TRAVELER?
By Laura Quarantiello
© Tiare Publications
404 words
Security checkpoints have become a genuine pain for air travelers. Where once you could breeze right through the
x-ray scanner and head for the boarding gate, now you must endure careful checks of your carry-on luggage and perhaps even of your person. It's the legacy of September 11th and a
necessary step toward keeping air travelers safe. But the delays are increasing and passengers are grumbling. Frequent flyers,especially, are complaining about the slowdown and the hassle caused by long security lines.
Enter the Trusted Traveler program, the brainchild of an airline industry committee working on ways to improve airport security. With Trusted Traveler, anyone who wanted to forgo long airport security lines would authorize the government to conduct a
background check and take their thumbprint or an iris scan of their
eyes. Once cleared, they would receive an identification card encrypted with their "biometric ID." Airports would have reserved checkpoints where passengers could present their card, have their fingerprint or iris scan matched to the card's information, and be passed through to the boarding area. This type of prescreening would reduce lengthy lines and let frequent travelers avoid much of the current airport hassle. "From my perspective, it makes
more sense to subject the people I know a lot about to a lesser degree of security and the people I don't know anything about to a greater
degree of security. It just makes a lot of sense to spend the finite amount of security resources we have on the folks who are unknown," says Dirk C. McMahon, Northwest Airlines Senior Vice President for Customer Service.
Experts say that the Trusted Traveler program won't appeal to everyone. Those who fly infrequently won't need to go through the rigorous background checks necessary to be labeled a trusted
traveler, and those with something to hide or those with concerns about privacy won't want the government checking their bona fides. For frequent travelers, however, the program could mean valuable minutes saved, hassles avoided, and a smoother airport experience.
For now the program is just an idea; the Air Transport Association is working on a proposal for the Transportation Security Administration and the Homeland Security Department that it hopes will put a 90-day pilot project at Northwest and Midwest Express using already-screened airline personnel into operation by the end of the year. If all goes according to plan, the Trusted Traveler program could be in place at Northwest
by mid-2003.
(end)
About the Author
Laura Quarantiello is a freelancewriter specializing in air traveland the airline industry. She is the author of “Air-Ways:The Insider’s Guide to Air Travel.
http://www.tiare.com/airways.htm
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