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Help Me: Should We Accept Credit Cards for Our Tours?

It’s about 2 a.m. I’m in Vienna, still spinning after an exciting day in Bratislava, but also burdened with office work. (Wi-Fi in the room is both good and bad.)

I could use some advice. Here’s the situation: Over the years with our tour program, I’ve done my best to be idealistic and think creatively of ways to keep things as affordable as possible. For example, I’ve long believed that it was a kind of “tough love” not to build in the roughly $10-a-day extra cost to accept credit cards. We’ve long accepted credit cards for individual retail purchases and for deposits on tours. But for such a big-ticket item — the tour balance — it seemed careless to invite the banks into the already tight equation. Requiring payment by cash or check has allowed us to keep our tours more affordable. (It seemed a shame to give a bank $200 so a tour member could have the convenience of using their credit card rather than writing a check to take a 20-day tour.)

As we get ready to price and promote our tours for 2011, we have a debate among our staff about the wisdom of this, and perhaps I’m thinking too small.

It’s just a basic business truth: Anyone accepting credit cards is passing that fee along to their customers. In the past, the credit-card companies have managed to make it illegal for companies like ours to accept credit cards for an extra fee (to cover the credit-card company’s fee). I’ve learned that now we are allowed to discount our tours to those who pay cash. But if we do that, we still must advertise our tours at the full, needlessly bloated cost. (I don’t entertain frequent-flier miles concerns in this debate, because I don’t believe in that marketing ploy — but that’s a different discussion.)

In this day and age, people expect to pay by credit card. So what’s better — a 12-day Portugal tour for $2,800 cash, or a 12-day Portugal tour for $2,900 with credit card? Why?

Thanks for your input.

Update as of July 2:
After reading everyone’s comments, it’s clear that people want the credit card option. Thanks so much for your feedback. This has been a learning experience for me…very interesting reading. From a business point of view, I don’t think any company simply “eats” their added credit card expenses. (When we consume in a way that adds to the cost of the product, the consumers ultimately pay for it.) I must say I’m impressed by how readily we embrace a system that adds 3 percent to the cost of everything we purchase. But I’m over it now. So: Credit cards, here we come.

For the launch of our 2011 tours this fall, we’ll find a way to give credit-card users a choice for the first time — and, to avoid passing the added cost of accepting credit cards on to our cash-paying customers, we’ll give cash users some savings. The main thing and the good news here: This change will help more people enjoy the wonders of Europe — and we’ll have the chance to turn more travelers into happy customers. Thanks again for your help.

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Help me: Should we accept credit cards for our tours?

It’s about 2am. I’m in Vienna, still spinning after an exciting day in Bratislava but also burdened with office work. (Wi-fi in the room is both good and bad.) I could use some advice. Here’s the situation. With our tour program I’ve done my best to be idealistic and think creatively of ways to keep things as affordable as possible. For example, when I learned how huge the commission was for travel insurance and how tour companies and travel agencies made it standard operating procedure to cover their exposure by recommending it for interruption and cancellation losses, I decided it was disingenuous to recommend it. We would “self-insure” and include a similar coverage in our tour price without injecting the extra cost of the insurance companies. This provided a service (taking away the stress of losing money if you needed to cancel) at a far smaller cost than out-sourcing it the conventional way. In the spirit of “keeping it in the family” rather than bringing in a needless middle man which would jack up the costs of travel that we have included it. I’ve also long believed that it was a kind of tough love to not build in the roughly $10 a day cost to accept credit cards in order to be able to keep our tours more affordable. It seemed a shame to give a bank $200 so a tour member could have the convenience of using their credit card rather than writing a check to take a 20 day tour. We’ve long accepted credit cards for individual retail purchases and for deposits on tours. But for such a big ticket item, the tour balance, it seemed careless to invite the banks into the already tight equation. But we have a debate among our staff about the wisdom of this and perhaps I’m thinking too small. It’s just a basic business truth: anyone accepting credit cards is passing that fee along to their customers. The credit card companies have managed to make it illegal for companies like ours to accept credit cards for an extra fee to cover their fee but I understand we can discount our tours to those who pay cash. But if we do that, we still need to advertise our tours for the full needlessly bloated cost. (I don’t entertain frequent flier miles concerns in this debate because I don’t believe in that marketing ploy — but that’s a different discussion.) In this day and age, people expect to pay by credit card. What would you prefer? A company that kept the cost down a bit (as explained above) but required you to mail in a check or the convenience to simply go to the web site, give your credit card, and be on board. Why? Thanks for your help.

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Cream and Dream in Prague

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Just between you and me, 25 years as a tour guide got me burned out on gelato. I remember as a kid swooning over “Italian Ice Cream” in Germany. And then I oversaw two decades of “it’s to die for” gelato appreciation. Now, as I’m rustling through Europe for four months out of five, I rarely succumb to the temptation to eat ice cream. (It’s a key element to my extremely simple weight-loss program over here.) Yesterday, I was just finishing up my visit to Prague Castle, which brags it’s the biggest anywhere. If exhausting is a measure of big, I’ll buy that claim. You go through the castle like a pinball — it’s all downhill, and everyone funnels out the lower gate.

An incredibly charming schoolboy was hawking Prague’s favorite ice cream. It’s called “Cream and Dream,” which almost makes me blush. Anyway, he lured me in for a taste. Banana was his favorite, so I tried it. I purchased a cone. It almost lived up to its name.

Across the way, I had to update the Barbie Doll Museum. It’s one of those museums that sounds silly, yet is actually great — a vast collection of all things Barbie, dating back to 1959, with social commentary. Looking at the buxom first edition, you can understand why these sirens of capitalist discontent that objectified women’s bodies weren’t allowed here until 1989. (I can’t resist a Nicaragua tangent: Like or loathe their economics, one of the great things about the Sandinistas was that they outlawed using women’s bodies as advertising tools.) I had to tour the Barbie Museum fast because they didn’t let in ice cream. I parked my guide at the stairwell, licking hers and protecting mine.

Barbie in the can and ice cream gone, our next stop was just across the castle lane — the Lobkowicz Palace. I’ve been 10 days now in Hungary and the Czech Republic. They both have a passion for charging admission to dreary palaces stripped bare by the communists and today offering little more than new stucco on high vaulted ceilings as a rack upon which to hang boring stories of local nobles from centuries past.

Just an hour earlier, I had hated the Rosenberg Palace, which is now included in the Prague Castle combo-ticket to make up for the fact that the Golden Lane is closed. I have never understood the appeal of the Golden Lane (even though it’s one of the “Thousand Places to See Before You Die”), and hoped this would be a net plus. It wasn’t.

The Lobkowicz Palace is a new addition to our guidebook; it just opened a couple of years ago, and I’d yet to visit it. As it was late and I was running out of steam fast, I was going to wimp out and just check the details at the ticket booth, but a banner outside claimed it was “Prague’s Best Palace to Visit.” Those kinds of claims generally make me want to disprove them — as they are generally misleading come-ons. So I rallied and got a ticket. It included an audioguide narrated by the count of the palace himself, William Lobkowicz. Audioguides like this one — in which noble heirs of palaces actually walk you through their grand halls and introduce you to great-great-grandpapa in musty old family portraits — are often wonderfully quirky and intimate.

The Lobkowicz audioguide was fabulous. I’m into these lately, with the work we’re doing on our own audio tours, and this one was lovingly designed and produced…and Mr. Lobkowicz had a perfect voice for the project. (Being a count has been outlawed now in the Czech Republic, so I need to bring him down to earth — “Mister” rather than “Count.”)

I was happy to be turned on by the Lobkowicz Palace. I appreciate that they include the audioguide in the visit, and that it brings the place to life and lets you get to know the family — which lost all their possession to the Nazis, got them back for three years after World War II, and then lost them all again to the communists. Now they are embracing the challenge of sharing their noble heritage with their country, and it’s a great gift to locals and foreign visitors alike.

Turning in the audioguide and ready to leave, I gave the clerk my card and told her to thank the count. She asked me if I’d like to meet him. Turns out he, his wife Sandra (a Romanian American he met at Boston College while in exile during the Cold War), and their key curator knew my work and were thrilled to be in the book. Like nobility all over 21st-century Europe, they are working hard to make their vast palaces economically viable as cultural attractions, and need the publicity guidebooks provide.

William and Sandra took me through the palace for a more intimate peek at things. We talked about post-Nazi restitution challenges and triumphs, and the fact that many nobles get a bad rap since the French Revolution. (“We’re just real people who own lots of big palaces.”)

Sitting down to coffee with the best view possible of Prague from their noble loggia, we brainstormed ways to get the palace more recognition. Suddenly a cute schoolboy joined the conversation. It was William junior… done selling ice cream for the day.

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Rue Cler: The Ultimate or Not?

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To commemorate the Smithsonian Presents Travels with Rick Steves magazine — now on sale online, and at newsstands nationwide — Rick is blogging about the 20 top destinations featured in that issue. One of those destinations is Paris’ best market street, Rue Cler.

As a guidebook researcher and travel writer, I’m inclined to look for the “ultimate” in each category: the ultimate medieval walled town in Germany (Rothenburg), the ultimate prehistoric stone fortress in Ireland (Dún Aenghus), the ultimate castle setting in Castile (Consuegra), the ultimate Riviera port town (Vernazza), the ultimate German enclave in Romania (Sighisoara), the ultimate medieval castle interior (Reifenstein castle, in northern Italy), the ultimate hike in England’s Lake District (Catbells above Keswick), the ultimate neighborhood pub in London (The Anglesea Arms, in South Kensington), the ultimate castle in North Wales (nope, I still can’t pick just one)…and the ultimate pedestrian market street in Paris (Rue Cler).

Travelers want “top tens”…favorites. Even our Smithsonian magazine project was driven by the appetite for readers and travelers to know The Best. We needed to offer not just “20 great destinations,” but Europe’s “top 20 destinations.” The new phenomenon in travel publishing is the demand for “top ten” books. I’ll play along, but who can really say “the best” or the “top ten”? (Perhaps that’s why I included England’s Blackpool in the Smithsonian “top 20” — just to playfully punk the whole notion.)

As consumers of information that shapes our travels, we need to see these lists for what they are: not the top, but a collection of favorites. In my work, once I declare a place “the best” or “the ultimate,” I know a rising tide of visitors will wash away some of its magic, and I need to be out there looking for a successor or another place in order to dilute the crowds. As far as Paris’ Rue Cler goes, you’d think there would be a bevy of pedestrian-only market streets with village charm offering alternative opportunities to feel the pulse of a Parisian neighborhood. Every time I get a suggestion, I track it down. And it doesn’t top my favorite. Rue Cler is tough to beat.

To me, Bamberg is really good, but it’s no Rothenburg. Santa Margherita Ligure is really good, but it’s no Vernazza. Burg Eltz is really good, but it’s no Reifenstein. The circular rock forts of the Ring of Kerry are really good, but they are no Dún Aenghus. And, in Paris, Rue Montorgueil is really good, but it’s no Rue Cler. Collect the bests. But as you sort through all the superlatives and all those “bests’ and “ultimates,” go ahead and disagree. Don’t let some fancy travel writer limit your freedom to find your own ultimates.

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Magyar Energy Drinks

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As my plane landed in Budapest, the pilot said, “Thank you for patronizing Lufthansa Airlines.”

Met at the airport by my friend and local guide, Peter, we hit the road immediately for Eger. My goal: to know Hungary outside of Budapest. Hungarophiles are frustrated by American travelers’ lack of respect for anything in Hungary outside its capital.

The capital city does dominate. In fact, in what other country is its biggest city ten times the size of its next-biggest? Roughly 20 percent of Hungary’s 10 million people live in greater Budapest. Athens — with 40 percent of Greece’s 10 million — is more dominant. But there’s no city in Hungary much more than 10 percent as big as its capital. (Debrecen is second, with around 250,000.)

There’s a quirky charm here. Thirty-six miles from the airport, we passed a town called Hatvan. That’s literally “Sixty” in Hungarian — named for being that many kilometers from Budapest. The fine little four-lane highway, built with EU money, felt like it was paved and painted yesterday. Tidy, wooden-railed overpasses make sure wild game (wild boar, deer, fox, and even frogs) can safely pass the traffic. Peter mentioned that in the communist times, only politicians and the elite could hunt. Now hunting is more accessible and popular.

Short tunnels come with the fanfare of a big one. The length of a land’s tunnels is a function of the height of its mountains. Hungary’s highest point is just 3,000 feet…so the tunnels are tiny. More than a thousand years ago, the Magyars migrated here from Asia and staked their claim to this basin, defined by a rim of mountains. All week here, the weather has been rolling through like a bowling ball. Everyone seems to know that if it stormed over there…it’s coming here.

With capitalism, life in Hungary has sped up. At a gas station mini-market, half the drink case is taken by energy drinks: Along with Red Bull, there’s Hell, Burn, Bomb, Playboy, Adrenalin, and Monster. Some of these exceed legal limits of power drinks in Western Europe.

We talked of the changes Hungary has experienced in the last 20 years. Peter remembered that when the Berlin Wall fell, he journeyed with his family as a schoolboy to Italy in their puddle-jumping Skoda car. They would roll down the autostrada, hugging the shoulder and marveling at how high-powered cars would zip by. In the last years of the Cold War, Hungarians were free to travel to Austria. Everyone had the same dream. They’d routinely bring home three things: refrigerator, color TV, and VCR. They’d put the TV and VCR inside the fridge. Then, in good Hungarian style, they’d pay duty on the fridge and tip the customs man — who wouldn’t look inside (where the TV and VCR were cooling).

In those days, there was a social ethic that it was OK to steal from your company or the state. Everyone cheated. The saying went: “If you don’t steal from the state…you steal from your family.”

Driving by Hungary’s Lake Balaton, the inland sea of this landlocked land, we saw huge communist-era hotels evoking the days when Eastern Europeans would all go to the same place for the same R&R. Poles would take a mountain break at Zakopane. Bulgarians hit the beach at Varna on the Black Sea. And Hungarians would enjoy Lake Balaton. Peter recalled how, back then, all Eastern European tourists toted the same brown-cased Soviet-made cameras. You could tell the year of an apartment by its wallpaper design. Grandiose scenes — like the Swiss Alp fantasy — might fill an entire wall. You’d stare at the wall and call it a vacation.

But all that is ancient history. Anyone under thirty barely remembers the communist times. Traveling in Hungary today, you enjoy a small country with an enormous past and an endearing pride. Hungarian-Americans seem to be notorious know-it-alls when they visit the old country. Several times, I heard them referred to as “New York Magyars” by locals who understand it’s a huge world out there…but there’s no place like home.