TravelPulse Podcast: No One 'Falls' Overboard, Airline CEOs in Coach, Fake Airport Outlets and More

The TravelPulse Podcast is once again all-new this week with host Mark Murphy diving into all things travel, starting with this past weekend's viral story about a woman falling overboard from a cruise ship in the Adriatic Sea.

"If you've ever been on a cruise ship, you have to try to get off the ship," said Murphy. "Lo and behold, 24 hours after this woman credited her yoga training and a few other things for her success in surviving 10 hours in the water and treading water for that period of time, we learn that she had a drunken fight with her boyfriend and literally jumped off the boat."

"Why are they not going after her for the expense of the cruise ship circling back, paying for the other vessels that came to her aid?"

Listen to episode four of "TravelPulse: The Intersection of Travel—Where Politics, Finance, and Travel Meet" in its entirety:

The travel expert also shares his thoughts on airline CEOs giving interviews from coach.

"That, to be frank, was just dumb. If you do a 15-minute interview sitting in a box, you could do that. I could do it locked in a cage. I could do it hanging upside down. That doesn't mean I want to travel to Shanghai for 16 hours in a box or a cage," he added. "There's a big difference between sitting there for a 15-minute interview and flying across the country."

Later, Murphy explains how travelers can avoid getting scammed by fake travel agents or advisors based on a recent incident that was widely reported.

"In a nutshell, don't hand over cash to somebody who claims to be something. Don't do PayPal because there's no recourse. You can not get your money back," said Murphy. "But if you used a credit card, any reputable agent doesn't hold the money. They are basically a pass-through entity, that credit card transaction will take place for the cruise line sailing you want to take, it will take place as the merchant of record for Norwegian Cruise Line, for example, so you don't need to give the agent anything. In fact, most agents won't even take a credit card, let alone cash for a trip."

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