Christopher Elliott Travel columnist • Profile • E-mail

Travelers deserve a break in ’08. Too bad they won’t get one.

No reasonable traveler, travel expert, or wannabe-traveler can look at the wearisome events of 2007 (which I covered in an earlier column) and say, “No worries, 2008 will be great.” It’s impossible.

Last year travelers were hit with bad news on almost all fronts: Gridlock on the ground, in the skies, high fuel and lodging prices and a seemingly endless series of irritating surcharges.

Can things get any worse? You betcha.

First, let’s review a few numbers. The cost of travel is expected to rise an average of 4.5 percent in 2008, according Runzheimer International, which publishes the most authoritative forecast of travel prices. (Runzheimer’s projections are specific to business travel, but are widely seen as a gauge of overall prices.) That’s a little more than one percent above the current rate of inflation, which, on balance, isn’t so bad.

But if you’re looking for more good news, dream on. For travelers, surviving 2008 will be a matter of knowing what to expect and having a strategy to get around each roadblock. Here are eight of the most significant ones:

Inconvenient “convenience” fees
Imagine having to shell out a $2 “convenience fee” for using your credit card to pay for your next hotel room? How about a surcharge for reserving the exact type of rental car you wanted? Sound absurd? It isn’t, at least to the travel companies that are just waiting for the right time to implement these frivolous extras. People already cough up convenience fees for event tickets or to pay by credit card at the Department of Motor Vehicles. At least one carrier, Allegiant Air, is charging an $8.50 “convenience fee” for tickets booked through its Web site or call center. Watch for more of them next year.

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How to get around it: Disclosure of these fees will probably be negligible, which means you can negotiate your way out of paying them. Do it.

Even more stupid energy surcharges
Higher energy prices always send travel companies into an opportunistic frenzy. In December, the cruise line Star Clippers slapped an $8 fuel surcharge on future bookings. There’s just one little problem: Star Clippers operates a fleet of sailing ships. The Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association in December also encouraged its members to impose an energy surcharge on its guests because of “the ever-increasing price of crude oil and the consequent threat to the profitability of hotel businesses.” Huh? Since when is crude oil — or any kind of fossil fuel — used to power a hotel? Point is, the fees often have little or nothing to do with the actual energy costs of the cruise line, hotel or airline. If they can get away with it, they will (and they are).

How to get around it: Look at your original cruise contract or terms of transportation. If there’s no provision for an energy surcharge, you ask them to be deleted from your bill.

Higher car rental prices — or higher fees (or both)
One way or another, the car rental industry is going to get its hands in your pockets in 2008. American Express projects car rental costs will climb between 2 and 4 percent, which sounds almost affordable. But chances are you’ll pay a lot more than that. Car rental companies have gotten much smarter about what they call “upselling” customers — persuading them to buy pricey upgrades, unnecessary insurance and extra amenities like GPS navigation systems — and then collecting punitive fees after you’ve rented (fees for gas, little dents or chips in the windshield). I would expect that to only get worse. I also think it’s possible that AmEx is wrong about its car rental projections. In 2007, Enterprise Rent-a-Car acquired Vanguard Car Rental, which owns the National and Alamo brands. Fewer car rental companies means less competition, and that normally translates into higher prices.

How to get around it: Resist the upsell and get your rate in writing.

Gridlock on the ground: the sequel
In 2007, cities competed for bragging rights to the worst traffic. In 2008, the government is finally going to do something about it, if Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is to be believed. The Secretary in December announced that her agency wants to develop technology “designed to fight congestion and improve the safety and performance of the nation’s transportation system.” With more than 250 million vehicles on U.S. roads — a number that has grown by about 2 percent a year over the last decade — it’s about time. If I may, I have a solution: It’s called a train. They use them in Europe, and they seem to work pretty well. What’s that, Americans wouldn’t stand for it? Well, then how do they like standing in traffic? Because they’re going to be doing a lot more of that if they can’t break their unhealthy car habits.

How to get around it: Try mass transit.

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