Travel 'Bible' bulges with tips
By Kitty Bean Yancey, USA TODAY These are some commandments from constant traveler Peter Greenberg's The Complete Travel Detective Bible. ...

Don't trust the on-time listings on airport departure boards.

And do get chummy with hotel housekeepers and taxi drivers.

These are some commandments from constant traveler Peter Greenberg's The Complete Travel Detective Bible. The 640-page consumer guide to virtually every aspect of travel (Rodale Books, $17.95) will be published Tuesday and can be pre-ordered for $12.21 plus shipping at Amazon .com.

Greenberg, the 57-year-old travel editor for NBC's Today show, CNBC and America Online, says he typically travels more than 400,000 miles a year and has been compiling info for years in 300 file folders.

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His book includes information sources, from a list of outfits that run humanitarian "volunteer vacations" to resources for solo travelers (including solotravel.org) to airports that provide free wireless Internet connections (wififreespot .com/airport.html is one).

There's also guidance on correct travel terminology. For instance, a "direct" flight is not a synonym for non-stop, as is commonly believed. It means there is a stop, but you stay on the same plane.

And the book has travel trivia.

Wonder why the abbreviation for Chicago's O'Hare airport is ORD and not something easy to understand, like La Guardia's LGA? ORD comes from the airport's old name, Orchard Field, Greenberg writes.

The Travel Detective Bible is packed with insider tips:

•Wash your hotel water glass in hot water before using. Housekeepers do as many as 16 rooms a day. As they run out of time, they may not fetch fresh glasses. "You never know if your room was first … or 16th!" he writes.

•If you take a voluntary bump from an overbooked flight for compensation, don't give up your seat until you get confirmed seating on a later flight. If not, you could be put on standby and be stranded.

•To determine whether your flight will be leaving on time, don't always trust the departures board. Look for the departure gate number on the arrivals board and see if the incoming plane is delayed.

Greenberg's favorite tip that even savvy travelers may not know: " 'secret flights,' " he says. They're little-known flights on airlines you'd never expect to serve a given destination and often are used to position aircraft. They're alternatives when you have difficulty finding a flight or a preferred connecting airport. For example, you can fly from Newark to Geneva on Qatar Airways, Greenberg says.

As for chatting up hotel housekeepers, "people never talk to them," but they are "a lynchpin" to a successful hotel stay, he says.

They can provide better pillows and more toiletries, and they're sources of knowledge about a city.

A good taxi driver is great to know, Greenberg says.

Eleven years ago he was running late to JFK airport, jumped into a cab and gave the driver specific directions. "I'll take you a better way," the driver said. "If you're not at Kennedy in 26 minutes, the ride is free."

The Egyptian driver used a route that New Yorker Greenberg didn't know and delivered him in 22 minutes. Greenberg asked his name — William Megalla — and used him from then on. He referred friends.

When one of Megalla's cousins got married in Alexandria, Egypt, Greenberg was invited.

The wedding took place outside King Farouk's palace, he writes. "Five hundred celebrating (Egyptians) and a guy from New York having one of the great and unexpected travel experiences."

In travel, as in life, "it's been said that you always miss the shots you never take," he writes. "So take those shots!"