Delirium Propaganda

Travelling already costs a small fortune and its showing no sign of getting cheaper thanks to a new charge made by the USA to enter its borders. The American government are introducing a charge for using its ETSA system next month.

If you aren’t familiar with ESTA, you should be. The visa waiver program adopted by the USA many years ago made sure that countries where good relations existed could holiday in the USA by completing an i94 green form. This green form was replaced last year by ESTA and now you must complete the process online before you travel, in fact, failure to do so will actually stop you from being able to board any plane to the United States, so its imperative you complete it.

Up until recently, this process was free, but the US government have now changed their minds and will charge £9 from 9th September 2010. Alright its not the governments fault perhaps, but when you start adding up all the things you’ll need to pay for now including travel insurance, airport parking, fuel tax, taxis, airport hotels and so on, the cost of holidaying and travelling is really starting to become a serious financial problem.

The good news is, if you have a holiday booked in the next 2 years, you can complete ESTA right now, free of charge and avoid the extra cost. The same goes for those regulars who are often found frequenting Gatwick airport hotels (you know who you are!) waiting for the morning flight to Los Angeles or some other business destination, it’s a great idea to fill it out now and save yourself the hassle and the money for 2 years.

It’s not clear what the US government intends to use the money for, but best guesses suggest it will be ploughed back in to tourism and with over 4 million brits alone travelling to the states every year, they will certainly be racking up the dollars.