American Express is launching a new credit card in conjunction with the Starwood Preferred Guest programme, a reward scheme run by Sheraton and St. Regis hotels owner Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.

The co-branded card will be available in the UK from May 1 and will, American Express claims, offer premium rewards for both business and leisure travellers. Benefits include complimentary hotel nights and room upgrades on weekends and weekdays, as well as complimentary flights with more than 350 airlines including American Airlines, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

Move over Ryanair, there's an airline with its sights set on taking the title for the most cunning ways to bump up the price of a ticket.

Air France KLM has hit on the cunning rouse of charging obese people extra, by making them buy a second seat on the plane.

From April 1, they will generously give them a 25% discount, but will demand the overweight buy an extra seat. They say anyone refusing to buy two seats will be turned away at the plane door.

This isn't the first time the airline has had a bash at this. In 2007 they charged a passenger as he got on the plane. In that instance they were taken to court and the judge ruled they couldn't do it, because the rule wasn't in the small print.

Now they are changing the small print, and fatties will have to pay up.

Is this fair?

Another day, another shocker from the British Airways union, Unite. There's no longer any shock or surprise, or even much anger, just a deep sigh of disappointment in the self-inflicted demise of a once-great company.

But while this will surely spell the end of the business, what should you do if you are booked to fly this Easter?

It's like a big shiny Christmas present from the legal system. The courts have ruled that the vote for the British Airways strike was unlawful, so the cabin crew can't go on strike, they cant wreck your Christmas, and you can go on holiday/visit far-flung family and friends this year after-all.

It's a massive relief for all concerned, but it's not the end of this story.. not by a long chalk.

A staggering 2.5million pieces of luggage are mislaid in transit every year with more than 70,000 items never reunited with their owners.

According to analysis of industry data by InsureandGo the luggage is lost while being loaded on or off planes at 20 of the UK's largest airports, with the lost luggage having a combined annual value of more than £7million.

Research from the insurer reveals that one in eight people who claim to have lost airline luggage between 2006 and 2008 believe it was stolen intentionally. Just over half believe it was put on another flight by mistake.

So what should you do if your luggage gets waylaid?

One of the most annoying things about buying flights with a budget airline is the raft of extra charges that are added to your fare throughout the booking process.

And perhaps the most irritating of these - often unavoidable - fees, is the up to £5 per passenger companies such as Ryanair charge you for paying with a credit or debit card.

I blogged the other day about the Visa Electron card, the one that got around these nasty charges and is in the process of being phased out.

Now Ryanair has responded - and its not good news.

The merger of British Airways (BA) with struggling Spanish airline Iberia is "great news" for BA customers, according to boss Willie Walsh.

But not everyone is convinced that BA's prices and service standards, already lambasted for slipping in recent years, will improve as a result.

So what does this mean for you?

With train fares an easy target for cash-hungry rail companies, ticket price rises are no rare thing. Now this continual trend upwards has led to the arrival – earlier than timetabled – of the first £1,000 rail fare.

I have to say that if it's miles covered, then this little beauty certainly offers value for money. So for £1,002 you can just turn up and go first class return from the surfers' haven of Newquay in Cornwall to the beautiful Kyle of Lochalsh in the Scottish Highlands.

And news just in from the Kyle of Localsh webcam... not much happening. For that matter, in this weather Newquay is pretty quiet too.

Unearthed in a survey of fares by rail expert Barry Doe, the Cornwall to Scotland return trip would cover around 1,700 miles, with tickets available from the CrossCountry train company.

Not surprisingly, CrossCountry say that no-one has actually paid for a ticket at that fare yet though it does exist. They say that someone wanting a first-class return would be likely to book a saver return in advance and pay £561. Maybe. You just have to ask who?

Holidays are still a pretty high priority for us Brits, according to recent research from Tesco Personal Finance.The study showed that over half of us (54%) are planning to jet off overseas this year despite the economic gloom.

In fact the figures suggest that some 14 million of us are planning two or more overseas breaks this year.

Just make sure you don't get done out of all your spending money before you've even left British soil!...

Let me get this straight. You negotiate the complicated fares, restrictions, availability, airport locations and booking system to grab yourself a Ryanair flight on the internet. You print out your ticket and then you pay £5 for the privilege of using your own computer and your own printer.

The world of budget airlines is not what it used to be.

And now, under Ryanair's proposals to automate check-in and do away with the desks at airports, if you arrive at the terminal and don't have a pre-printed ticket then you'll be charged a £40 re-issuing fee.

Oh boy. This is going to cause a bit of a stir. Ryan air have scrapped airport check-in altogether. The pesky 'budget' airline will now charge a £40 'boarding card fee' if you forget to bring your details. You have to check-in online before you get to the airport (although most airports have free wi-fi no so you could realistically get away with doing it there). But you'll still be charged £5 each way for the prilvilege!

Now hang on a minute, Ryanair! Exactly why are you charging people to check-in online? Surely this is meant to save us money? After all, you don't have to employ people to wear your horrible uniforms and stand there looking miserable serious anymore do you? So what exactly are we paying for here? If everything is done automatically, and we're printing out our own documents, we're paying to line your pockets. Nothing more.

This is just one of the many things I hate about Ryanair. Their recent 'weegate' debacle is another one that got my back up. Unfortunately, even with all of these added charges (why does using a debit card to pay for my flight cost £20?) they're still cheaper than most other options. I hate that I'm lining their pockets with my money and making them even more greedy, but if I can fly to Berlin and back for under £100, I'm not going to stop flying with them. I'm fine with checking in online, but it'll mean some people just don't fly with them anymore. I secretly wish I was one of them.

Is the big R already hitting you hard? And is there any sort of silver lining to all the economic gloom? Welcome to my weekly blog about the recession - I''ll be posting about how it's affecting me, and what I'm doing to fight back.

This week, I made another decision in my battle against the recession:

I'm DONE with air travel.

In the good old days, all I had to worry about was my possible death. Strapped into the big tin box hurtling through the air, I used to work out possible escape routes if the plane did, in fact, start to plunge landward.

Airports really do go too far sometimes, don't they? They're not nice places, they charge a fortune for breakfast (a rubbish one at that) and frankly, they're just quite depressing places. Ryanair suggested last week that they might start charging to use the toilet in-flight, but Manchester Airport are almost as frustrating. They're charging £1 for those little plastic bags you have to put your liquid in.

£1 for something that costs 2p is a ridiculous markup even by airport standards. We usually have to buy the bags, after all, how many of us actually remember to pack them? Then there's the added question of things like lip gloss and toothpaste - are they liquid? Aren't they? Unless you're a frequent flyer, the chances are you won't remember the rules and then you'll have to shell out. It just doesn't seem right.

What's more, is that Manchester Airport are likely to make over £3500 just from these bags! That's an awful lot for a little bit of plastic. I'm not impressed, but if you do have to fly from Manchester Airport, don't get caught out and line their pockets. I had a look at Manchester Airport's website and here's a guide to what you can and can't carry.

This isn't Ryanair bashing week, I promise, but when i heard that Ryanair want to charge you to use the toilet on their planes, I almost choked on me tea. Not just a bit of change, they're considering charging passengers a pound per use. This comes just days after their wonderful public relations outburst calling all bloggers idiots so they aren't exactly my favourite company at the moment.

Well we at WalletPop aren't idiots, and frankly even paying 20p to use the loo in a train station annoys us. But being forced to pay on a flight just isn't on!

The US company Dealbase.com had its wrist slapped for fumbling numbers. Offering fantastic deals on your holiday, and telling you, the consumer, that you could save over 70%. In fact, they used the largest margins they possibly could as benchmarks, so the saving seemed greater than it actually was. Cheeky!

But then, I realised that this isn't anything new. Think about those flights that Ryan Air and other discount airlines offer.

Here are some clever ways travel companies trap you into thinking you're making a saving.