BreezeNet.com - Clark begins his search for rental cars here!

Airlines are parking hundreds of planes in the desert, and car rental companies are dialing back on new purchases for their fleets. But hotels are sitting ducks during this travel recession. After all, you can't just stop production on a hotel that's been in the pipeline for several years.

All the extra room inventory means that what you pay for a booking will be going down. Marriott is just one chain that's reported soft bookings.

4-star hotels and below will respond to these market conditions with cuts in price. Fancier hotels, meanwhile, will offer package deals instead of outright discounting. In general, you should also look for weekend rates to be expanded from Friday-Saturday to Thursday-Sunday.

In addition, the growing number of parked planes has really hit cities like Las Vegas, Orlando and other vacation destinations.

When you do fly, you should only do so with a carry-on. Four of the Gang of 6 full-fare airlines now charge you $15 from the moment you check in your first bag!

And don't go over the weight limits with bags you do check in. Christa and her family almost faced an $80 fee for being 5 pounds over the limit -- until she opened up the suitcase and started taking things out!

Be sure to get a standard FAA-approved carry-on and don't remove the FAA tag. A couple of the full-fares have "revenue-enhancement officers" who watch passengers with non-standard carry-ons and force them to check the their for a fee.

Clark owes an apology to Vonage after he took a recent call from a woman who ripped them apart. This particular caller complained about several things, among them being hit with a larger cancellation fee than her contract called for. To add insult to injury, the call quality was so bad that the Vonage people couldn't hear her when she called to cancel her service!

But recently Clark learned that Comcast allegedly targeted Vonage customers for bad connections -- in the hopes that they would drop the service. Comcast denies the charge, saying that they simply didn't have enough broadband capacity. The two companies have since kissed and made up.

But this is not the first time Comcast has been accused of purposely ruining the experience of customers who use competing technologies.

Clark believes it's time for the FCC to issue clear rules that outlaw the kind of practices Comcast has been engaged in. As always, Comcast is free to come on the air and counter Clark's perceptions of the company.

Interestingly, the penny-pincher noticed that his MagicJack service works fine during the day with his Comcast connection. But at night, there's no way he can make a call.

Which again begs the question: Is this a question of (in)competence on Comcast's part -- or an instance of specific sabotage of a competing technology?

First, the student loan kickback scandal on college campuses...and now this.

The Wall Street Journal reports that some schools are now taking kickbacks from book publishers. For several years, publishers have had to compete against the online used book market for college texts. So they eventually came up with the idea of creating custom-edition textbooks in production runs that are small enough for specific university courses.

These books -- which may excise certain material or add a professor's published papers -- come embossed with a warning that it's illegal to sell back as a used book. The campus book stores are, of course, complicit because they refuse to buy these books from students.

Which schools are taking the kickbacks? The University of Alabama and Virginia Tech are both mentioned in the article. Penn State, meanwhile, recently stopped the practice.

Clark thinks it's unacceptable that your university is stabbing you in the back and stealing money from you. As if it's not expensive enough to send a child to college! Who knows what else they're doing to rip off your son or daughter?

Meanwhile, Clark recently picked up a $14 backpack for his third grader at a warehouse club. Christa went the slightly more expensive route and got her child an L.L. Bean backpack.

But you can one-up them both if you wait until late September to buy your child's backpack. That's when they'll go on clearance after everyone's gone back to school.

Clark is very impressed with young people who open a 401(k) when they first start a job. Years ago, few people even knew what a 401(k) was!

But a new study from Fidelity reveals that just under half of all 20somethings and 30somethings cash out their 401(k) accounts when they change jobs.

That's like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

As regular listeners know, retirement savings need time to grow. That idea is well illustrated in Clark's retirement chart.

Know that the money you cash out of your 401(k) gets hit with penalties of about 40%. So Clark's special challenge to younger people is for them not to cash out. Instead, think about rolling your money over to your new employer's 401(k) plan.