Budget Travel magazine is put on ice for the winter, and it’s not sure when it will return

If you’ve been waiting for your next issue of Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine to arrive in the mail or at the newsstand, don’t hold your breath. The last print issue was September/October 2012, and there’s no firm commitment to publish future editions of the magazine.

Responding to an inquiry by Skift, Budget Travel Media Relations head Amy Mironov Janish said, “Subscribers can enjoy the November/December issue online.” Curiously, there is no mention of this issue online and thumbnails on the site of the most current issue are from September/October.

Earlier in the day, Janish told consumer advocate Christopher Elliott in an email that despite the lag between physical issues, “We hope to see a return to the printed edition in 2013.” Elliott emailed Janish after one of his readers forwarded him a subscription cancellation that read “The magazine has ceased publication.”

Like many other magazines, the once-robust Budget Travel has faced dwindling ad pages over the last three years. After the Washington Post Company sold the magazine to Fletcher Asset Management in December of 2009, it continued its slow decline in ad pages that left the title looking more like an insert than a magazine. Most recent editions fall in the 48-60 page range.

It hasn’t helped that Fletcher Asset founder Alphonse “Buddy” Fletcher has been embroiled in a high-profile lawsuit while at the same time the firm has left the magazine to fend for itself by withholding additional investments. Former Editor-in-Chief Marc Peyser left the magazine in October of this year and was replaced by Gillian Telling, who’s in charge of re-invigorating the title, but has few resources following layoffs in December of last year.