Flights Booked Part Deux

Option three won out.  So many of you were right.  The 20 hours is long but it will give us time to rest up and try to adjust to the time change.

So we are booked on the Westjet flight leaving Vancouver at 1830 arriving in London at 1147 the next day.  For a $20 added fee we were able to reserve our seats too. The one pain was they had a cheap price for one $390, but when you search for two the price jumped up.  We therefore booked one of us on the cheaper fare. Then booked the other at the higher price $487. And because we reserved seats we are sitting together.

We then booked the British Airways flight for 15 £ each plus taxes and fees which ended up making it a total cost of 42 £ each.  Wow what a steal!

So cost breakdown is as follows:

• Westjet flight: $487 for one, $390 for the other total:  $877 Canadian
• British Airways flight:  42 £ each or $141 Canadian total  

Old flights were $1420 new flights are $1018 (but we do need to pay for a hotel/food).  That is $781 US for both of us to fly one way.  Now that is a deal.

We still have to book a hotel near Gatwick.  If any of you have a recommendation let me know.

I also like the idea of taking the train to London once we get in. 

We now get into Genoa at 1100 am on Sunday.  Hopefully more refreshed. 

Darn Flight Changes Throw a Monkey Wrench Into Everything

Well, like I always say I hate air travel and airlines.  And yesterday only reinforced my theory.

After work I went in looking at the option for reserving our seats on our Air Transat Flight to Rome.

As I scanned the seat map, comparing seats with flight guru seat recommendations I noticed something was off.  

At the bottom of the page it showed the flight with one stop in London.  Hmmm our flight is suppose to be direct to Rome from Vancouver.  After further investigation and checking travel search sites I see our flight to Rome has changed.  It now leaves earlier from Vancouver and arrives in Rome an hour later.  This makes our 2.5 hour layover in Rome with enough time to get to our 1420 flight just enough, but now it is down to a 1 and a half hour layover and that is NOT enough time to clear customs, get bags and get to new flight.

So I get on the phone with the agency we booked our flights with - Kiwi - and they are not aware of the change and will look into it.

After hanging up with them I see the next flight to Genoa means an added 6 hour layover in Rome - 8 hours in total. That will not work.  We would never have booked that flight if it was like that originally.  

Oddly Air Transat's site shows direct flight to Rome every Friday - but not that day!  It flies to London then Rome. Just our luck.

This morning we get an email from Kiwi (our agency) with the offer to change to the late flight to Genoa (8 hour layover) at no cost.  

I call them up and say that we can't do that option and they say they can cancel the entire thing at no cost due to the drastic change.  I know it is not their fault and accept that offer.  

One thing I highly recommend to everyone - and it has saved our butts.  Is check your flights regularly for changes because often your travel agent doesn't even know about it until you alert them.

Now I have to start again looking at options for flights to Genoa.  So stay tune.  

Booking Flights to Europe and Home from Fort Lauderdale

As many of you know I am not a huge fan of flying. Not that I am nervous or afraid - it is just BORING and not comfortable.  Remember my blog Joys of Flying.  Well not much has changed.

This time this are a little different.  We are wanting to see a dear friend - Federico Castro and his partner Andrea who live in Genoa. Some of you may know Federico he use to be a Captain Circle Host with Princess.  

We first met Federico on the Caribbean three years ago where we started a great friendship.  Then last year the relationship really developed when we were on the Royal for a month. 

You know how you meet someone and you instantly connect and know you will be friends forever, well that is how we felt.  

We were saddened to hear he was leaving Princess but happy he was settling down and was very happy with Andrea in Genoa.

Okay sorry back to the theme of the blog.

So we had to look at flights to Genoa. So many options but what was the most economical and the most convenient.

Thankfully the two charter companies are still flying to Europe in early October. This helped with options and keeping the price down.

The best option was either a flight to London (with Westjet) then flight to Rome, then to Genoa.  Or a flight to Rome direct from Vancouver (with Air Transat) then flight to Genoa.  The second option was the best but it only flew out on a Friday afternoon.

So after some discussion we ended up on the second option with Air Transat.  

This will be the longest single flight we have ever taken - 11 hours and 15 min! 

We searched and booked thru my newest favorite booking site Kiwi.com for a price of $500 US each. 

One issue we encountered was when we searched for one person we had no problems, but when we increased the search to two people they said it wasn't available.  We thought that can't be. So we did a little research. We opened an incognito window and searched on two different tabs for the same flight and we had no problem getting it at the great price.  So we ended up booking two separate bookings, one for each of us. Which should not be a problem as we can easily book seats close to each other. And even if we can't, the money saved makes is well worth it.

So now we fly out on a Friday at 15:40 and arrive in Genoa on Saturday at 14:20 (almost 24 hours later, but there is a 9 hour time change).

For the flight home we know this routing the best of all since we often fly to and from Fort Lauderdale.

We did toss around the idea of booking first class tickets for $710 (Canadian) each.  I was really wanting to and Bernie was hesitant. After suggesting this could be my birthday present he said sure! But as I pondered it and the cost (see what I think about when I am driving the bus) I really couldn't go forward with it and ended up booking economy seats with American Airlines.  

The cost of economy seats was $230 (Canadian) each.  So for almost $1,000 we can fly economy and use that $1,000 somewhere else.  Somehow I don't think I will have a problem spending that somewhere on this trip.

Airlines - A Necessary Evil to Get Me to a Cruise Port

I can still remember as a little girl flying with my parents back to Montreal to see family.  Now this goes way back - WAY back.  I was around the age of 5 - and yes there were planes back then.

Me, my Mom and sister on a big trip to Disneyland

We dressed up because it was a special occasion to be on a plane.  Mom would do up our hair and we would get a gift of a special toy that we could play with on the plane.  I still remember this plastic case that was filled with pretend makeup, blow dryer, curling iron, oh what joy it brought me.  

Back then they served full meals, for free.  Gave us pillows and blankets, for free.  Everyone looked nice, everyone smiled.  But there was no personal entertainment, certainly no wifi, no online check in or bookings.  Not a lot of options on carriers either.  And price was quite high.

For me the worst part of travelling is flying.  Not that I have a fear of flying, I just hate being squished into a metal tin can with so many others and treated like cattle.

Because of this we try to do a few things to ease any headaches.

- we always try to pre book seats and our preference is two aisle seats across from each other. 

- we try to pick flights that leave first thing in the morning.

- we limit our carry on, to one bag each (normally we check a bag, but if we can for a shorter trip we just bring carry on).

- I load my tablet with magazines, books, games and videos to pass the time.

- we try to never fly during peak holiday times if we can help it.

- if for some reason we can, we splurge on business class tickets (but this has only happened once).

Today I am working on our flights to Fort Lauderdale in early 2016.  Our flights are booked with United going, and American Airlines coming back.  

Seems like now if you want to pre reserve your seat you need to pay a small (as she clears her throat) fee for any "preferred" seat.

Really!  American was asking $60 US dollars each for an exit row seat for a three hour flight to Houston. Then another $68 US each for the four hour flight to Vancouver.  Nope can't justify it, so we are back to being further back in the plane and sitting across the aisle from each other.  .0

I really don't know how people who fly often do it.  

Another reason we cruise from destination to destination.  

Oh and don't even get me started on the fees for food, bags, priority boarding etc. etc.

I know once we retire and spend all our time travelling we will look at cruises to take us to different parts of the world and try and stay away from flights entirely.

Joys of Booking Flights

Flights!

For me this is the worst part of travelling, the flying.  But first I have to book flights which is fun, but can also cause me to pull my hair out.

It is something we do ourselves thru one of the many travel search sites found on line.  

Note I do not think this option is for everyone. You need to be very comfortable with the internet and doing searches and know somewhat about routing and itinerary.  I have heard horror stories of people booking the wrong city ie. wanting to go to Sydney Australia, but booked Sydney, Nova Scotia (very different location). Other friends only saw the first page of the search for a flight and booked one of those flight only to find out later that on the next page was a much better flight for a few dollars more. 

Yes even I have made errors. One trip I booked our return flight for the day before we docked. Yup I mixed up the days and it required a call to the airline and a small fee to change the dates. Do you have a horror story?

So if any of the above worry you please, please, call a good travel agent, their knowledge will save you a lot of headaches in the end.  

Okay back to booking our flights.

We normally search for flights daily, yes daily. Airlines change routing, prices hourly (actually probably more often than that). Now with airlines being able to get instant responses as to what people are searching for and what is popular they can easily charge more for flights that seem popular in searches and less for those that are not being searched for in the hopes of filling up that plane.

We use many different sites.  Kayak.com is our favorite but we also search travelocity, priceline and a few others, and don't forget about booking directly with the airline's site too. What you need to remember too is not all airlines are represented in these mass search sites. So with that you need to do some more digging or searching on line. I have even gone to airport websites and searched their daily flights to see who and where flights are going. This was very helpful when flying to Rio de Janeiro, we were able to determine that it was better for us to fly from the US to Brazil, then connect to a smaller carrier to Rio for a huge savings.

Yesterday we were searching for flights to LAX for our November trip, and then flights to Fort Lauderdale for our January trip. We had been searching for awhile and knew approximately how much we could expect to pay and since both trips had good routing and prices we booked.  

For November the search actually came up that it was better for us to fly two one way flights, one with Westjet (free bags) and the return with Alaskan. We even looked at options to fly into Long Beach instead of LAX, but this time it looks like LAX has the better times for us. Also even though there was a great flight at 11:35 out of LAX, we knew that could be too tight.  It would be hard to get off the ship, take transfer to the airport in LA week day traffic and then check in and get thru security.  Also noting that this will be the Wednesday before the US Thanksgiving and is typically a crazy day to travel. So with all that we decided to book a 13:30 flight instead and have more peace of mind.

For our January trip, after searching for fares one or two days prior also, it came up with over a $100 savings if we flew in the day prior. We talked about it and decided it was worth flying in a day earlier and starting the holiday off right.  

Another thing about our January trip is the routing, since we are flying into many hubs that could be affected by weather it is key for us to get out on the first flight and head South.  We hate the option of flying all the way to Toronto/Montreal/Detroit/Chicago and who knows what kind of weather they are having. Heck we have been hit hard in Atlanta a few times, even needing de-icing there when we never needed it in Vancouver - go figure. 

With booking this far in advance for January we have experienced subtle changes to flights by the airlines in the past, United especially does this. So we often have to periodically check the itinerary to ensure they haven't made any major change. Note if they do make a major change often you can call them and see if there is something better. 

So here are my tips when booking your own flights:

• Search daily for your flights to see what is out there and the price.  Make note of prices/flights so you can track.
• Many sites will show you a history of the price for that itinerary so you can decide if it is a good time to buy or not.
• Make sure you look at other airports in the area. Sometimes flying into a different airport gives you better flights and less time for transfers.
• If you are going on a cruise I can't stress enough the need to fly in the day prior. Save yourself the stress and worry and start your vacation right.
• Search the web for which airlines fly the routing you are looking at cause not all travel search sites show all airlines.
• Double, triple check that you have the right city code/destination when flying so you don't end up in a city with the same name.
• After you have booked, print out your itinerary and place with your travel documents and then check periodically your flight itinerary with the airline to ensure that no changes have been made.  Even if you have set up for them to send you an email if there is a change, they don't always do this (personal experience here) so it is up to you to be aware.
• Book seats if you can but note they change aircraft, especially if you book far enough out and then your seat reservation will be dropped, so check to see if this has happened and rebook those seats.
• If you do make an error when booking you normally (but check for your country) have 24 hours to make a change. This law is relatively new and applies to the US.