Organising Your Trip--Booking Flights and Hotels
• Travel Agent vs Internet Booking For Flights
• Get Extra Gear Onto The Plane Over Your Limits
• Find The Best Seat
• Overseas Flight Connections
• Travel Agent vs Internet For Hotels
• Let Your Credit Card Companies Know Before You Go
Packing and Luggage Essentials, Passports, Visas and Travel Docs
Checking In, Changing Flights and Getting Bumped
WiFi and Cell Phones and Technology
Transport, Rental Cars, Exploring Your Destination & Food Tips
Travel Agent vs Internet Booking For Flights
Though you can easily book fares through the Internet, we always use a travel agent to finalise our ticketing because he knows the various tricks and techniques to get maximum savings with minimum hassles. However, you can do some excellent advance research through the following three sites and give your preferences to your agent to check out and compare for better deals that they may be privy to.
Itasoftware.com compares airlines and flights on any given days so that you can choose the cheapest option between cities as well as see flight times, stopovers and other information. For example, checking Sydney to Los Angeles for February 12 returning March 20, there were 18 airline choices comprising roundtripfares from $1885 (Jetstar to Honolulu then American to LAX) to over $6600 for an economy fare.
Kayak.com searches airline and travel supplier sites for the broad range of flight options by price. Here the prices ranged from $1844 to over $10,000 on Qantas.
Farecompare.com does much the same as the previous two but can also track Y-Up and Q-Up first class fares that are purchased at about the same price as 7 day apex or last minute economy fares.
Farecast.com can give you graphs of when the cheapest times to travel are within a month based on actual ticket prices and also how full domestic US flights are with its airfare-predictive technology.
Whichbudget.com and wegolo.com cover the cheapest fares on budget airlines often not covered by major travel sites.
Get Extra Gear Onto The Plane Over Your Limits
Internet booking of airfares is handy and sometimes appears to be economical but if you need to have an extra bag, extra weight or a bulky item (like a bike, surfboard or display material), having a travel agent handle your flights is blessing when you need a waiver or a favour. Depending on their status with the airline, connections with staff or persuasive nature, your agent can likely get a waiver put into your record which, depending on the day, should be able to get your ereasonable excess through without penalty.
Want to know how your airplane is laid out so that you can get that bulkhead seat with the bassinette, exit row seats with extra legroom or avoid those rows that have fixed seat dividers instead of flip up armrests? Seatguru.com is the ultimate source for airplane seating, in-flight amenities and airline info. It can tell you the location of good fair and poor seats, powerports and other info to let you pick the best seat for the trip or best plane for the sector. It has seat maps by aircraft type so you can be aware of 2 seats by themselves which are gold locations or five seat row horror spots.
If you are going Qantas on many flights for example, generally the last four rows on either side of the plane (depending on plane type) are window/aisle two seat combos with extra room. Don't get stuck in the middle row middle seat with two people to climb over every time you need to get out--book your seats in advance and try for these back of plane seats, preferably the aisle one. You should be able to pre-book your seats at time of reservation, or, if you are going through the Net, you can book your ticket and then call the airline direct to choose your seat. Always check a week ahead of your flight to reconfirm your seat as they may have changed aircraft.
When you need to make flight connections at foreign airports or estimate the time needed to get through security between gates, you almost need a concierge to tip you. If you want to check on the real time status of present flights or the historic past performance of specific flights as well as airport security delays, go to Flightstats.com.
It will even give you a 'time period' feature which shows you within a three hour window how the arrival and take off averages are for any airport. It has information on most airports, parking, delay reports and security wait times with a graph to show best and worst times as well as average number of minutes to go through security--especially valuable in the intense US airport security. There are also travel advisories on destinations and even monthly carrier on time performance reports.
It's tempting travelling overseas to try and cut it close between connecting flights but due to increasing flight delays and extended security checks, it's far too easy to miss a flight if you cut it too close. In major hub cities like Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago in the US for examples, there are multiple terminals and you may have to go through security checks between them with long lines. Allow yourself 90 minutes between connecting flights, find out when you're boarding your first flight where the connecting flight's gate and terminal is and relax. You may have time for shoe shine, a chance to stretch your legs or have a cold drink between flight and even check your email in the airport.
Travel Agent vs Internet For Hotels
We rely heavily on our trusty travel agent to handle hotel bookings as they know much more about properties that suit our preferences. Plus, booking through websites can be problematic-we've found some of our bookings don't go through properly or the paperwork can't be found. We have never failed with our agent, but you can do a lot of research in advance on properties and prices using the following sites to check on deals and prices as well as availabilities in destinations.
Wotif.com is a favourite for hotels up to month in advance.
Quikbook.com has great deals on boutique and off the path hotels around the world
Venere.com is good for hotels apartments and B&Bs worldwide
Lastminute.com can be fabulous for filling those few rooms in stock for hotels and the saving can be great too. Use up to a month ahead
Hotwire.com has prices without identifying the hotel but gives location and facilities. Can be great for last minute deals
Priceline.com lets you shop for hotel and other deals by naming your own price and upping it until you are accepted.
Biddingfortravel.com is a site that is a forum of users of priceline.com US only hotel bidding service and tells recent accepted prices and hoe to manipulate the system.
Vrbo.com (Vacation Rentals By Owner) is a way to get an apartment, condo or house in the US and many countries.
Tripadvisor.com is an interesting site that has viewers rate hotels and restaurants within locations and can, on average, let you know of great locations and terrible spots, fantastic hotels or dives as well as the changing lot of restaurants in any given location. But be warned that often by using different identities and email addresses, the marketing people or owners of properties make up their own 'dream' stories to make their hotels, motels or B&Bs appear to be nirvana instead of a nightmare. You can spot these because the 10 rating descriptions are often the only review the writer has done.
Let Your Credit Card Companies Know Before You Go
To avoid having your credit card cut off on the second or third day in an overseas destination because the card issuer suspects fraud and suspends charges, it's a good idea to call your card issuer and let them know the countries you will be visiting to prevent this. This is also a handy time to find out what interest and fees apply to cash advances as well as what your daily or other withdrawal limits are. You should also be aware of the exchange rate charged on overseas purchases and any commissions or fees by your card issuer. The amounts and differences between cards can be significant.
If you're renting a car, find out if the credit card company covers excess or full collision damage waiver if you rent on the cards. Also find out if you have any travel insurance on the cards used for buying the tickets, or if they cover lost, stolen or damaged merchandise that you purchase. On our last trip to Hawaii, an $800 piece of glass art was damaged at home shortly after our return and our Mastercard issuer paid for the replacement.