Winging It: Going online to plan, book your own travel

Remember when you were in school and the first writing assignment each September was: "What did you do on your summer vacation?"

I can't answer that question yet, because my vacation doesn't start for three more weeks. But I thought it would be helpful for those planning to spend thousands of dollars for leisure or business travel to tell you about my experience researching and booking a two-week trip to Europe with my wife.

First, let me say to the travel agents whose good service and help I have appreciated for years, I didn't follow your advice and let you do it for me. I did all the planning and booking myself on my home computer.

I wasn't trying to avoid paying an agency for its work. If you find a good agent, he or she will probably be worth the money. I did my own planning and booking for several other reasons, starting with the fact that I actually enjoy doing the work required.

Do-it-yourself online is also the way most travelers plan trips, and I want to have the same experience with the process as you do.

Especially in searching for hotels in my price range, I like to look at multiple Web sites that offer reviews of travelers' experiences and rate hotels, usually on a 1-to-5 scale. The one I used most is www.tripadvisor.com; others I have found useful are www.hotels.com and www.booking.com.

Beyond that, doing the work myself enabled me to check, over weeks starting in January, what was happening to airfares and other travel costs. I checked individual airline Web sites as well as multicarrier online agencies - Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity and Vayama - each a few times, before settling down to use just one multi-airline site and two airline sites.

As I checked, about once every other day, I found fares could range widely on the same Web site, from about $800 to $1,400, for the same itinerary on different airlines.

Airline experts were predicting in January that transatlantic fares were likely to drop as the year went on because the recession had pushed down demand so significantly. We were still mulling over which airline and European gateways we would use, so we decided to wait a month or two to buy tickets.

I also set up a search at www.airfarewatchdog.com that promised to alert me when fares went down on a particular itinerary I specified. It did its job, telling me in early February that the cost had dropped about $100, or about 5 percent, for two tickets.

But old habits die hard, and the last time I planned a trip to Europe, four years ago, I waited too long and wound up paying more for tickets.

So the last week of February, I took the plunge and bought the tickets for just over $900 apiece. Then over the next month, the experts who forecast that fares would drop turned out to be right.

Airfarewatchdog continued to send me messages about lower costs, making me wonder if I should cancel the first reservation - for a $500 penalty - and start over.

Had I waited another month or two, I could have saved about $100 for each ticket, not enough to cancel and rebook. Had we been able to take the trip in late winter or spring, we could have saved several hundred dollars more as airlines began slashing fares to fill empty airplanes.

But I'm not unhappy with what I bought, because the lower fares for the summer travel we needed were for slightly different itineraries on different airlines. I was glad I got the precise ones I wanted.

The hotel search process is easier for me than looking for airlines and fares. For each city we will visit, I checked tripadvisor.com, which lists hotels by their popularity ratings by travelers from all over the world.

Scrolling down a list of hotels, you find good descriptions and room rates and whether a hotel is rated from one to five stars. I love smaller European hotels, and chose ones that were in the locations we wanted and received rave reviews from several previous guests.

Tripadvisor.com connects you to multiple online agency sites to actually book a room.

I waited until a few weeks ago to settle on transportation within Europe. We eventually decided to use both trains and a rental car, and compared the cost of buying Eurail passes or individual point-to-point tickets on www.raileurope.com.

For a rental car, raileurope.com has train passes that also include use of a car for a certain number of days. But for the car, I Googled "European rental cars" and found a wide choice of both U.S. and European companies with roughly similar rates.

I will tell you more about our European adventure when we return. Now, if the dollar vs. the euro exchange rate would just stabilize, I can figure out how much we can afford to spend on the wine.

source: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/homepage/20090608_Winging_It__Going_online_to_plan__book_your_own_travel.html

7 Timely Tips for Buying Summer Airfares to Europe

by : Airfarewatchdog

1. Buying fares to Europe for spring and summer travel will be like picking stocks. The price will go up and down, you just have to pounce when you think the price is right. We're seeing international fares and availability at those fares fluctuate like the Dow 30.

2. It's nearly impossible to predict where airfares are heading, but it's unlikely they'll go back to where they were last year for summer travel. Fares are considerably lower on many routes than they were last year at this time for summer travel to Europe. If the economy continues to deteriorate, fares will too. We're not seeing the outrageous $1800 and $2000 RT with tax peak summer fares to Europe that we saw last year at this time. Far from it. You can fly almost any route for under $1000, depending on your travel dates.

3. Use a flexible date search on Orbitz or Cheaptickets or Hotwire. A fare from New York to Rome can be $500 with taxes on one set of dates in August, $800 on another set, and $1000 on still another.

4. Don't "blinder" yourself into one set destination. Fares from your local airports to Paris $1200 RT, but they're $500 to Dublin? Get to know Ryanair, the rail system, even cheap inter city buses in Europe and get to your preferred destination, be it Paris or whatever, that way.

5. Check fares every day. International fares typically only change once and day, and they do change, sometimes by hundreds of dollars up or down. Sign up for all the alert systems--Farecompare, Airfarewatchdog, Yapta, Orbitz, Travelocity, Kayak, Farecast... what's particularly good about Airfarewatchdog’s alerts is that we open the consumer's eyes to possibilities they might not have been considering (you were planning on going to Paris in July but it's $1200, and beyond your budget? What if we send you our list of fares from New York showing Venice in July for $400? Well, you might just change your plans).

6. Once you find a fare you like on an online travel agency (OTA), check the airline's site. Many international airlines don't share their best deals with the OTAs... you could save a bundle by buying direct. But that works in reverse sometimes too (an OTA might have a fare on Virgin Atlantic, for example, for hundreds less than Virgin is selling it for). Needless to say, Airfarewatchdog checks the airlines' sites and compares them with OTA's and list the lower fare if we find one.

7. Book with an airline that will give you a voucher refund, usually minus a "service fee," if the fare goes down between the time you buy and the time you fly, as long as nothing changes but the fare (no day, time, or flight changes). Many foreign flagged airlines are "you buy it you fly it".


About Airfarewatchdog.com(TM)

Airfarewatchdog.com (TM) is an airfare deal site that lists hand-picked low airfares from online travel agencies and airline sites. Airfarewatchdog.com is owned and operated by Smarter Travel Media LLC.

About Smarter Travel Media LLC

Smarter Travel Media operates http://www.bookingbuddy.com, http://www.smartertravel.com , http://www.airfarewatchdog.com, http://www.frequentflier.com, and sites in the U.K. and India. Airfarewatchdog, BookingBuddy and SmarterTravel are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Smarter Travel Media LLC in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos or product and company names mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners. (C) 2009 Smarter Travel Media LLC. All rights reserved.
Website: http://www.airfarewatchdog.com

travel bargain hunters

Common wisdom tells us that this is the year of mega-deal flight. All factors are present: Fuel prices kept the demand for places has decreased and the airlines are in financial need. The logic is that the flights to rain on us like a spring shower.

Surely, there are bargains to have. Except that it is the goal I had in mind. The last time she visited her favorite travel site, you may have found the prices to be fairly standard and decided to wait until that date, his legendary last-minute arrival.

You're not alone. "We see a lot of research, many people are waiting for the big deal ... But we have less inventory than last year, fewer flights, fewer seats, fewer opportunities for them in the last minute, unless it is incredibly flexible, "says Allison Wallace, spokesman for the Flight Center, the chain of travel agencies.

For today at least, with the notable exception of Mexico, Cuba and Las Vegas, the market is not flooded with offers. Many major airlines, including Air Canada, have been parking of aircraft, focusing on the reduction of the filling degree during the factory prices. Woudstra Bennett, Marketing Manager FlyForLess.ca considers supply and demand are in sync. This balance is difficult in a time of significant changes in the online travel market. Prices are now on the consumers through a growing number of channels. Your chance to secure that hard, for example, Europe or Asia, if you are prepared to study hard and fast.

The first stop for most people searching on the Internet can be a big online travel agencies. Sites like itravel2000.ca, Expedia.ca Travelocity.ca and its unprecedented power over collective bargaining in the industry is still king when it comes to a great value packages. Brian Simpson, General Manager of Travelocity.ca, says online travel agencies offer the big picture. "But what if you are only interested in the airplane? Online travel agencies, which draw most of their sentences of four Global Distribution Systems - Amadeus, Galileo, Worldspan and Saber - and can negotiate deals with airlines, but they are not the only places to go.

More and more airlines are questions in their own hands to us on their own sites and experimenting with new forms of life in a time of promotion codes directly to travelers. Currently, the method of choice is trusted e-mail (notification to the airlines' websites), but RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook are just around the corner (Southwest Airlines has begun to offer Twitter).

"The airlines start to use the media to communicate directly with customers to participate in one-on-One Marketing to the warm and Fuzzi the brand," said Douglas Quinby an analyst at research company PhoCusWright, which studies in travel market in Canada.

This is an experimental phase coincided with the rise of meta-sites. Mavens as Airfarewatchdog.com, Travelzoo.ca, Tripadvisor.com CanuckAbroad.com drag and the network for you, raise a question not only the online travel agencies, but also the companies themselves remain. The emergence of new sources of travel information, offers more flexibility for Canadian travelers. As Mr. Quinby commentaries, one of the most striking features of the travel market in Canada so far "narrow momentum" created by the joint dominance of Air Canada and WestJet. This has the bargaining power of tour operators and shopping habits of consumers.

Websites such as Airfarewatchdog.com, bought by Expedia last year, travelers have expanded horizons. The site offers information about deviations from Canadian airports, and suggests that bargain flights from the border cities can connect with the main centers, with more flight options. CanuckAbroad.com also offers a lot of travel tips.