Budget Airlines to Where? March 10, 2008

RyanAir and EasyJet come to mind when I think of European budget airlines, and if I were recommending American budget airlines to people, I would suggest Southwest (although not as budgety as RyanAir). But I’ve decided that this week I am going to look into other budget airlines to get me to places that those three don’t go, for example St Petersburg.

One idea I had last week was to fly to Athens in order to get to Cairo (EgyptAir) and see both at once in a nice, long trip. I was thinking, aside from lodging and vacation-days-required, that it might be cheaper to make the stop than to fly direct to Cairo from home. Flights to Athens from home, though, are quite pricey, and EgyptAir, a national airline, isn’t as “budget” as I’d like, even on the short ATH-CAI flight. So that’s the kind of thing I’ll be looking into (for my own personal gain!) — what other cities could I visit on the way (assuming I wanted to visit them in the first place) in order to get the best bang-for-the-buck on a trip to, say, Cairo or St Pete?

Traveling with Reggie March 1, 2008

When Reggie and I moved from Massachusetts to Maryland, it was a smashing success.  Reggie traveled in his little pet-carrier in the car passenger seat, growling every ten or so minutes at his situation.  We stopped a few times for gas and arrived at the new house at same time as the cage.  Eight hours in a pet carrier may be annoying, but he only weighs a pound, so it’s not like he’s absolutely cramped in there.  Aside from the growls and periodic pacing, he didn’t seem to mind too much.  But don’t put your finger in there because unlike real-life-Reggie, travel-sized-Reggie is likely to take it off in bitterness.

There were two Christmases where I wanted to go home for more than five days.  Since I won’t leave Reggie alone that long, I had to find someone to take care of him.  Except it was Christmas and absolutely no one wants to take care of your pet at Christmas.  Don’t even try.  So I booked Reggie a pet plane ticket (they’re not free and only two pets are allowed per flight), and braced myself to travel with Reggie to Houston for a 10 day trip.  My parents have an extra cage (they have parrots, too), so he had housing waiting, at least.  But I had to find myself a carrier that would fit under the seatback in front of me.  It wasn’t too hard, and like I said, Reggie doesn’t really weigh a pound, so he fits with room to pace.  Then I had to take him to the vet to get him “certified” to travel.  The certification lasts ten days, so I only had to do it once.

Then I had to take him to the airport.  I will generally describe all four of my trips to the airport with Reggie.  To start, when you have a parrot in a cat carrier, it breeds all kinds of questions from passersby:  “ooh! What is that?” they would ask as they gazed into the top, which is open/caging — I was tempted to tell all these people it was a parrot-shaped snake.  “Are you taking him on the plane?” –  no, we just like to visit the airport.  “Make him talk!” — he doesn’t like you.  (of course Reggie doesn’t talk in the box; he’s not in the best mood).  “Can I touch him?” — he’ll bite you. good luck.  And the absolute worst experience sitting in the airport was a lady who asked if her 6ish-year old daughter could come look at him.  As I sat in the airport, I felt like I was babysitting this 6-year old who just kept talking to me about who knows what and trying to stick her fingers between the bars.  I kept having to tell her “no”.  Her mom was neither nearby nor paying attention.  In airports, even nice people can become obnoxious.

The strangest part about the airport (all four times) was going through security.  I got the usual “what is he?” from TSA, but they were really the nicest people to me, very considerate.  I had to take Reggie out of his porter so it could be x-rayed and then we had to walk together through the people-xray.  Reggie’s wings are clipped or I never would have considered this.  He was pretty excited to come out of the carrier and dismayed to go back in.  He didn’t try any funny-business any of the times.

On the plane, Reggie had to sit under the seatback in front of me in the dark.  But he didn’t complain.  He just sat there quietly.  I had put a dish in the carrier for water, so I poured him some water in-flight and gave him some food.  I tell you, despite the fact that his ears were probably popping like crazy, he acted better than any two year old.  He didn’t make a peep about it.  He was probably too busy plotting my demise to think about it, really.

Would I travel again with Reggie?  Absolutely.  It’s annoying for me, and annoying for him, but it’s much better having him with me than finding him weeks’ worth of care (and missing him all the while)!  The next thing I’m exploring is how Reggie and I might be able to live overseas: there’s little-to-no quarantine from what I understand, but there’s some unknown and large set of paperwork with the FDA or the USDA or the foreign sponsor country’s equivalent if you want your pet bird to go overseas and be able to come back eventually.  We’re not moving any time soon, but someday we might want to!

Japan Trains February 9, 2008

The Shinkansen is the super fast, bullet train in Japan.  Superman couldn’t catch this thing.  And what’s more, there are a ton of them.  From Tokyo to Kyoto there’s one leaving every 8-10 minutes.  In order to ride it, you have to buy a ticket (of course) which should be easy, but it’s not.  On top of the base fare to get from here to there, there are all sorts of “extras” to choose from: reserved seat, unreserved seat, fewer stops, more stops.  They all have different fees, and the charts are somewhat confusing to a layperson like myself.  Luckily for me, the American, I have one more option: the Japan Rail Pass.

The Japan Rail Pass (JRP) is a 7 or 9 day pass that you can buy to ride almost any train in Japan unlimitedly for its time period.  The catch is that you must, must, must buy this ticket in a country that is not Japan.  Did you catch that?  You have to buy it before you get there from one of their listed travel agents.  Don’t forget or else you’re out of luck.  Once you get to Japan, you can activate the JRP for its specified number of days.  So that you don’t have to worry about activating the card while you’re stressing over finding a train going to your destination, you can even pre-activate it for days in the future, as in “start this 7 day pass in 3 days”.

The JRP costs ~28.000Y and the exchange rate is about $1=106Y as I write this, so an easy estimate is to just divide by 100Y to get $.  As far as I can tell, the JRP is not good for the city subway, but it is good for the train between Tokyo and Narita, which is usually ~3.100Y each way.   The round trip ticket Tokyo-Kyoto is ~27.000Y, so that extra trip to Narita makes it worthwhile.  It’s even more worthwhile if you take a day trip to Nara or Hiroshima from Kyoto (we plan on going to Nara).  But you can’t take the express train, called the Nozomi, on the JRP, so beware.  I think the Nozomi only accounts for a small fraction of the trains, anyway, though.

The Tokyo subway system seems to work a lot like the DC metro system: at the end of your ride, you find out if you’ve paid enough based on where you got on and off.   So even when you can’t find a ticket machine in English before your ride, you can pay the least fare possible and if you paid too little, just fork over the rest as you leave.  I like that system.  Of course, I also like the Boston way of doing things: flat fare all around!  At least that way there’s no fear of getting trapped in the metro station with too little money…

Finally, when traveling between Tokyo and Kyoto, try to get seats J-H on the train for an excellent view of Mt Fuji.  You can get off at the Mt Fuji stop, but I think it’s another 2.5 hours to the mountain, itself, and then another day to climb.  Most of the climbing is above the tree-line, leaving you with boring old rock, so perhaps seeing the mountain from a distance is really for the best, anyway.  If climbing is your thing, though, they say the sunrise is the best part, so an overnighter would be required.

Mittie Pattern December 23, 2007

I am remiss in updating this journal, but this would be a great knitting pattern for the airplane! Airplane rides are irritatingly long (no matter how long actual-in-flight-time is) and require small projects to keep them in check. If you’re flying over a sea and planning on staying awake, you will be able to start and finish these by the time you arrive. Easy to pack, too!

Cabley Mitties Pattern– a warm, wintery pair of mittens, perfect for your cold destination of St Paul, Minnesota or St Petersburg, Russia!

Seating Moo-pinions September 19, 2007

In the news today I noticed that Southwest Airlines is changing their A-B-C cattlecall boarding structure. Rather than have people lying on the floors, their backpacks strewn all over the place, passengers will each be assigned a number within an A-B-C boarding group, based on their relative check-in times.

I see a few weird things about this process. First, how is assigning people a number within a group (A-B-C) any better than just assigning people a number from 1 to the total number of passengers? Is this in place because the setup is already built in (three lanes) at Southwest gates? Second, Southwest is apparently taking this stance rather than traditional assigned seats because there are passengers who actually like the cattle call setup. I don’t personally see how the cattle call setup is at all beneficial. It means I have to race to check-in at midnight the day before the flight in order to assure that I’m not sitting in a middle seat. Rather, I feel that I should get seating privelege not because I stayed up late or arrived early to check-in, but because I bought my ticket in advance and helped them fill the plane’s seats early.

I also feel that if I book a flight with a travel companion that we should be guaranteed to sit together, not forced to each sit in a middle seat across the plane from one another because a solo-traveler was quicker to check-in; when booking a long flight, I will bypass a somewhat cheaper flight for another because the first is mostly full with no seats together (this case tends to be rare for me) and on the other there is room for me to sit with my companion.

Finally, I just don’t see how the cattle call arrangement, or this deviation, is monetarily beneficial to Southwest. While there may be a few people who enjoy the race to be in Group A, I can’t imagine it makes or breaks their decision to fly Southwest. But maybe that’s the moral: since seating probably won’t break my decision to fly Southwest either way, why do I care what their policy is as long as their prices remain relatively low. Will their prices remain relatively low, though, if they keep spending valuable executive dollars and resources on potentially unnecessary decisions like seating arrangements? Will any of it even make a difference? Is this just a bold PR move? That is to be seen!

Fly Away Free September 14, 2007

Continental Airlines has a contest (monthly, it seems) at www.continentalflyaway.com. Just drop off your name and address and you’re entered. The prize this month is a trip for two to China. China, you say?! Well, Hong Kong. And four nights’ accomodation. One of these days I’ll get mine, I’m sure!

Speaking of Continental Airlines, this week they were featured on Top Chef (with guest judge Anthony Bourdain — yay!) where I thought they really made themselves look good.  The flight attendants were all very complimentary of the chefs’ work, and the people in business class looked especially comfortable… makes me want to fly more often, but only in business class.  I was especially jealous when the winner (no spoilers here!) took away two free plane tickets, business class, to anywhere in the world. That’s right. Anywhere. Berlin? okay. Brazil? okay. Bangkok? okay. Beijing? okay. I hope she uses it to go to the most expensive and awesome destination she can find (oops… she… giveaway).

Two Gets One September 12, 2007

Just a piece of news of note: Southwest Airlines has a deal going on this month where buying two round-trip tickets gets you one free. It’s easy with only a few restrictions, for example the two purchased tickets must each be 1250 miles between origin and destination (boo, too far!).  But to sweeten the pot, you can take the deal twice, purchasing four round-trip tickets, and combine the two earned flights to get yourself to Hawaii and back. This is a Great Deal. The only drawback is that you have to have flown your two purchased flights by November 15. That’s a lot of vacationing to do in just two months!

Earning to Fly September 9, 2007

Collecting frequent flyer miles became a hobby of mine two years ago when I started flying for business. My job requires only minimal travel, and because of my employer, I’m required to take different airlines depending on the city pair, making it nearly impossible to build up all of my miles on a single airline. So, I opened three frequent flyer accounts: Continental, American Airlines, and United. Because of their partnerships, registering with this trio covers registration with almost all of the major airlines. For example, if one were to fly Delta, she could funnel those miles into her Continental fund. Similarly, USAir pairs with United. Qantas, Hawaiian Air, and British Airways each partner with American. I have Southwest points, too, but I rarely fly Southwest, so I often forget about them.

Airlines also partner with hotels, car rental agencies, and other businesses to help you earn miles. It simply requires asking the car rental agent or hotel clerk if you can earn miles for your stay. They take your flyer number, and you’re on your way. You can find out in advance on the airline’s website who their partners are and current special deals. Earning 50 miles here and 200 there can become a full-time hobby if you’re OCD like me! Check the airline website often for new deals; you might find something you were going to do anyway. For example, the subscription to Netflix I was about to make in June earned me a huge 2000 miles with the click of a button.

By far the best racket, though, is airline credit cards. They’re all backed by financial instutions like CitiCards and Chase Bank, so these aren’t your crumby Target Card. The interest rates, however, tend to be high, so if you don’t pay it off regularly, it may be worth your while to find a card better suited to your needs. The standard reward-earning for each card, with the exception of infrequent promotions, is one mile per each dollar spent. On its own, a credit card is not the easiest way to earn a free ticket, but in rounding out the last few hundred miles for a ticket, it’s a good bet — assuming you were going to spend the money anyway! Another benefit is sometimes-discounts on a ticket or on miles-cost for ticket purchasing when the airline’s card is used at its website.

If you’re going to get one of these cards, the best time to get one is when the airline is having “specials”. The deals usually come with 15000-25000 free or close-to-free miles, as well as waiving the first annual fee. If you don’t like the current deal, wait a month and another will appear. I maintain, although opinions vary, that an airline credit card should be one’s secondary, and not primary, credit card. Because of their annual fees, it’s nice to not have to rely on the card and be able to cancel the card when the fee is levied (usually the second or third year). Then you can reinstate the card at a future date when another good deal comes around, perhaps winning another 20000 miles if lucky.

Spending miles is another tricky subject. Because each mile is worth approximately a penny in the airline’s mind, using, for example, 25000 miles to buy any ticket under $250 is arguably a waste. If you have 25000 miles, you will often have enough miles to get a state-state ticket in the US. The catch is that there are only a limited number of these tickets allocated per flight or per day, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. So in order to snag a deal like this, tickets often have to be booked long before their date or booked for an off peak time. When I consider booking my tickets with miles, I look at only at the mile-saver fare, although I can understand why one might need to use the regular-miles fare at times. If I’m going to use my miles, however, I want to get the most value out of them that I can, or else I should just keep collecting them until I can squeeze more value out of them. For 50000 miles, I could find my way to Europe, a ticket that I could probably afford (at $750 per ticket) by saving dedicated-money for a while. But for around 60000 miles I could go to Japan, a place I might have trouble affording on my own (at $1400 per ticket). Similarly, I do not underestimate the value of the estimated 14000 miles I would acquire going to Japan, compared to only 8000 going to Europe.

Finally, when acquiring miles as it was initially intended, through flying, if you have the time and patience to make a short connection rather than take a direct flight, you can often eke out another 200-400 miles from the trip. It doesn’t seem like much, but just like the hotels, rental cars, and other special features, it adds up. You simply have to take the time, have a goal… and maybe have a touch of OCD.

Ticketing for Dollars August 29, 2007

The best travel-fortune I have had was when we got our free tickets to the Caribbean, or really vouchers for $500 each. I have very bad karma in life, so having good travel karma makes me feel somewhat blessed, or at least I think the gods haven’t totally given up on me. In Italy, after ten twelve-hour days running around, I was getting sick, I was tired of eating out, I missed my bed, and I was mostly ready to go home. Either that or move to Italy permanently (a better alternative, I thought, though slightly implausible). Our 1pm flight out of Fiumicino was a dream come true (our alternatives had all been 7am flights), and getting there was supposed to be painless. It was. But Traveling Companion Numero Uno insisted we leave early. Like 8am early. We were staying in the center of the city, so the time calculations are as follows: 20 minutes to the metro, 30 minutes to the airport (50 if you had missed the previous train), 30 minutes for check-in, 20 minutes for gate-finding. And… done! That’s about 2 hours, and it all went according to plan (I guess that’s lucky?) getting us there at 10am.

I know they say get to the airport 3 hours early for international flights, but in Italy, because of the simplicity there, I say you need to arrive more like 30 minutes beforehand. Unless you’re looking to get bumped. We got to the ticket counter, and upon revealing our identities (two, mild-mannered travelers!), we were asked if we could switch flights because of overbooking. We had booked on Delta (for price reasons) and they were going to transfer us to Continental. The flight got in an hour earlier, they offered us first-class seats and $600 vouchers, but the flight stopped in Newark instead of JFK with a very, very short layover. Hello, Customs!

We took the deal, and after 30 minutes on the phone while we waited (she was verifying with multiple poeple that we could make the short connection in Newark), the Delta agent sent us to the Continental counter where we waited another hour. They finally got to us and gave us our vouchers for $500 (but, but?) and wouldn’t change it. Then they sent us over to ticketing/bag checking where they gave us our seats for coach (but?!). In the meantime, another girl, who was Italian but spoke perfect English, had taken the same deal, and they kept their word: $600 and first class. When we asked, Continental said that Delta had not agreed to pay them for first class for us. It was too late (almost noon), and we couldn’t afford to wait in two hours of more lines. I wasn’t ready to pick a fight, remember I wanted to go home to my bed, and we were getting in an hour earlier, right? And $500 is still $500!

We got on the plane, passing the girl in first class who had stood with us in line (boooo!) and sat down for our long, window-less flight. No problem. Except when food came around, Travel Companion Numero Uno had not requested his vegetarian food in advance. How could he have? We had only just gotten booked on the flight. They were out of vegetables, apparently, so I gave him my bread and cookie and took his chicken.

One, long flight later, we landed in Newark. Late. So we ran through Customs! And then our bags didn’t come out right away! And then when we got to the TSA (we had to re-enter the airport after customs) they had (of course) “randomly” selected us for a pat-down. Nice. What felt like days of not sleeping was catching up with me and I started crying right there in front of the TSA people. They must have seen it all before because they finished quickly and were extra nice and said, “you’ll make your flight! Run!!” So we ran. All the way to the end of the terminal. And the plane was still there when we got to the gate. But my ticket was back at the TSA (probably soaked in tears)! I started crying more, and they let me on. I’m not saying it’s good practice, but it made me dislike the Newark airport jus a little less than before. To top off the trip entirely, when we got back to our airport, Numero Uno’s luggage had been lost, and my car had a flat tire. Bonanza!

$500 vouchers, right?! Still in Numero Uno’s backpack! Everything was okay. And now we’re going to the Caribbean, and maybe we’ll get bumped on the way back and get another ticket. There are worse things that could happen to a person and more horrible places to be stuck than St Thomas!