|
BobTheCow posted:This is a bit of a nebulous question. I don't fly frequently, so I don't have any airline allegiance, miles accrued, or credit card with points for flying. This year I'm planning on a trip from D.C. to L.A., and a later trip from D.C. to Europe (London or Dublin). I don't expect to make any other flights in the next year. Are you planning on spending $2,000 via credit card in the next three months without altering your spending habits? If so, you should consider signing up for the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card. The link I posted says you'll get 25,000 RR points for spending $1,000 in 3 months, but if you click on the application link you should be taken to a page that offers you 50,000 RR points for $2,000 of spend in 3 months. A round trip between any of the DC area airports and LA will cost you around 30,000-35,000 RR points, so your domestic trip would be covered with a fair amount of points left to spare. The card has a $99 annual fee that's not waived for the first year, but given the number of points you'll receive that's still an excellent value. e: I'm not really into the "manufactured spend" thing that Geriatric Pirate mentions, which is why I say you should apply if you think you're going to incur $2,000 of credit card eligible expenses over 3 months just in your normal course of action double e: you may want to visit this thread as well http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3679537 pig slut lisa fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Feb 25, 2015 |
#
?
Feb 25, 2015 05:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 03:30 |
|
|
How much are you going to put on this card per year? If you're booking 2 flights and spending 5k a year I don't think it's worth it. Just get cash back. You also better hope whatever gets you to LA gets you to London. Otherwise it seems especially pointless. If you've got 25k+ per year in spend then yeah, maybe. I'm still a bigger fan of SPG and hotel benefits as they often equal out the flights and booking premium cabins is harder and harder. I also wouldn't wish a dc-lax flight on southwest on anyone unless you're taking one of the 3 direct flights out of bwi but I don't have a ton of patience for connections (and delays) on transcons with plenty of non stops available.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 10:53
|
|
|
I just booked Dubai with my wife over Thanksgiving for $750 each round trip, direct on Emirates. They are having a 2:1 deal right now on flights to Dubai from the US. The same flight over Christmas was over 2200 each. We will be using this to book a nested ticket to the Maldives or somewhere else in the region for the majority of the time, with a day or two on each end to protect us for any misconnects and to decompress/prepare for the 16 hour flight.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2015 20:14
|
|
|
Is that a good deal, considering you probably don't actually want to go to Dubai?
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2015 21:05
|
|
|
The flight usually is ~1200 each. Turkish has it for 1063 right now. So that's ~300 in savings per person. I think we can get to Maldives for around that in cost, and if anyone wants to go anywhere else that isn't the huge Maldives markup with flyDubai and other airlines Dubai is a great hub to do that from. Not to mention with this method we can take a day or two, check into a cheap hotel, and decompress without having to travel 28 hours straight to get anywhere. And we were just in Dubai 2 years ago. It's great for a day or two and it's cool to swim in the Persian gulf. So I dunno, I figure that much savings on an international flight during a holiday where people might have time off was worth sharing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2015 00:27
|
|
|
Oh yeah, I flew through there a few years ago to get to Australia, I just didn't think my overall ticket was much more than $1200 or so. But I'm coming from NYC and I assume you aren't.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2015 12:36
|
|
|
sellouts posted:I just booked Dubai with my wife over Thanksgiving for $750 each round trip, direct on Emirates. They are having a 2:1 deal right now on flights to Dubai from the US. The same flight over Christmas was over 2200 each. Qatar Airways is having an insane global sale until tomorrow, got myself Frankfurt to Colombo and Colombo to New York in the summer (all travel must be complete before July 10 though) for €1200... in business class. edit: the sale is on for all over the world, and for economy and business - I just took advantage of wanting to go to Sri Lanka and the extra "discount" that you get flying out of CAI or CMB on Middle Eastern carriers Geriatric Pirate fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Mar 12, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2015 12:26
|
|
|
Yeah weird, I'm not able to book anything remotely close to that within the timeframe.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 05:49
|
|
|
sellouts posted:Yeah weird, I'm not able to book anything remotely close to that within the timeframe. LAX-GIG is running for about $1500 on AM in J. No miles anywhere useful but that's a great fare in a premium cabin.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 20:30
|
|
|
Yeah that's not bad. You can usually snag a 788 lax to mex or vice versa. Stuck on an aging 767 for the long flight though. Still. Great deal. Had I not jumped on Dubai/Maldives we might have done this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 09:35
|
|
|
Summer of 2016 (July and maybe into August) my wife and I will be following a friend who has some academic conferences in Europe, first in England, then in Sweden. We'll be there for 3-5 weeks (not sure on the dates yet), leaving from Minneapolis. My guess is that since Icelandair flys out of Minneapolis, connects all over Europe, and easily let's you book a roundtrip ticket where you don't depart from the same city, that it's my best choice? If I price out some random dates in 2015 (I'm guessing we can't book 2016 yet) I'm seeing 1000 round trip for Minneapolis to London (or Birmingham or Manchester) and Stockholm back to Minneapolis. I'm guessing that's going to be my best choice, and no other carrier is going to be as easy or cheap. Also the stopover in Iceland will be nice for my legs.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
FISHMANPET posted:Summer of 2016 (July and maybe into August) my wife and I will be following a friend who has some academic conferences in Europe, first in England, then in Sweden. We'll be there for 3-5 weeks (not sure on the dates yet), leaving from Minneapolis. My guess is that since Icelandair flys out of Minneapolis, connects all over Europe, and easily let's you book a roundtrip ticket where you don't depart from the same city, that it's my best choice? If I price out some random dates in 2015 (I'm guessing we can't book 2016 yet) I'm seeing 1000 round trip for Minneapolis to London (or Birmingham or Manchester) and Stockholm back to Minneapolis. I'm guessing that's going to be my best choice, and no other carrier is going to be as easy or cheap. Also the stopover in Iceland will be nice for my legs. As long as you know what you're getting into as far as IcelandAir goes, that's not a bad fare. And yeah, bookings are generally only available 330 days out so start looking in August.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2015 01:32
|
|
|
Anything I should know about IcelandAir?
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2015 18:47
|
|
|
FISHMANPET posted:Anything I should know about IcelandAir? Low-cost carrier, pay extra for everything. Iceland Air do offer free stop-overs up to 7 days, so if you can fit it in on the way there/back I highly recommend doing just that. Iceland is beautiful, summer is a great time to visit as well. Keflavik airport is pretty small and easy to get around.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2015 21:14
|
|
|
Jossos posted:Low-cost carrier, pay extra for everything. Iceland Air do offer free stop-overs up to 7 days, so if you can fit it in on the way there/back I highly recommend doing just that. Iceland is beautiful, summer is a great time to visit as well. I haven't flown them but based on trip reports I've read they're just a normal European carrier now, except that they charge for food in economy. Free checked bags, 32" seat pitch and AVOD IFE aren't exactly LCC characteristics. Also to FISHMANPET you're overplanning your trip (I've seen you in the Europe thread too), it's over a year until you go, relax. You never know what's going to happen with flights that far ahead. For example, for the past year or so, Scandinavia-NYC/LAX/SFO-Scandinavia tickets have been dirt cheap because airlines are fighting Norwegian. This probably won't last, but you will have other things come up. IcelandAir being the cheapest option is also a recent development. Who knows what effect WOW Air (another Iceland carrier, this time a true LCC) will have on prices, they advertised some really attractive fares last year. Geriatric Pirate fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Mar 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2015 14:19
|
|
|
So looking for some advice here on what I now realize might have been a bad purchase. My friend and I were looking for flights from Baltimore to Berlin in September and Kayak.com had a reasonable fare on WOW Air through Iceland, and we fully understand WOW Air is a low cost carrier. The problem is that kayak sent us to a website called justfly.com where we were able to purchase the ticket... but we didn't really properly vet out justfly.com. Justfly.com sent us a confirmation email, and in that we have "record locator" for BMI Regional which appears to be an airline which only services Europe, as well as a Canadian Western e-ticket number which I can't even find a website for. I'm certain that WOW Air is the flight operator as they have this BWI-Berlin route available, however on WOW's website the flight we booked shows already full. So we're not really sure we are booked on a flight and are not sure how to verify it. Some googling around and checking flyertalk suggests justfly.com is a site with essentially no customer service and often changes what the real charges are. I think as long as we confirm we are actually on a flight then we can accept that, but we want to find out if we need to take action on cancelling or doing a credit card charge back or something along those lines.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2015 18:25
|
|
|
Do you have a booking reference (this is probably the record locator)? If so, you can try it out here https://www.checkmytrip.com or on https://booking.wowair.co.uk/manage/change-booking/ You can also check the first three digits of your e-ticket number and see what airline it is really for. Note that this is not necessarily the airline that will operate your flight, merely the one that it's ticketed on - but at least you can see if Canadian Western is a real airline... You can also check on BMI Regional's website with your record locator (i.e. booking reference) and see what kind of flight it says you have booked - if any.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2015 18:47
|
|
|
Geriatric Pirate posted:Do you have a booking reference (this is probably the record locator)? If so, you can try it out here https://www.checkmytrip.com or on https://booking.wowair.co.uk/manage/change-booking/ Thanks for the help. The first three digits of the eticket are 365 which is the IATA code for FlexFlight. Looks like FlexFlight has several airline partners, one of which is WOW. I think I'll call FlexFlight first to confirm and then contact WOW as I think they will ultimately operate the flight. No luck on checkmytrip.com or the WOW Air booking website but I think I have a direction to go in with first three digits of the e-ticket. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2015 19:07
|
|
|
mtr posted:Thanks for the help. The first three digits of the eticket are 365 which is the IATA code for FlexFlight. Looks like FlexFlight has several airline partners, one of which is WOW. I think I'll call FlexFlight first to confirm and then contact WOW as I think they will ultimately operate the flight. checkmytrip.com should have the ticketing details as that is an Amadeus portal and W2 books tickets through Amadeus. Your ticket number may need some special formatting above what you were given. If you want to PM it to me with your last name I can see if I can make it work.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2015 00:16
|
|
|
Yesterday I was looking at tickets from DFW to PEK in July for $900. There were multiple departure and return days at that price so I tabled it until tomorrow. As I look at the prices now, they've jumped $600 to $1474! I knew the original price was a good deal, but why the heck do I have to pay 67% more for the same flight now? Is it likely that I'll be able to snag it at a lower price later?
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2015 00:31
|
|
|
dongsbot 9000 posted:Yesterday I was looking at tickets from DFW to PEK in July for $900. There were multiple departure and return days at that price so I tabled it until tomorrow. As I look at the prices now, they've jumped $600 to $1474! I knew the original price was a good deal, but why the heck do I have to pay 67% more for the same flight now? Is it likely that I'll be able to snag it at a lower price later? No mere mortal knows the dark art of revenue management; they're trying to maximize revenue. Prices change constantly so it is entirely possible that fares will drop. On average, fares are more expensive over weekends so I'd start watching it daily and it probably has a decent shot of dropping on Tuesday of next week. Not guaranteed of course, but now that you know when and where you want to go, you can watch it closely and jump on it when it drops to a level you're comfortable with.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2015 02:12
|
|
|
Trying to find flights from Seoul on May 2 or the evening of May 1 to Taiwan or Hong Kong (or any other place not China or Japan that's cheap) until May 5. I found these on Google Flights, but much more expensive on the China Air site. http://goo.gl/flights/KbfH Kaohsiung http://goo.gl/flights/SDya Taipei
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2015 11:15
|
|
|
DontAskKant posted:Trying to find flights from Seoul on May 2 or the evening of May 1 to Taiwan or Hong Kong (or any other place not China or Japan that's cheap) until May 5. Yeah, looks like Google either has old data (which is odd since Hipmunk doesn't show that fare and they're both using ITA's data) or it's a funky currency thing. In either case, $500USD is about as good as I see.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2015 00:32
|
|
|
Mackieman posted:Yeah, looks like Google either has old data (which is odd since Hipmunk doesn't show that fare and they're both using ITA's data) or it's a funky currency thing. In either case, $500USD is about as good as I see. Thanks. I was afraid of that. There's a Hong Kong flight on Ethiopian for 260 but for fewer days. Might do that. 500 for 3 days is killer.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2015 03:04
|
|
|
I've got a bunch of family around the country flying in for our group vacation on the Big Island in Hawaii and I'm trying to figure out the best way to package up a group of flights for the seven of us. Is there any type of service that could do this for me or am I stuck slogging it out with a spreadsheet? The trip is from July 31 - Aug 8th with (2 from PHX), (3 from DIA or COS) and (2 from LAX) all heading to KOA.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2015 00:26
|
|
|
PastPerfect posted:I've got a bunch of family around the country flying in for our group vacation on the Big Island in Hawaii and I'm trying to figure out the best way to package up a group of flights for the seven of us. Is there any type of service that could do this for me or am I stuck slogging it out with a spreadsheet? You're not really going to find any sort of package deals for so many different origination points. The only thing you could do is go to a travel agent and have them book all the various tickets, but that's unlikely to provide any benefit, much less significant savings, over putting together intineraries yourself and having everyone book their tickets. For those leaving from LAX, make sure you check SNA as a departure point as well as LAX.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2015 12:44
|
|
|
Is there any websites that let you only choose the departure airport? That's because i just want to see the cheapest flights around starting from my city.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2015 15:38
|
|
:I'd like to borrow $200M
|
RattiRatto posted:Is there any websites that let you only choose the departure airport? That's because i just want to see the cheapest flights around starting from my city. Google flights
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2015 16:19
|
|
|
Is there a general "how does air travel work?" thread? i checked the resources and links one as well as the travel tag and didn't see anything. If not, should i ask random question here or should i make a thread for my specific case?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2015 20:41
|
|
|
Bistromatic posted:Is there a general "how does air travel work?" thread? i checked the resources and links one as well as the travel tag and didn't see anything. If not, should i ask random question here or should i make a thread for my specific case? Go ahead and ask your question here. If I don't know, I'll make something up. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2015 02:29
|
|
|
How does one know when is the right time to buy flight prices for a trip you are planning way in advance. I'm going to Seattle in August, and I've been checking the prices of flights for the past 3 weeks. I would have thought that the earlier you buy, the cheaper it would be, but that does not seem to be the case. For example today the price is about 60 dollars lower than I've seen it so far in the past 3 weeks.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2015 16:13
|
|
|
Mackieman posted:Go ahead and ask your question here. If I don't know, I'll make something up. There are also dedicated Aviation and Air Traffic Control Ask/Tell threads that have some airline pilots/dispatchers/FAA controllers active in them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2015 16:18
|
|
|
Megasabin posted:How does one know when is the right time to buy flight prices for a trip you are planning way in advance. I'm going to Seattle in August, and I've been checking the prices of flights for the past 3 weeks. I would have thought that the earlier you buy, the cheaper it would be, but that does not seem to be the case. For example today the price is about 60 dollars lower than I've seen it so far in the past 3 weeks. The correct answer is: when it reaches a price you're willing to pay. Depending on the market, that could be a few bucks or hundreds.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2015 22:33
|
|
|
A not-insignificant part will also probably be how many seats they've sold so far for that and flights at similar times/surrounding days So a large bit of the equation could be entirely* unpredictable because it's based on other people. *Yes, I know airlines do predict based on sales trends, but while we can guess at them, we don't have that data when we're sitting booking a flight
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 00:01
|
|
|
Mackieman posted:Go ahead and ask your question here. If I don't know, I'll make something up. Okay, thanks. My girlfriend lives in Canada and i live in Germany, she wants to visit in summer and i'd like to pay for the tickets. We both have zero experience buying plane tickets or anything so first thing i tried was going to a travel agency but they said they'd need to see her passport and that they'd have to say her passport. If that's true how does ordering tickets online work? At what point do you show your passport to whom? And do you get tickets mailed to you or do you print them yourself like cinema tickets? Do i have to let my bank know i intend to do this so the stolen card alarms don't go off when a plane ticket gets ordered for someone else from Canada? Is there a good general guide for when to show up at the airport, how check in works, what allowed in carry-on etc? Basically how does any of this work? How do i plane? And this might be a question for a different thread but are there any papers she needs aside from her passport? As far as we can tell Canadians don't need visa for Germany. fordan posted:There are also dedicated Aviation and Air Traffic Control Ask/Tell threads that have some airline pilots/dispatchers/FAA controllers active in them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 07:02
|
|
|
When purchasing online, there's often a little box to check about whether the name on the credit card matches the name on the ticket. It could be wise to give your bank an advanced warning. Edit: Probably only necessary if you're paying in CAD instead of EUR. These days, everyone prints their tickets at home. You get a confirmation code and/or bar code to scan at the airport. You might need her passport number to complete the reservation, but no one needs to see the original passport until she checks in at the airport. She doesn't need a visa. You know what they say about internet girlfriends from Canada, right? peanut fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Apr 9, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 08:42
|
|
|
Bistromatic posted:Okay, thanks. When you buy a ticket online at some point in the process you'll have to enter passenger information which for an international flight will include the passport number. You show your passport at check in, if you do it at the airport, at the check and at passport control. This can differ slightly between airlines but the options are normally either to check in online and print your boarding pass (mobile option is probably available as well) or you can check in when you arrive at the airport and print your boarding pass then (a few airlines charge for this). You can if you want, but the only thing your bank will see is a charge by the airline which shouldn't cause problems. Buying a flight months in advance seems highly unlikely to be fraud. The airline website should have all this information available. Flying is pretty simple and the guidelines given by airlines leave plenty of time to ensure that you won't be late.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 10:20
|
|
|
Megasabin posted:How does one know when is the right time to buy flight prices for a trip you are planning way in advance. I'm going to Seattle in August, and I've been checking the prices of flights for the past 3 weeks. I would have thought that the earlier you buy, the cheaper it would be, but that does not seem to be the case. For example today the price is about 60 dollars lower than I've seen it so far in the past 3 weeks. To elaborate here a good rule is they have high prices very far ahead to capitalize on people who know they have to be somewhere and don't know how the system works. They usually have prices high right before departure to capitalize on last minute (usually business) emergencies. Somewhere in the middle is a time where they adjust rates to try to fill the plane with casual travelers who are flexible enough with time to not need to overpay for a specific date. What that date is in the middle when they have lowest prices is unknown. As was advised pay what you're comfortable paying! Bistromatic posted:. A pro tip would be for your girlfriend to register as a frequent flyer for whatever airline you're choosing. You can do this beforehand and on most airlines you can enter a lot of the required information and save it there, making it easier to not have to fill it all in when you're booking. It's also a good way to keep everything organized as she can log in and view details, possibly select seats, etc. Depending on the airline as well a passport number may not be required at time of booking. You'll still need a passport and it is rare but some will let you get away with booking with a full name, gender, address and birthdate. You can print tickets at home or at the airport when you check in. Check in starts 24h beforehand. She will need a passport at multiple stages at the airport. Read the website of your airline of choice for specific rules on prohibited carry on items and other rules. They say to plan to arrive up to 3 hours before the international flight but that's a lot of time at most airports. Only you/she can know your specific airport at the time in which you plan to leave. For first time/worried travelers showing up early only means you're stuck waiting at the airport a little longer. That's a lot better than worrying about missing your flight the first few times you fly.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 15:48
|
|
|
Thanks y'all! This has been a lot of help.peanut posted:You know what they say about internet girlfriends from Canada, right? I didn't actually and had to look it up. Now i wonder if they say the same thing about internet boyfriends from Germany 
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 21:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 03:30 |
|
|
I guess it's a sign you might be playing too many games with your routing and stopovers when it pops you into Premium Economy for a transatlantic leg because it's cheaper. The annoying thing is when you try to actually book Premium Economy and it pops you up into ludicrously priced Business.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2015 16:59
|
|