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I watched the video found here and followed its advice for trying to get a flight from New York City to China around the end of May. I checked out multiple flight websites(kayak,orbitz,etc) airline websites(China Eastern Air, Air China, etc) and used variable dates but couldn't seem to save any money between different flights. Am I missing something or is it just hard to find cheap flights to China?
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| # ? Feb 23, 2011 20:53 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 23:44 |
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Define cheap. If you're expecting to find a ticket for $400, keep dreaming. It depends heavily on where you're coming from, where you're going, when, and how long you're staying. I know you said NYC to China at the end of may, but more specifics are needed (where in China, how long will you stay, etc). If you can provide some of those details, I'll take a peek for you and see what I can find. That said, the site you linked to has some decent tips, but some of them are silly or unnecessary (like calling the airline for a better rate). Generally speaking, a kayak search followed by ITA segment pricing and then booking with the airline gets me by, but different routes require different approaches. He also didn't mention some of the more creative travel hacks, most of which I won't post on a public board like this. If you provide details, I'll see what I can dig up.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2011 03:43 |
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End of May is a pricey time to come to China. Holidays combined with all the international students in the US coming home for summer break make it hard to find a cheap flight. If you wait till June it should be a little cheaper, but generally unless some airline is having a crazy sale you're generally looking at something 600-700+ for one way and at least a grand and some change for round trip. My experience back and forth between the US and China doesn't really show Chinese airlines being a whole lot cheaper, usually Delta or Korean Air ends up being the cheapest. Delta kinda sucks though and my recent NYC->Shanghai flight with them was miserable. Magna Kaser fucked around with this message at Feb 24, 2011 around 06:22 |
| # ? Feb 24, 2011 06:20 |
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By cheap I was wondering if there's anything for less than $600 which is the best I've found so far. I'm flying to Shanghai and am planning to leave around May 22nd. It's one way since I'll be staying in China for an indeterminate amount of time and probably won't be flying home the same way.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2011 06:23 |
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huhu posted:By cheap I was wondering if there's anything for less than $600 which is the best I've found so far. I'm flying to Shanghai and am planning to leave around May 22nd. It's one way since I'll be staying in China for an indeterminate amount of time and probably won't be flying home the same way. $600 is drat cheap for a one-way. Keep in mind that one-way fares often have different pricing rules than round trip fare components so a one-way is not always half of the round trip. Also keep in mind that that flight is a drat long way and $600 barely covers the cost of fuel. I would not expect to find anything less and I would book while that fare was available.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2011 13:25 |
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Book that flight at $600. You're not going to really find much cheaper than that.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2011 18:03 |
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Speaking of cheap flights...I haven't been able to find a round trip from NYC or Boston to Sydney, Australia for cheaper than $1,300, is this the best I'm going to get? I remember looking up tickets maybe a year or 2 ago, and it was pretty easy to get them for $700. I'm planning on going end of march at the earliest, but would be willing to go anytime between then and September of this year, if it's possible to do so for less money. Any thoughts?
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| # ? Feb 27, 2011 18:33 |
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goldenskan posted:Speaking of cheap flights...I haven't been able to find a round trip from NYC or Boston to Sydney, Australia for cheaper than $1,300, is this the best I'm going to get? I remember looking up tickets maybe a year or 2 ago, and it was pretty easy to get them for $700. I'm planning on going end of march at the earliest, but would be willing to go anytime between then and September of this year, if it's possible to do so for less money. Any thoughts? Welcome to the world of $100 a barrel oil. $1300 is pretty decent right now. You can always wait and gamble that oil prices go down, but otherwise I'd book that.
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| # ? Feb 28, 2011 02:00 |
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TheLizard posted:Welcome to the world of $100 a barrel oil. $1300 is pretty decent right now. You can always wait and gamble that oil prices go down, but otherwise I'd book that. Troof. $1300 round trip is reasonable for a trip of this length. Again, Australia is on the other side of the goddamn planet and it takes a lot of effort (and fuel) to get there.
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| # ? Feb 28, 2011 22:28 |
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Thats a good price from the east coast goldenskan. Right now the best prices to the west coast (LA, San Fran) is around $1000. Add another $300 for NY. And thats flying some lovely airlines. Best Sydney > NY and return I could find is $1360 with Delta. You can wait and hope for a sale to come on where you can get some good deals under $1000 but they will often force you to fly within a couple of weeks, no choice of dates and sell out very quickly. The Aus/North America route has become very popular with the AUS dollar being so strong so prices have really dropped.
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| # ? Mar 1, 2011 22:55 |
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Jeez some people expect some really cheap flights to the other side of our earth 40000 feet above the sea. I'm not knocking anyone because I know we don't all fly all the time but to spend under a grand to get to Australia or China barely seems like a reasonable thought. Plus a lot of those routes make their bread and butter from people booking through a corporate expense account where money is no object. Or sometimes an immigrant family making a twice a decade trip home. For a route like that the airline might not give priority to some kid kicking around with the vague idea of visiting another continent at some point. For my trip to Japan I luckily only need to pay the taxes and fees which are almost $400 - that doesn't include fuel, staff, airport tenancy, or any of the oodles of other overhead costs. Think about that when you imagine getting a flight for less than twice the cost in money that goes straight to to government alone on a round trip.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2011 08:34 |
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Be flexible on your dates and if the flight is overbooked volunteer to fly on a later flight, Delta offered $600.00 from Minneapolis to Tokyo. It is not always guaranteed on international flights (which tend to either be booked solid or half full) but if you have a domestic transfer flight (I recently flew Chicago to San Francisco to Beijing), and United was asking for volunteers to take a later flight and receive 400.00. Again, this is never guaranteed, but hey, maybe it is something. *Also note, sometimes you can get stuck with airline bucks that you have to use with the airline, not so bad if you plan on flying again, but keep it in mind. Oh, also, if first class is not booked solid, often times you will get bumped to first class too!
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| # ? Mar 7, 2011 09:06 |
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John Q Russia posted:Jeez some people expect some really cheap flights to the other side of our earth 40000 feet above the sea. I'm not knocking anyone because I know we don't all fly all the time but to spend under a grand to get to Australia or China barely seems like a reasonable thought. If you're on the west coast, you might well be able to scrape by a roundtrip to China for under 1000. I just looked and found Vancouver-HK for 1070 and I'm sure that a bargain hunter could get it under that. Australia, I doubt you could get flights to for that cheap unless you're starting from Hawaii or something.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2011 15:52 |
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Aero737 posted:Oh, also, if first class is not booked solid, often times you will get bumped to first class too! Ahh, the OpUp (operational upgrade). While these do happen, they are fairly rare, and no one should count on them to secure an upgrade on an international segment. Besides, if there is an opup to be had, most of the time an elite passenger will get it over anyone else, and it breaks down by fare basis from there.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2011 20:00 |
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My military ID is still good for another year, so I'm your worst nightmare in that regard.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2011 20:31 |
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Okay, here's the deal about tickets to China. All Asian airlines have fare sheets they give out to specific travel agents. These fares are sometimes significantly lower than published fares, priceline or not. The cheapest way to buy a ticket is to buy one in China, because they get the lowest fares. If not, try a Chinese travel agency. My GoonTrips thread has a number to my friend Ann who has access to all the fare sheets. You can find the lowest prices there. My mom is flying from LA to Shanghai and back for 800 round trip. Just saying.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2011 04:43 |
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F^2 posted:Okay, here's the deal about tickets to China. i've typically gotten the lowest fares here by just buying from the airline directly... as odd as that sounds.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2011 11:20 |
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If you aren't sure if you are getting a good price or not, try a Kayak search for some off-peak time (next fall on weekdays?). If those kind of tickets are the same price, there's little chance of a better deal. Kayak may tell you if you can save a lot of money by leaving 1 day before or after, for example, and it searches more airlines than Orbitz and Expedia.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2011 11:46 |
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Aero737 posted:Be flexible on your dates and if the flight is overbooked volunteer to fly on a later flight, Delta offered $600.00 from Minneapolis to Tokyo. It is not always guaranteed on international flights (which tend to either be booked solid or half full) but if you have a domestic transfer flight (I recently flew Chicago to San Francisco to Beijing), and United was asking for volunteers to take a later flight and receive 400.00. Again, this is never guaranteed, but hey, maybe it is something. *Also note, sometimes you can get stuck with airline bucks that you have to use with the airline, not so bad if you plan on flying again, but keep it in mind. Oh, also, if first class is not booked solid, often times you will get bumped to first class too! My mom and I racked up $2400 in vouchers doing this on Delta on a trip to San Juan, PR in 2009. We were bumped once on the way down and twice on the way home, with an upgrade to First SJU-ATL after the third bump. We then scored $500 more a few weeks later on the way to San Antonio ($200 in bumps each plus $50 each that we somehow got from Delta for the inconvenience of our schedule getting totally jacked around the day before).
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| # ? Mar 23, 2011 23:59 |
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A friend wants to come visit me in Germany. Our dates are open for whenever, so whenever is cheaper is better. He gets 5 days of vacation time off, so he's planning on flying out Friday to take advantage of the weekend, stay for the week, then fly back on Sunday or something like that. When is the best time to fly? He'd be going from PHX to DUS (or possibly TXL in which case I'd meet him in Berlin and spend a few days there, or even AMS is a cheap train ride over). He just emailed me saying the cheapest flight he found was $1500 but forgot to mention what dates and to where, so it looks like we're looking for anything under $1500.
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| # ? Mar 31, 2011 19:09 |
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Ziir posted:A friend wants to come visit me in Germany. Our dates are open for whenever, so whenever is cheaper is better. He gets 5 days of vacation time off, so he's planning on flying out Friday to take advantage of the weekend, stay for the week, then fly back on Sunday or something like that. Summer is peak travel season to Europe from the US so waiting until September or October is going to net significant savings. For example, I see PHX-DUS with a stop in EWR for $1240 on CO in mid-September. Now, DUS will command a bit of a premium because of the size and level of service. IB is around $1000 but I wouldn't put my worst enemy on IB. If he is willing to travel in the middle of the week, more savings can be had. I know that messes with his vacation, but leaving Wednesday and coming back the following Tuesday can save some cash, lowering flights to $800 or so. Also, with the great train service in Germany, check out FRA, TXL, and MUC. Mackieman fucked around with this message at Apr 1, 2011 around 03:59 |
| # ? Apr 1, 2011 03:49 |
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My wife and I are trying to get tickets from Vermont to Italy in Sept/Oct. The best tickets I've found so far are just under a grand flying out of Montreal and landing in Florence. Does that sound reasonable?
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| # ? Apr 3, 2011 14:12 |
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wins32767 posted:My wife and I are trying to get tickets from Vermont to Italy in Sept/Oct. The best tickets I've found so far are just under a grand flying out of Montreal and landing in Florence. Does that sound reasonable? Out of YUL, that's about right. Fuel is getting more expensive and airlines are passing that right on to you and I. If you're looking to save a couple hundred bucks, and depending on how long you want to be gone, if you head down to BOS and fly to FCO, 9/12 to 9/30 is $773 on EI (Aer Lingus). You'd change planes in DUB and have to take a train from FCO up to FLR.
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| # ? Apr 4, 2011 01:16 |
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Mackieman posted:Summer is peak travel season to Europe from the US so waiting until September or October is going to net significant savings. For example, I see PHX-DUS with a stop in EWR for $1240 on CO in mid-September. Now, DUS will command a bit of a premium because of the size and level of service. IB is around $1000 but I wouldn't put my worst enemy on IB. Update on this, he found a PHX-BRU for September for $1000. Flight leaves on a Thursday, is that a good price? Every other time I've flown it's been cheaper but drat oil prices 
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| # ? Apr 4, 2011 04:01 |
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Ziir posted:Update on this, he found a PHX-BRU for September for $1000. Flight leaves on a Thursday, is that a good price? Every other time I've flown it's been cheaper but drat oil prices If you can provide specific dates, that will help greatly.
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| # ? Apr 4, 2011 12:58 |
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I've been trying to find a cheaper flight from PDX to Windhoek, Namibia (WDH) the first week of August since the cheapest I can find is $2704... any chance your tricks might help here?
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| # ? May 4, 2011 00:40 |
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AquaDame posted:I've been trying to find a cheaper flight from PDX to Windhoek, Namibia (WDH) the first week of August since the cheapest I can find is $2704... any chance your tricks might help here? You can get it down to about $2378 by flying into JNB and then from JNB over to WDH on a separate ticket. Keep in mind that PDX is not an international gateway and traditionally has higher prices, and WDH is a tiny location in the middle of Africa and service is limited there, leading to higher prices. Combine those facts with the cost of fuel today and you're seeing really high fares. It can also depend on when you return. I put you arbitrarily being gone a month because you didn't specify a return date. If you provide that I'll check again and give you more specifics (airlines, routes, times, etc).
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| # ? May 4, 2011 13:02 |
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Gotcha; PDX IS an international airport, but I don't think we can handle the 'biggies' like 747s or 777s. I'm hoping to get there on the 3rd of August and leave on the 8th. (a month would be awesome, but the time off and person I'd be going with just aren't there ; 
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| # ? May 5, 2011 00:14 |
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AquaDame posted:Gotcha; PDX IS an international airport, but I don't think we can handle the 'biggies' like 747s or 777s. I'm hoping to get there on the 3rd of August and leave on the 8th. (a month would be awesome, but the time off and person I'd be going with just aren't there ; PDX is an, "international" airport because there are a couple of flights to Canada each day. And its runways are more than capable of handling widebody aircraft. In the 90s DL and a few others ran lots of flights to Asia but that dried up during the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the dotcom bubble burst. PDX is not puny, offering DL fights to NRT and AMS, but it is not an international gateway a la SFO, LAX, JFK, EWR, IAD, ORD, ATL, IAH, or MIA. </airplane nerd> That said, the shorter time raises the price. You're looking at $2015 to get to JNB on DL. It's one of those fun flights where you land in JNB before you took off out of ATL. It would run another $413 for the JNB-WDH leg. I also checked through NBO and it was about $1000 more. Going through CPT was comparably priced so if the times don't work out for you on JNB, check there. Have fun in Namibia. 
Mackieman fucked around with this message at May 5, 2011 around 01:55 |
| # ? May 5, 2011 01:52 |
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Are you offering your powerful airline deal skills to us? I'm doing Incheon -> Shanghai August 13th, Shanghai -> Hong Kong the 18th (morning, so I get the day in HK), Hong Kong -> Incheon the 24th. Cheapest I found was $382, which seems reasonable but if I can do cheaper I'm all for that.
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| # ? May 5, 2011 15:01 |
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Mackieman posted:PDX is an, "international" airport because there are a couple of flights to Canada each day. And its runways are more than capable of handling widebody aircraft. In the 90s DL and a few others ran lots of flights to Asia but that dried up during the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the dotcom bubble burst. PDX is not puny, offering DL fights to NRT and AMS, but it is not an international gateway a la SFO, LAX, JFK, EWR, IAD, ORD, ATL, IAH, or MIA. So you say it's $2015 with DL to JNB but I can't find that flight - their website is saying $2415. Did you use the Delta website or some other service? Thanks for your help! zantar fucked around with this message at May 5, 2011 around 15:36 |
| # ? May 5, 2011 15:29 |
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Grand Fromage posted:Are you offering your powerful airline deal skills to us? I'm doing Incheon -> Shanghai August 13th, Shanghai -> Hong Kong the 18th (morning, so I get the day in HK), Hong Kong -> Incheon the 24th. Cheapest I found was $382, which seems reasonable but if I can do cheaper I'm all for that. That is reasonable and the cheapest, so go for it.
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| # ? May 5, 2011 16:38 |
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zantar posted:So you say it's $2015 with DL to JNB but I can't find that flight - their website is saying $2415. Did you use the Delta website or some other service? Thanks for your help! I will check on this after lunch (it's BBQ Thursday  ).Edit: I see one flight for $2015 and one for $2022. Kayak shows it and you can book it on delta.com. Hopefully this link works. Mackieman fucked around with this message at May 5, 2011 around 18:09 |
| # ? May 5, 2011 16:38 |
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The wife and I were given tickets to see the Barnes Foundation collection in Philadelphia this June. We live in North Carolina, and we'd like to make this a weekend trip. I would love to take a train or drive (fear of flying lol), but it just takes too much time, and doesn't save us much, if any. I searched last night, but didn't commit to anything. Today, the same search has the same flights, but they all cost ~$20-40 more. Is this just because the departure date is that much closer, or is there a chance the prices might drop again? My assumption is that the prices are not going to go down, but I am now annoyed at myself for not buying last night! I am also being super paranoid in my thinking, as all these sites seem to have my departure/return dates/locations filled in when I go there, so they must be reading each others cookies. Maybe they try to undercut other sites when they see you have been there??? Also, is bidding on hotels at priceline crazy? Are you more likely to get a deal the closer to the stay date (hotels just wanting to fill rooms, and all that)?
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| # ? May 18, 2011 16:33 |
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I was stationed in Jacksonville, NC for 4 years while i was in the military and i made the drive up to philly and back more than a dozen times. You will save a ton of money and the drive really isnt as bad as you think. If you take 17/13 all the way up the east coast you will not hit any traffic and its a pretty nice scenic drive. Takes about 9 hours. On the way back if you leave late at night on I95 and time it so you hit DC around 2 am you will make it back in about 7 hours. Its really not a bad drive and after you calculate the time you will spend driving to the airport, arriving early, going through security, flight time, waiting for your bags on landing etc you will end up with nearly the same amount of time wasted. As far as hotel bidding goes, i used it when i went to puerto rico last year and it worked out really good. I got an awesome room at a Quality Inn in a prime location in San Juan for 40$ a night. Unfortunately I was wary like you and only purchased one night so when i asked to stay another night they charged me the normal rate which was something like 85$. btw if youre coming to see the barnes collection you should go to the art museum as well. Some of the best post impressionism around. And make sure you go to the Franklin Institute. I live here and go at least twice a year, its so awesome.
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| # ? May 18, 2011 20:31 |
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Limastock posted:I was stationed in Jacksonville, NC for 4 years while i was in the military and i made the drive up to philly and back more than a dozen times. You will save a ton of money and the drive really isnt as bad as you think. If you take 17/13 all the way up the east coast you will not hit any traffic and its a pretty nice scenic drive. Takes about 9 hours. On the way back if you leave late at night on I95 and time it so you hit DC around 2 am you will make it back in about 7 hours. Its really not a bad drive and after you calculate the time you will spend driving to the airport, arriving early, going through security, flight time, waiting for your bags on landing etc you will end up with nearly the same amount of time wasted. Thankfully (I think?) we live close to RDU, and we won't be checking bags. I appreciate that we probably could drive and save some cash, but we are trying to maximize time there, and if I can avoid 18 hours on a highway, I will take it! If we were going for longer, we would definitely enjoy taking long/scenic routes via car, but then it would be hard to resist taking a train! The best deal I could find was through travelocity. The hotel, Sofitel Philadelphia, is smack downtown, and you can stay three nights for the price of two. With direct flights (at times I actually wanted!) there and back, it all came out to $778. The person who gave us the Barnes tickets apparently used priceline to bid $75 a night in a 4 star downtown area and got it. I tried that and it laughed at me. Maybe we could have worked it out to be cheaper with a bit more work, but I am happy with what we have. I was scared if we waited too long prices would just go up.
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| # ? May 18, 2011 21:05 |
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Kaluza-Klein posted:The hotel, Sofitel Philadelphia, is smack downtown, and you can stay three nights for the price of two. With direct flights (at times I actually wanted!) there and back, it all came out to $778. Thats right by rittenhouse square, probably one of the best areas in the city. Are you planning on renting a car? The barnes collection is not actually in philadelphia right now. They are currently building a spot for it on the parkway right next to the art museum but as of right now its in a suburb which will take you about 20 minutes to get to from that hotel with a car.
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| # ? May 18, 2011 22:14 |
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Limastock posted:Thats right by rittenhouse square, probably one of the best areas in the city. Are you planning on renting a car? The barnes collection is not actually in philadelphia right now. They are currently building a spot for it on the parkway right next to the art museum but as of right now its in a suburb which will take you about 20 minutes to get to from that hotel with a car. No, I don't want to bother with a car, having to park it, much less drive it, in the city. I know it is outside of the city, I was thinking of taking a bus! Is that crazy? I have no idea what a Philly bus is like! Google tells me the bus ride is 30 minutes, and it seems to go every half hour from downtown. Worst case, we have to take a taxi. We also plan on hitting the Art Museum, as it has some of the Barnes stuff, and a Chagall exhibit the wife is excited about. Any advice for things to do or not do while downtown would be greatly appreciated!
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| # ? May 19, 2011 20:22 |
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Mackieman posted:He also didn't mention some of the more creative travel hacks, most of which I won't post on a public board like this. Do you have poo poo on Richard Branson or something?
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| # ? May 19, 2011 20:46 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 23:44 |
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Popcorn posted:Do you have poo poo on Richard Branson or something? Heh, if only. The issue with posting stuff publicly is that they eventually find their way to the likes of fatwallet or the cocks over at airfarewatchdog.com, thus leading to the airline finding out about it and killing the deal.
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| # ? May 22, 2011 19:31 |
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