We have trawled the web to save you the effort and have found the lowest Heathrow Express fares.
Here is the link to American Express
We have always rated Skyscanner as the best impartial search engine for flights and with its new look and feel, it’s better than ever.
We recommend that you use Skyscanner for all economy flights especially European, even if think that you know which airline you’re going to use, because you never know what other options may have materialised unless you’ve checked.
Skyscanner is one of very few search engines that work with Ryanair
British Airways is offering discounted fares for travellers of companies who are signed up to their loyalty scheme, “On Business”.
The traveller must also be a member of the British Airways Executive Club or the Iberia, Qantas or American Airlines schemes.
The programme is called Business Bespoke and the standard discount is 5% off normal fares but can be as high as 36%!
Unusually, this incentive is not available direct from BA or from the airline website ba.com but must be booked through participating travel agents, who will charge a transaction or booking fee to provide the reservation and ticketing service
Please contact us for more information and advice on where you can book these discounted fares. Telephone or email us using our “about us” page.
The British Airways sale applies to First and Club World Class only and offers savings of over £3,000 but seats are limited and the following conditions apply:
Travel Dates
Applies to outbound travel::
Europe: Up to 10 June
Worldwide 23 March – 7 May and 1 June – 10 June
Length of Stay
Stay up to 355 days Europe and up to 6 weeks worldwide
All long haul travel requires a Saturday night stay
Book before
Bookings must be made at least 14 days before departure
Bookings must be made before midnight Tuesday 13th March
Fares
Business Class – Club World long-haul prices from £1,529 return.
For the complete range of prices visit the BA price table here
For bookings, please visit our British Airways Page
Save even more by pricing Flight + Hotel
No refunds and no changes allowed once booked.
Searching for a hotel in Benghazi Libya?
What a challenge this was! There are no Benghazi Hotels listed in our Hotel search engine so we had to manually check each listing from Google Maps.
We were often diverted to hotels in Malta and Italy so quite some time was spent to discover the following:
Ozo Hotel, Benghazi **** auzoo
In Google maps it is spelt as the Ozoo Hotel Benghazi but a local by the name of AL-Elwani has photographed it and spelt it as Ozo Hotel Benghazi.
It appears to be a large hotel:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/43131595
Telephone 00 218 021 335 1990
Tibesti or Hotel Teebeste Hotel, Benghazi *****
Tel 00 218 061 909 0017
Tel 00 218 061 909 0016
Fax 00218 0613389171
The same person has photographed the Tibesti hotel here:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/43131566
Twice as many people have viewed this property so is it twice as popular?
Both of the above appear to be in the port area
I found a tweet from a Benghazi resident suggesting that if you want a good hotel in benghazi to try the tibesti and auzoo they’re the best
That’s from “the chosen” @beemo_hazard libya,benghazi
This site gives a list of hotels in Benghazi:
http://en.7mates.com/hotels/libya/bengasi/benghazi.htm
If you find this information useful and if you can add to it PLEASE COMMENT below! Thank you.
And if you want to find the lowest fares to Benghazi please use our Flights Page
The American College of Chest Physicians have published “evidence based” guidlines.
They suggest that alcohol intake and economy class do not in themselves increase the risk of DVT
But they suggest that sitting in a window seat with consequential reduction in mobility increases the risk.
As does the use of oral contraceptives, advanced age, pregnancy, recent surgery or trauma and obesity.
There is much talk about the Vulcan and even Concorde participating in the 2012 Queens diamond jubilee flypast but unfortunately, there isn’t one!
The Vulcan has been given permission from the CAA but no plans exist for a flypast exist,
The usual royal queen’s flypast has been ditched in favour of the Thames celebrations
If you need a hotel for the bank holiday weekend June 4th and 5th please take a look at the rates and availability offered via our hotel comparison page
Booking Business Travel provides impartial advice. We earn nothing from this particular article but hope you’ll revisit us and consider taking our advice when you next need a hotel, a Eurostar ticket or international flight.
Please subscribe to my blog for occasional updates
There are no plans for a 2012 flypast this year previous wedding and birthday occasions.
If you need a hotel for the bank holiday weekend June 4th and 5th please take a look at the rates and availability offered via our hotel comparison page
Booking Business Travel provides impartial advice. We earn nothing from this particular article but hope you’ll revisit us and consider taking our advice when you next need a hotel, a Eurostar ticket or international flight.
Please subscribe to my blog for occasional updates
Opodo is offering a £20 discount on flights costing more than £200.
All you need to do to obtain the Opodo discount is enter this code: SALE20 when you proceed with your booking.
In addition, FLIGHT+HOTEL packages are discounted by £20 if you spend over £400. Use this code: BREAKS20
This offer applies for bookings made before midnight on Thursday 9th February.
Please visit our Opodo Page for more information and to make bookings
The Heathrow Express fare between Paddington and Heathrow is so expensive that I decided to research the options.
The normal Heathrow Express online fare is £34.00 return
The lowest discounted Heathrow Express fare is £31.62 return and £16.74 single, via the BMI website here
We’d appreciate any comments below, especially if this information becomes outdated. I last checked on 1st March 2012
Booking Business Travel provides impartial advice. We earn nothing from this particular article but hope you’ll revisit us and consider taking our advice when you next need a hotel, a Eurostar ticket or international flight.
Please subscribe to my blog for occasional updates
Also, take a look at what we consider to be the very best discount hotel search engine here
Finally!
The low cost carrier now includes their fees in the initial quote, rather than further down the booking process. They shouldn’t be charging as much as they do for using plastic, but at least they are now being upfront about it.
Meanwhile, Ryanair has introduced yet another fee of typically £2.00 per flight to cover the cost of the European Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme.
Ryanair says that the EU stealth tax will damage traffic, tourism, European competiveness and jobs. Really? Can £2 per flight do that much damage?
Ryanair still leave the additional credit card fees of £6 per passenger per flight until the final page of a booking.
Booking Business Travel recommend using our flight comparison page for easyJet and Ryanair flights but remember that you’ll need to add £12 per return flight per passenger on Ryanair for a true comparison
Visit the UK’s most popular search engine here
Two train services serve the Paddington-Heathrow route. We compare both.
HEATHROW CONNECT
Save £16.20 by taking the cheaper and slightly slower alternative.
HEATHROW CONNECT costs £17.80 return compared to Heathrow Express at £34.
Even lower fares if you use a railcard.
If you’re taking the first train of the day, the journey time is only 24 minutes compared to Heathrow Express’s 15 minutes
Departure from Paddington at 04.42 arrives:
Terminal 1 & 3 at 05.04
Terminal 4 at 05.10
Terminal 5 at 05.33
Normal Journey Times:
Paddington – Heathrow Terminal 1 & 3 = 32 MINUTES
Paddington – Heathrow Terminal 4 = 49 MINUTES
Paddington – Heathrow Terminal 5 = 43 MINUTES
Schedules
Full schedule information available from Heathrow Connect Website
HEATHROW EXPRESS
The online fare is now £34 return and £18 single, an increase of just over 6% on last year.
The cheapest Heathrow Express fare we have found online is from the BMI website here
We’d appreciate any comments below, especially if this information becomes outdated. I last checked on 1st February 2012
Also, take a look at what we consider to be the very best discount hotel search engine here
Booking Business Travel provides impartial advice. We earn nothing from this particular article but hope you’ll revisit us and consider taking our advice when you next need a hotel, a Eurostar ticket or international flight.
Here is the most up to date and impartial guide to discount Stansted Express fares.
The normal return fare is now £29.50, almost as much as the Heathrow Express Service
And the one way fare is £21.50
Stansted Express through Ryanair is just £21.60 return, saving £7.90 (EUR24.59 converted at today’s rate)
And one way is just £14.40
Here is the direct link to discounted Stansted Express Tickets courtesy of Ryanair. You do not have to be a Ryanair passenger to take advantage of this fare
easyJet also offers a discount but more expensive, at £28 return and £19.80 single
We’ve also researched and host the very best hotel comparison site. When you need a discounted hotel booking, please use our hotel search engine here
Booking Business Travel provides impartial advice. We earn nothing from this particular article but hope you’ll revisit us and consider taking our advice when you next need a hotel, a Eurostar ticket or international flight.
Please subscribe to my blog for occasional updates
British Airways is offering free upgrades from Business to First Class.
The offer for travel up to end March 2012
Bookings apply to “published fares” only, i.e. fares that are displayed on the ba.com website.
If you book a “restricted fare”, bookings must be made by 31st January 2012. Restricted fares are booked in C D or R class.
If you are booking fully flexible club word tickets, the offer will be available until 31st March 2012
Fully flexible fares are booked in J class
The offer is a choice of upgrade on either the outbound or inbound journey.
Bookings can only be made via a travel agent or the British Airways call centre.
British Airways telephone number: 0844 493 0787. Travel agents will also be in a position to compare with alternative airlines. Try a specialist agent such as Capable Travel on 020 7489 8787
Upgrades are limited in availability so book as soon as you can!
Most people know Expedia as an online travel agent for leisure bookings but the company also operates a Travel Management Company by the name of EGENCIA.
EGENCIA has acquired TRAVELDOO technologies, founded in France in 2000
TRAVELDOO provides booking management technology to Travel Management Companies.
Their products assist travel clients with Travel planning, Online Bookings, Data capture and reporting.
TRAVELDOO have their own clients in addition to Expedia, numbering some 4,000+
We think this is important news as technology becomes a more and more important factor in the decision making process of which TMC to use.
Major airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates and Air New Zealand have January 2012 sales
Book before 24th January 2012:
British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines and Qantas all require bookings to be made by Tuesday 24th January 2012
Cathay Pacific Sale to Australia must be booked by 15th January 2012
Air New Zealand Worldwide Sale deadline is 31st January 2012
The British Airways Sale is targeting leisure travellers rather than business travellers.
Bookings in Club World and First Class are non refundable, non changeable and non transferable.
But economy tickets can be changed at a charge of £60 for European flights and £90 for worldwide flights.
Book by Tuesday 24th January
I absolutely love this app for UK national rail.
It provides up-to-the-minute station information e.g. 2 minute delay on the train that I’m running for…
I’ve found it to be more accurate than station announcements.
It meets my criteria: Fun to use, intuitive and useful.
It gets information directly from the ATOC system (Association Train Operating Companies)
Once, it offered me an alternative route that saved me about 10 minutes and one less change.
The app is offered by “crosscountry” and is called “Train Tickets”
If you appreciate this advice, please subscribe to my monthly blog and come back next time you need to book travel. Thanks!
Travel agents make money in a variety of ways, depending on the product being sold.
Travel agents make money by selling holiday packages which are organised by tour operators. Or they may package the travel and hotel accommodation together themselves.
Travel agents also sell flight tickets on their own, hotels on their own, and other services such as train tickets, ferry bookings and insurance.
HOLIDAY PACKAGES
The major tour operators promote their packages through travel agents by allowing the agent to deduct a commission, typically 10%, when the agent forwards your payment to them.
Operators may also pay the agent additional incentives to sell their products. Anything from M&S vouchers through to offers of free “familiarisation trips”
TAILOR MADE PACKAGES
Another way that a travel agent can make money is by pricing a flight and hotel together as a package themselves. The hotel will pay a commission of typically 8-12% and the agent will include a mark-up of perhaps 10% into the bundled price.
FLIGHT ONLY BOOKINGS
How do travel agents make money from flight only bookings?
The airlines no longer pay the 9% that they once did. Some still pay 1% which is not enough to cover the time and cost required to process a booking.
How do travel agents make money from no-frills airlines?
No-Frills airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet display sole price levels on their websites.
If a travel agent books this for you they must charge you a “transaction fee” or “service fee” for their time.
Online travel agents include a mark-up in the fares quoted and this is why we always recommend that you book no-frills or low-cost airlines directly on the airline’s website.
How do travel agents make money from full service airlines?
As mentioned above, airlines no longer pay 9% commission. Some may pay a fixed 1%.
The airlines also pay some agents typically 1% and this is usually tied to sales and marketing activities, thus while travel agents benefit from this at year end, they cannot rely on these payments to cover the cost of selling you a ticket.
To understand how travel agents make money from flight tickets you need to know about “net fares and published fares” See our article here
A business travel agent will charge a transaction fee to arrange the booking. If the airline offers agents a lower net fare, it enables the agent to earn a margin on top of the fee.
All the leading online travel agents in the UK, such as Expedia and Opodo, include mark-ups in their prices too, but because their systems are automated, the amount charged is fixed and may be more competitive.
Thus we recommend that you always search and compare using our Flight Search as well as Expedia and Opodo Page
We looked at 10 hotel booking and hotel comparison sites before deciding to recommend the one that we feature on the Hotel Page of BookingBusinessTravel.
This site searches and compares approximately 40 different hotel companies and hotel bed banks and provides the results in a concise readable format.
We’ve seen the site compare the following in just one search:
Not only do you benefit from knowing that you have the very best rate available, but also, some companies hold allocations of rooms so you may find availability even if the hotel says that they are fully booked!
accorhotels.com
ascendcollection.com
bestwestern.com
bookdirectrooms.com
booking.com
cambriasuites.com
candlewoodsuites.com
carlsonhotels.com
choicehotels.com
clarion.com
comfortinn.com
comfortsuites.com
countryinns.com
crownplaza.com
ctrip.com
dhr.com
easyclicktravel.com
easytobook.com
ebookers.com
econolodge.com
expedia.com
getaroom.com
hiexpress.com
hilton.com
hiselect.com
holidayinn.com
hotelclub.com
hotelindigo.com
hotelopia.com
hotels.com
hotels4u.com
hrs.com
intercontinental.com
lastminute.com
laterooms.com.com
mainstaysuites.com
needitnow.com
octopustravel.com
olotels.com
parkinn.com
priceline.com
qualityinn.com
radisson.com
ratestogo.com
regenthotels.com
rodewayinn.com
skoosh.com
sleepinn.com
staybridge.com
suburbanhotels.com
sunspreeresorts.com
Travelocity.com
Your travel management company (TMC) will assign you an Account Manager.
The role is purportedly to ensure that you the client gets the most price competitive arrangement out of the business relationship but in actuality, and behind the scenes, the role is an account manager is primarily to maximise the profit for the TMC.
To whom is the allegiance of your account manager? Is it to you, the client, or to the business travel agent, the employer.
It is the TMC that pays the wages, even if you are billed for account management.
You may be charged for the account management but the manager will be looking to maximise the profit for the TMC rather than obtain you the best deal.
EXAMPLE:
There is a potential for negotiating a route deal with an airline but it isn’t suggested to you because more money is being made by the travel agent from the existing arrangement.
If you require truly impartial account management, from an experienced travel industry expert, please contact us. Se about us page
Helping you booking business travel online.
We are not travel agents.
Uniquely, we are a travel company that says “if it’s cheaper online direct, then book it!”
Top booking travel tips e.g. how to find the best fares and when to use a business travel agent.
Helping you booking business travel online.
We are not travel agents
We are probably the company that says, don’t book with us, go direct!
And we’ll help you to do just that!
Top booking travel tips e.g. how to find the best fares and when to use a business travel agent.
It is important to be familiar with the airline alliances because these airline groupings may share their loyalty schemes and they also share fares, routes and around-the-world options
Here is a complete list:
There are three global airline alliances: oneworld, Star Alliance and Sky Team
ONEWORLD ALLIANCE
American Airlines (AA)
Finnair (AY)
British Airways (BA)
Cathay Pacific (CX)
Ibera (IB)
Dragonair (KA)
LAN Airlines (LA)
LAN Peru (LP)
Qantas (QF)
JAL Express (JC)
Japan Airlines (JL)
Jalways (JO)
Malev Hungarian Airlines (MA)
Mexicana (MX)
Japan Transocean (NU)
Royal Jordanian (RJ)
S7 Airlines (S7)
Lanecuador Aerolane (XL)
LAN Argentina (4M)
STAR ALLIANCE
Aegean Airlines (A3)
Air Canada (AC)
British Midland (BD)
Air China (CA)
Continental Airlines (CO)
TAM Linhas Airlines (JJ)
Spanair (JK)
Adria Airlines (JP)
Blue 1 (KF)
Lufthansa (LH)
Polish (LO)
Swiss (LX)
All Nippon (NH)
Air New Zealand (NZ)
Egypt Air (MS)
Austrian Airlines (OS)
Croatia Airlines (OU)
Asiana (OZ)
TAM Mercosur (PZ)
South African Airlines (SA)
SAS (SK)
Brussels Airlines (SN)
Singapore Airlines (SQ)
Thai Airways (TG)
Turkish Airlines (TK)
TAP Portugal (TP)
United Airlines (UA)
US Airways (US)
SKYTEAM
Air France (AF)
AeroMexico (AM)
Alitalia (AZ)
China Ailines (CI)
China Southern (CZ)
Delta (DL)
Shanghai Airlines (FM)
Korean Air (KE)
Kenya Airways (KQ)
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KL)
China Eastern (MU)
Czech Airlines (OK)
Tarom (RO)
Aeroflot (SU)
Baggage fees are increasing for departures during June, July August and September 2012 from £20 per bag to £25
Bags that are booked through call centres or at the airport (as opposed to online) will increase from £35 to £60 per bag
From January 15th, the charge to issue a boarding card at the airport increases from £40 to £60
Passengers must be extra careful not to carry baggage that is over the limit otherwise the £60 bag charge will be enforced.
The permitted carry on allowance must not be exceeded by more than 900 g otherwise the additional fees apply!