Author Archives: bookingbusinesstravel

Does Premium Economy Class London to Melbourne exist?

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Airlines that offer a Premium Economy Class are:

British Airways
Virgin
Cathay Pacific

British Airways no longer fly direct from Singapore to Melbourne. Instead, they code-share using Qantas Aircraft and Qantas do not have a Premium Economy cabin.

Virgin do not operate the aircraft to Melbourne, instead they code-share with Singapore Airlines who do not have the Premium Economy cabin either.

The only option is Cathay Pacific with who call these seats Premium Economy Class!

Try our flight comparison tool to find the lowest fares. After selecting your flights you can choose between Economy, Premium Economy or Business class.

Free hotel stopover in Dubai flying with Emirates

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Emirates now have 5 daily A380 aircraft flying to Dubai and an onward worldwide network. To fill these planes, they offer very competitive fares worldwide. However, when looking for seats, sometimes there may not be a suitable connection in Dubai.

The minimum connection time in Dubai between Emirates flights is just 1 hour and 15 minutes .

If the best available connection requires 8 or more hours stay in Dubai (economy class) or 6 hours + (business class) Emirates will provide free stopover hotel in Dubai

There are other rules, you must be flying Emirates in and out of Dubai (and not a code-share flight),

and the “ticket fare” i.e. the net amount paid to Emirates (net of commission or travel agent markups) must be as follows:

Fare East: USD1,100 return
West Asia & Gulf, Middle East USD900 return
Australia & New Zealand: Any fare – no minimum price
East Africa USD800
Rest of Africa USD850

And all Skywards redemption tickets except Saver Economy are eligible, although I don’t rate Skywards very highly – see my article here.

Economy passengers only get to stay in the Copthorne Airport Hotel which, according to our hotel comparison site, is worth approximately £80 – £100 per night.

Business and First class passengers will be accommodated in Le Meridien Dubai which would normally cost between £200 and £300

The stopovers, called “Dubai Connect” must be booked in advance via Emirates and only after tickets are issued 

Don’t use Google Chrome to book Ryanair flights

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I’ve been told of difficulties when trying to complete a Ryanair booking and the reason appears to be the browser – namely Google Chrome.

It is annoying that you can select the flights, refuse all those extras and hard-sell options only to have the final payment stage rejected!

So you may want to search via our recommended search engine, Skyscanner, in Internet Explorer, if you think you may require Ryanair.

I recommend that you keep Booking Business Travel as a home page in both Internet Explorer and Google Chrome

Stansted Express Discount April 2013

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Again this month we have researched Discounted Stansted Express Train Fares.

A standard fare, London Liverpool Street to Stansted is now £23.40 single and £32.80 return
Tottenham Hale Station (good for the Victoria tube line) is slightly cheaper at £21.00 single and £30.50 return.

If you use the referral link from easyJet here, you’ll be quoted £18.70 single and £30.00 return but there is no reduction for Tottenham Hale station. There is no necessity to fly easyJet!

Cheaper still, is this referral link from Ryanair with a standard class single fare of £18.75 and a return price of £26.70

That’s a saving of £6.10 per return ticket.

Ryanair previously warned that the charge would be in Euros and that there could be a fluctuation in the sterling amount debited. But this warning no longer appears on their website, so we’re guessing that the charge is now a fixed sterling amount.

Again, Tottenham Hale is not offered but there is no reason why you cannot board or disembark there on these deals.

As with the easyJet deal, there is no necessity to fly Ryanair to take advantage of the discount!

If you appreciate this impartial advice, do try our Hotel Search engine, as recommended by Ryanair.

Heathrow Express Discount April 2013

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Each month we search for discounts on the Heathrow Express Trains. There have been many different sources for discounts over the years but they come and go. So we check every one and update you here – saving you the effort.

The normal fare direct from heathrowexpress.com is £20 single and £34 return. Make the mistake of buying your ticket onboard and you’ll be charged an additional £5!

A travel company by the name of CJL Travel offers 10% discount on their front page, bottom right corner.

You’ll still be booking on the Heathrow Express website but at a lower price of £16.20 single and £30.60 return.

Here is the link for CJL Travel

We earn no financial kick-back from our selection. Booking Business Travel believes in pointing you in the best direction for the best deal, impartially. If you appreciate this, you can save on flights and hotels too so do try our recommended flight search and hotel search tools.

Google flights launches – hidden extras and incomplete flight results

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Back in 2011 I blogged about Google’s purchase of ITA, a company that develops flight and price search technology. Since that time, Google made the search engine available in the US and it has only featured domestic US flights.

Google has been very slow to (at least publicly) do anything with the purchase, despite a price tag of $700M dollar in cash!

ITA has continued to provide a more comprehensive search engine on its ITA Matrix Website, listed in my ‘useful sites page’ which provides published fares. It is very detailed and can be useful, especially when searching for fares that originate from outside the UK.

However, it has its limitations. It doesn’t provide any “booking functions” but simply suggests you contact a travel agent or airline to book. And it doesn’t offer discounted fares. Neither does it feature many of the “no-frills” or web-only airlines, making most European flight search meaningless.

Very quietly, and without fanfare, Google Flights has now been released in the UK.

The Booking Business Travel ethos is to help you book travel independently at the lowest cost, and impartially, by recommending the best tools to do this.

To date I have recommended Skyscanner as the best “neutral” search engine because, although they earn referral commissions from travel agents, unlike travel agents themselves (Expedia etc) they have systematically included direct links to airlines to compare prices. E.g. Ryanair and easyJet.

So what do I think of Google Flights?

As with any search engine, I apply the “low-cost-airline test”.

Business travel is by its very nature very schedule driven, and it is essential that all timing options be made available, impartially to the business traveller. In this respect, Google go some way to assist – but with noteworthy failings.

I compared two routes on Google Flights and was very disappointed by the results:

London to Dublin Outbound 10th April back 11th April

Aer Lingus was featured but when selected, Google Flights directed me to Bravofly, an Irish travel agent, to fulfill the booking.

I am shocked by this! For two reasons:

Higher fares than directly from Aer Lingus

Bravofly quoted £145.84 compared to Aer Lingus direct at £142.98
Then came the hidden extras.  After adding the passenger name, the payment charges of £12.18 for AMEX or £7.10 for MasterCard or Visa Electron appeared!
And the charge is per passenger. Thus for two passengers the overall extra cost for having searched and accepted  Google Flights offer would be approximately £30

British Airways

As you’d expect, BA was offered directly and the fares provided came directly from ba.com
This is how it should be.
After selection, a ‘deep link’ takes you to the onward booking pages.

Ryanair

Schedules are offered but with no air fares.
After selecting flights, Google links you to the Ryanair home page and you have to repeat the search all over again!

London to Copenhagen: Outbound 10th April back 11th April

Scandinavian Airlines

Google flights offered correct fares directly from SAS, with a deep link to the airline booking page.
Again, this is how it should be.

easyJet

No prices, just schedules, and as with Ryanair, a link to the home page to repeat the search.
This really isn’t good enough.

Norwegian Airlines

Prices provided but as with Aer Lingus, only from Bravofly with similar price differences and extra credit card charges

Skyscanner offered lower fares on Aer Lingus of £142.98 return and no credit card charges, saving, for two passengers paying by AMEX £30.08!

And we had the comparison fares from Ryanair and BA all on one page

Google Map View

If you’re searching for an overview of fares, the Google Map View should be very helpful, but Google includes a disclaimer to say that some airlines are not available:

Ryanair, Lufthansa, easyJet, Thomas Cook, Aer Lingus.

I also noticed that Wizz airlines are excluded

Summary

Yes, Google Flights “look-and-feel” is slick. Very slick. But what is most important? It should be content and pricing, surely? And much of the “instant search” must rely on cached memory, which may not be accurate.

The other gaping hole in Google Flights is the inability to search for premium economy, business or first class flights.

And Google will not send you to whichever website has the cheapest fare, relying instead on a couple of agents with hidden fees.

When researching flight options, you should use a search engine that checks both the airlines direct – and travel agencies like Expedia. Expedia make no extra fees or credit card charges. So the price you see is the price you pay.

Skyscanner does this efficiently. It includes authorised availability data from Ryanair and easyJet in addition to  ba.com. It also offers Premium Economy, Business and First Class. Visit my Skyscanner page for your next search and don’t waste time on Google Flights.

Not yet, anyway….

Double Avios flying with BA to selected destinations

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British Airways and American airlines are offering double reward Avios points for return bookings and travel before 30th April 2013

But the offer only applies to “premium classes” i.e. First and Business Class. And the double points only apply to the higher fare types, for example, with British Airways, in F, A, J, C, D class

You need to register here, before making your booking.

The offer applies to the following destinations:

USA

Chicago O’Hare
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Philadelphia
San Diego
Seattle

OTHER

Bangkok
Beijing
Cairo
Delhi
Dubai
Hong Kong
Johannesburg
Rio de Janeiro
Sao Paulo
Sydney
Tel Aviv

British Airways to charge for check-in baggage?

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Within a week of KLM announcing that customers are to be given “more choice”, by charging separately for check-in bags, British Airways launches “hand baggage only” fares.

This is a different way of introducing a charge for baggage. It’s promoted as a saving, because hand baggage only fare is lower than their normal price by approximately £10 to £12

So we now have two-tier pricing, ‘with bags’ and ‘without bags’ which, after the introductory period amounts to paying more for taking baggage on your trip.

Which we think is a shame. Up to now, you could trust the BA fare to include everything whilst you knew that the easyJet and other no-frills airlines would charge extra fees.

The BA hand baggage fares apply only to Gatwick departures, for departures from 26th February.

To begin with, baggage only fares are available to the following destinations: Amsterdam, Dubrovnik, Jersey, Tunis and Turin.

The carry on allowance on BA is relatively generous: 56cm x 45cm x 25cm plus a handbag or laptop bag

Remember that the lowest BA fares are only available directly from ba.com

Please visit the British Airways tab above.

How to avoid KLM new baggage fees

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How to avoid KLM new baggage fees

The airline has just announced, as an enhancement, “providing more choice to passengers”, “the option to travel with just carry-on baggage or to check in baggage at a fee”

This applies to KLM European flights from 22nd April 2013

Of course, passengers have always had the choice! It’s just that they’ll now be charged for check-in bags, following the low cost or no frills airline model.

The charge is €15 each way – that’s around £26 extra per person per return journey for the first checked in baggage.

However, the following passengers will be exempt

NGO’s
All Flying Blue & BlueBiz members
Sky Team Elite Plus members
Corporate Contract holders

Simply become a Flying Blue member and avoid the baggage fees altogether. A one-page form asks for minimal information, takes just a minute to complete, and you’ll be instantly given a Flying Blue membership number. Apply via the KLM registration page here

And remember to use our flight search page to ensure that find the lowest KLM fares

Why do we recommend Skyscanner?

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Our recommended search engine has today been featured by the BBC due to the phenomenal growth of the company.

Skyscanner, a company based in Edinburgh, receives 30 million visitors per month and the search engine facilitates £2.3 billion annual air travel.

But, our reason for hosting Skyscanner is that for booking and researching business travel, the company provides the most accurate fares and schedules of all comparison sites.

This is due to the use of information provided directly from, for example, Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways. Many other comparison sites provide information from third party travel agents with hidden mark-ups and inaccurate information. They do this by “screen-scraping” the airline websites. But Skyscanner receives live flight and price information via XML and is one of very few companies authorised to do so.

Visit our Flight Search Page to use Skyscanner, or try our “Who flies Where” widget to the right of this article.

Earn Miles for your Company bookings with Emirates Business Rewards

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Here’s an overview of the corporate reward scheme from Emirate Airlines.

Emirates has a rewards programme, “Business rewards” which accrues points for your company in addition to your traveller’s existing personal “Skywards” accounts.

Previously, only “online-direct” bookings were eligible but Emirates has now made the programme available for bookings made via agents too.

The standard earning rate is 1 mile or point per US$ spent.

Through February and March 2013 the airline is offering double points and a 10,000 bonus for registrations before 31st January 2013

London to Dubai return economy class costs 45,000 miles and business class costs 90,000 miles. An upgrade on the same route costs from 50-65,000 miles. So you’ll need to have booked approximately £30,000 of tickets for an economy flight and £60,000 for business. The business class redemption is by far the better deal, and equates to approximately 4% in cashback terms

This scheme is one of the most difficult to administer. Emirates seem to be paranoid about misuse so they have controls in place that limit you. For example:

  • Only employees of the company (i.e. not guests etc) are eligible. This is verified by email – the traveller has to have a company domain email address
  • You have to first be a Skywards member
  • You need to “invite” individual members to join the scheme via an online form and those members have to respond, online.

For more information and to sign up, visit the Emirates page here

Buy your Euros here before 31 March to earn a bonus 1,000 Avios

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British Airways has teamed up with American Express foreign exchange service with this offer; Spend over £300 before 31 March 2012 and they’ll reward you with a bonus 1,000 Avios

We’ve compared the rates offered and if you only spend approximately £300 they appear to be marginally better than the Post office and Travelex. If you are spending in the region of £1,000 you may benefit from an extra 10 Euros from alternatives such as Travelex

For more information visit the BA American Express site here

Remember that it’s usually cheaper to purchase currency online rather than directly at UK airports. You can still benefit from lower rates even if you order for airport collection.

easyJet new route and fares to Moscow from under £120 return

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easyJet begin their daily Gatwick to Moscow services on Monday March 18 with fares of less than £120 return.

The airline is filling the gap left by BMI who used to fly the route and were taken over by British Airways, with prices of £47.49 outbound and £62.49 inbound, on sale from today.

British Airways return fares are in the region of £238

Flights depart early, from Gatwick at 07:00 arriving at 13:50 but from Monday 15th April there are two flights to choose between. The second departure is at 14:10 arriving 21:00

Return flights depart at 15:30 and from the 15th an additional 21:40 from Moscow

Moscow is only 3 hours 50 minutes flying time from London.

Unfortunately, visas still take considerably longer (allow several weeks). More information on visas is available on the VISA tab, above.

Starwood Guest Discounts European 72hr Sale

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Starwood group, comprising Sheraton, Westin and Le Meridien amongst others, has a sale of European city stays, at over 250 hotels, for up to 72 hours at www.beatthetimer.com/

The prices are approximately 30% off their normal rates and appear to be available to everyone, not just Starwood Preferred Guest members.

For example, the Munich Westin Grand, normally EUR139 per night is reduced to EUR99.
The Hotel Kämp, Helsinki is priced at EUR145 and the lowest rate, prepaid and non refundable, is usually EUR179

Annoyingly, the prices do not include VAT so you may have to add typically 7 – 10 & to the above rates. The additional tax amounts are only displayed after you select the hotel and click on ‘Terms and Details’ or ‘Book’. Nevertheless, the rates still represent good value.

Here is the link to go direct to BeatTheTimer.com.

Where to find the best Travelodge prices

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We’ve researched this question for a UK company that books several hundred room nights for their staff.

To date, they’ve used a travel agent but inefficiencies of booking procedures coupled with high agency fees have required that we review their purchasing habits.

Travelodge do not currently feature in our recommended hotel comparison and search engine.

They are bookable through travel agents reservation systems (GDSs) – and at the same price as priced online. But Travelodge do not pay travel agency commission, so you will probably pay a booking fee to the travel agent for the reservation and payment service.

Booking direct with Travelodge on their website will provide several advantages:

  • ·         Quick and easy to use
  • ·         No travel agent booking fee
  • ·         Option to pre-book breakfast with an online discount
  • ·         Option to request an early check-in of 1200 noon rather than 3pm if required, or
    a late check-out of 2pm instead of 1200 at a cost of £10 extra
  • ·         WiFi voucher purchase

Booking for someone else:

After choosing a property (“book”) immediately under the Room Price you’ll need to tick the “I am booking on behalf of someone else and will not be staying”

If you book Travelodge frequently, you should open a business account and save 5% on all your bookings with centralised business account management and up to 6 weeks credit

 

Airline code TN

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Back in the 80’s and early 90’s when I worked for an Australia and New Zealand bucket shop, the airline code TN stood for Trans Australian Airlines domestic services

Now, TN is used by Air Tahiti Nui and they operate Paris – Los Angeles – Tahiti, amongst other routes.

The airline originated from UTA who used to operate from Paris to a range of interesting destinations in the African continent

Etihad Baggage Allowance now 30kg PLUS golf clubs

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According to the Etihad London Office 0845 608 1225 the new baggage allowance of 30kg  (increased from 23kg) also applies to tickets purchased prior to the change (November 2012) when 23kg was the norm.

AND Golf Clubs, with a weight of up to 15kg are permitted in addition to the above allowance. They must be checked in i.e. they cannot be taken onboard.

As of January 2013, the Etihad website needs to be a little clearer in this respect

British Airways Sale – Book by Tuesday 22nd January

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The economy airfare sale started around Christmas time but the First and Business Class sale begins today. Bookings must be made and ticketed by midnight on Tuesday.

Is the British Airways Sale applicable to business travel-bookings?

If you’re looking for economy fares within Europe then the answer is most certainly yes, providing that you can adhere to the airfare restrictions.

Sale fares are priced based on one way tickets rather than return. The airline has to do this in order to compete with the no-frills airlines who nearly always offer one way fares instead of return.

For all long haul travel in any class, and Club Europe, the sale fares require a Saturday Night stay. Most business travellers do not want to stay over a Saturday Night and the airline knows this.

Our suggestion; Ask the traveller if he’d like to stay longer. Throw in a decent hotel and the total price should still save your company money!

Looking for a holiday suggestion?

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Here at Booking Business Travel we focus on helping you to book business travel online.

But we all like to holiday too, and I am frequently asked for inspirational holiday ideas.

And what used to take hours of search can now be offered immediately.

For example;

You want to fly no more than 6 hours, to a destination with a temperature of between 21-25 degrees, are content to fly out on Christmas Day and to stay for 6 nights.
And you prefer a 4* hotel.

Enter this information on the new British Airways Holiday Finder and you’ll be surprised by the last-minute options available.

You can also tailor the results by your budget range.

There are two ways to search:

British Airways Holiday Finder provides concise details

And British Airways Trip Seeker offers a more graphical view with a world map

Stansted Express Discount November December 2012

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A new offer has just been launched by Stansted Express which is only available for bookings made online for two people travelling together and is available for travel any time!

The price is just £10 each way, per person, for Liverpool Street and £9 per person for Tottenham Hale.

The Tottenham Hale reduction is especially nice as I have always resented paying the same price for Tottenham to Stansted as for Liverpool Street to Stansted.

Use the following promo code:
For Liverpool Street: DuoL
For Tottenham Hale: DuoT

Click on the Web Duo train link here: Stansted Express Website

The normal return fare for individual travellers is still £31.50 but this can be reduced by as much as £8.25 simply by booking through the Ryanair link below. The return fare is priced at € 29.03 so it may fluctuate due to exchange rates. I’ve always achieved the best fare by visiting Ryan Air here

Suprisingly – there are no extras!

Please come back and see how much you could save on hotels by trying our recommended hotel search comparison site – thank you!

Heathrow Express Discount November 2012

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Every month we research the discounts available on Heathrow Express and this month the best discount we’ve found is 10%

The normal online fare for comparison is £34 return and £18 single

Two travelling together:

Up to 31 January 2013

Two travel together for £25 per person. You need to use this code DUO12 in the promotion box to get the discount Full details from the Heathrow Express Site  here

Individual traveller discounts

For some bizarre reason, ANA – the Japanese Airline continues to offer the best November 2012 discount on Heathrow Express, as first announced by us nearly two years ago!

The return fare is £30.60 and the single is £16.20

Book directly on the Heathrow Express website below to get the discount

If you appreciate my impartial advice, do try the fantastic hotel comparison site on my Hotel Search page as I promise you the lowest hotel prices too.

Here’s the link to Heathrow Express with a saving of £3.40 or 10%

The end of BMI diamond club

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I received a letter from BMI today, announcing the end of the vestiges of BMI Airlines.

BMI  were taken over by British Airways – or IAG (international Airline Group), earlier this year although BMI Regional still operate a network of flights

The BMI Diamond club scheme is now, to all intents and purposes, dead.

However, if you hold the BMI American Express Card, you will continue to earn BMI destination miles which you can convert to British Airways Avios at a rate of 1 for 1

This is good news because the BMI credit card rewards miles at a rate of 1.5 per £1 spend which is pretty generous.

So I, for one, will continue to put everything I can on my BMI Amex card for the foreseeable future.

Avios Sale 25% off flight costs

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Starting today, Wednesday 14th November, the “miles” or Avios points required for bookings is being reduced by 25%

This does not apply to short-haul European flights which still cost 9,000 15,000 and 20,000 Avios

But for other longer flights e.g. to Tel Aviv, the cost is reduced from 25,000 Avios to 18,750 !

This is an excellent deal so book a.s.a.p. to find availability.

Bookings must be made by Monday 19th November

Travel up to 31 May

Only for departures from London airports

Go to British Airways via our link above