British Airways has extended their flexibile booking policy period.
As with most airlines, you may change reservations without incurring a change-fee or penalty-fee.
This is now extended to any flights you book for travel by 31st August 2022
Any fare difference is still payable
UK passport holders will be refused entry into Switzerland from 1st January 2020 as citizens lose freedom of movement rights. This has been confirmed to me in writing from the Swiss authorities this morning.
Switzerland currently refuses entry from countries that they have designated as being “high risk”. But EU/EFTA/UK citizens have enjoyed an exemption under the freedom-of-movement that membership of the EU provides.
This comes to an end on 1st January. Furthermore, Swiss authorities confirm that when UK citizens are allowed to travel, that they cannot fast-track through EU channels but must use “other countries” lanes
British Airways – Bookings made before midnight on Friday 27th November qualify for 20% discount using the code BASpecial.
Unusually, the 20% discount applies to the entire price including tax and fuel surcharges
The discount is not available via online or offline travel agencies, only via the BritishAirways.com website.
Full details here
1. If you have a British passport you’ll need at least 6 months remaining and it must have been issued within the last 10 years
You can check the validity of your passport on the UK gov website here.
Be sure to do this as you may be surprised by the result. My passport expires July 2022 and I’ve discovered I can only travel to Europe up to early December 2021
2. Healthcare – The European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) which provided us with reciprocal care, may not be valid from 1st January 2020. You will have to purchase travel insurance with adequate health cover
3. Driving – You may need an International Driving Permit. You may need more than one depending on the countries visited. Each permit costs £5.50 and is available from the Post office , details here
4. Driving – You may need a physical Green Card from your insurers. Your insurer may make a charge for this. You may also need GB stickers
5. Travel with Pets – Pet Passports will no longer be valid. Speak to your vet at least 4 months prior to your trip
6. Mobile Phone / Data … Check with your provider whether data roaming charges apply
As we know, at present, all travel is severely restricted.
All borders are currently closed to any “non-essential” travel.
Some borders that are open require 14 days quarantine.
No-one knows when travel can begin again, for UK citizens, with any surety.
Some gradual changes are scheduled:
Austria, Switzerland, Germany and France appear likely to agree a common free-movement area from June 15th. (But that excludes travel from the UK).
Emirates plan to resume their services from 1st July.
The FCO advises British nationals against all but essential international travel.
For as long as this is place, it invalidates standard travel insurance policies.
This is especially important now with the risks of contracting Covid-19 and potential costs of treatment and/or repatriation from abroad.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania open borders with each other.
Anyone who has not been outside of these countries in the last two weeks, is not infected and has not been in contact with an infected person may travel freely within the three countries.
Anybody arriving from outside the zone must self-isolate for 14 days.
If you’re booking business class or first class flights on Emirates, your choice of seat is available free of charge.
But if you’re booking the lowest economy fares then pre-seating is normally a chargeable extra cost which is not immediately clear.
Members of Emirates Skywards loyalty scheme however, are eligible for free advance “regular” seat assignment, if they have reached “Silver” status. Gold members are eligible for “preferred” seats free-of-charge.
For full details visit the Emirates Page
Visitors to the U.S. require a visa which is known as a “Electronic System for Travel Authorisation”
Up until now, it has sometimes been possible to gain the approval immediately or within an hour which has been a lifeline for those that have forgotten to apply or who choose to travel at short notice.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has advised that changes in ESTA application processing mean real-time approvals will no longer be available.
International travellers using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) for travel to the United States should apply as soon as possible but not less than 72 hours before their international flight is scheduled to depart.
Business Travellers who may need to travel at short notice should therefore apply for a ESTA in advance.
The genuine site for USA visa applications is on our useful sites page
The UK Government has provided advice regarding the impact on travel to the EU if there is no deal, from the 29th March 2019
The main issue is one of passport validity.
You will have to show that your passport is still valid for at least 6 months from the date you arrive in the Schengen area.
If you have an adult passport that was issued for longer than 10 years, any extra months beyond 10 years do not count.
Full details are available on the UK Government Website here.
There is also an online calculator to check if your passport has enough time left
We are awaiting more detail from BA but at the moment, it appears to only apply to bookings made or changed and paid for online at ba.com
Quote from the BA website:
“This [data breach] relates to customer bookings made or changed between 22:58 BST August 21 2018
and 21:45 September 5 2018 inclusive.
We will be contacting affected customers directly to advise them of what has happened and are advising
them to contact their banks or credit card providers and follow their recommended advice.”
More details available on the British Airways Home Page
If you log in to your Emirates Skywards account and choose to redeem miles, the only city pairs offered are those that Emirates fly.
So, you cannot select Edinburgh to Geneva, for example.
What you need to do is to go to this site which is the “Emirates Partner Rewards” site.
However, you must first be logged in to your Skywards Account.
The above link will take you back to the main Emirates site.
From there, choose to Redeem Miles from the bottom of the menu on the left.
Then choose “Partner Airline” below the search engine
There, you can then book easyJet and the process is very simple.
Fares depend on availability and a typical last-minute price for a single ticket is from 28,000 miles to approx 50,000 miles You can add a check-in bag using Skywards miles: Approx 5,000 miles
If I stay in a very cheap hotel with minimal security I take extra care to ensure that valuables are placed in the room-safe and that the door is locked securely
I have always assumed that when I close the door in one of the international chains such as Radisson, Grand Hyatt, Sheraton, Waldorf Astoria, Fairmont, Park Plaza, that their door key system is 100% secure but researchers have discovered that some door lock technology is vulnerable to being hacked.
Best to use that room safe deposit box every time!
Direct flights from these countries:
Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia
You will not be able to carry laptops, tablets and larger mobile phones in your hand baggage on these flights. Only mobile phones smaller than the following dimensions will be allowed in the cabin:
Length: 16 cm
Width: 9.3 cm
Depth: 1.5 cm
In addition, the UK government has also said that certain items known as peripheral devices (which can be attached to a laptop, tablet or larger mobile phone) are also subject to new security requirements
The latest updates are available here
https://www.gov.uk/hand-luggage-restrictions/electronic-devices-and-electrical-items
Booking Eurostar online is very easy. So, what are the benefits of requesting (and paying for) a travel agent, or a management company to do so on your behalf?
Every booking scenario is different so we recommend you choose with the following observations in mind.
Benefits of online:
If you are shopping for lowest fares then visually, it is easier to research fares online than to ask a travel agent to provide you with prices. Online, you will see a very clear comparison of the train fares including cheaper options or alternatives either side of the requested trains. You will also see the comparison of standard class versus first class. Travel agencies will struggle to convey this much information, whether by phone or email.
However, once you have decided on the best options, should you also book online?
If you are 100% definite and need to book immediately, then perhaps the answer is yes. This may typically be the case if you’re booking a holiday where all the arrangements and time-off has been secured.
The lowest Eurostar fares are available from Eurostar.com or the SNCF site Voyages SNCF or the Belgium Site, SNBC. I do not recommend booking via online travel agents as you’ll pay more.
If you are booking business travel, you may require more flexibility so you need to consider the following pros and cons
Benefits of using a travel agency to book Eurostar
Flexibility and Service:
Agencies use reservation systems that have the ability to “hold” seat reservations and fares for you whilst you firm up the other arrangements.
For departures departing with a month of your enquiry, up to 3 days. For departures outside of a month, the agent should be able to hold the reservation for up to a maximum of 4 weeks before you need to commit to the booking.
This provides time to convey the information to the traveller and for meetings and other arrangements to be finalised before issuing the tickets.
This flexibility can save you money in the long run too, because prior to issuing tickets, you can amend the trains as much as you want without penalty.
Note that all Eurostar tickets are non-refundable once ticketed and change fees apply so if meetings are rescheduled it could be costly to change or the ticket may as well be thrown away.
Not only do the above benefits provide flexibility and service-levels that you cannot achieve online, but also, there will invariably be a cost saving too.
Let’s say you’re looking for travel in a month’s time and let’s say there is only one seat left on the lowest fare on the train that works for you. Your agent will be able to hold that seat until you commit to it. If that decision to go ahead is made several days later, then that one seat would have long gone if the agent hadn’t held it for you and the new fares would be considerably more expensive.
Note that agency reservations systems can only book up to 4 months in advance so if you need to book further in advance, and for critical dates such as Christmas or New Year, then booking online is the only option available.
Yes, Hilton has rebranded and dropped the superfluous two h’s, previously “Hhonors” Other changes?
Part pay for reservations using Points and Money.
A great benefit especially for those of us with only a few points
Release date during February 2017
Pool points with family and friends
This is idea is similar to the Avios Household account
Release date April 2017
And from July 2017 the option to shop through Amazon and from March 2017 Hilton Honors Diamond members
have the ability to take a year’s gardening leave.
Main benefits of Hilton Honors programme are:
The App Check-n ahead
Choose your room
Unlock room with digital key! (being rolled out)
And of course, … points!
More information from Hilton Honors here
We have long recommended Expedia as the best online travel agent and now we recommend you to Register for the Expedia+ Points scheme too.
How many points will I earn?
Hotels, Packages, Activities and some car hire:
Earn 2 points per £1 spent
Airline tickets:
Earn 1 point per £5 spent How many points do I need to obtain discounts?
How many points do I need to obtain discounts?
Receive a voucher for £25 off your next hotel with as few as 3,500 Expedia+ points
This means is that if you spend £1,750 on hotels you will earn £25 against a hotel which equates to approx 1.5% rebate
You’ll need to spend £17,500 on flight-only reservations to earn the same voucher which isn’t such a good deal
Other benefits …
Silver Priority Customer Care 0203 788 4743
Free membership automatically gives you +blue status, followed by +silver status after you spend £5,000 on eligible bookings or staying 7 qualifying hotel room nights,
Silver status earns you 10% more bonus points
and +gold status after spending £10,000 on eligible bookings or staying 15 qualifying hotel room nights.
Gold status earns you 30% extra
For more details and to register visit Expedia here
This topic was discussed on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday morning 28th January, when Jay Rayner, Andi Oliver, Tim Hayward, Henry Dimbleby and Barry Smith were at Woburn Abbey for “The Kitchen Cabinet” programme.
We know that the high altitude etc reduces our appreciation of taste but I wasn’t aware of another problem …the “white noise” levels produced by the aircraft.
A not-very-scientific experiment was conducted live on the programme where members of the panel were invited to taste cheese-cake whilst aircraft noise was played and with noise cancelling headphones and they agreed that the taste was much improved with the headphones!
Also it was stated that tomatoes and tomato juice increase our sense of taste so next time I fly, I will order a Bloody Mary!
British Airways Strike Dates Sunday 25 and Monday 26 December 2016
Does not affect London City airport or London Gatwick airport
All long-haul flights expected to operate to normal schedules
The short-haul routes listed below are being reviewed and BA is offering refunds or free rebooking to travel the same route as originally ticketed and to travel within 355 days.
Warning:
If you apply for a refund and then discover the flight is operating and should you wish to travel as originally planned you will be treated as a new passenger and charged what will most likely be a very high last-minute fare!
Our advice? Wait and see. And use our recommended flight-monitor tools on our useful sites page.
Routes liable to cancellation, Between London Heathrow and:
Aberdeen, Bergen, Belfast City, Bilbao, Bologna, Basel, Budapest, Dusseldorf,
Gibraltar, Gothenburg, Hannover, Hamburg, Helsinki, Kiev, Krakow, St. Petersburg,
Lisbon, Luxembourg, Manchester, Paris Orly, Oslo, Prague, Pisa, Stuttgart,
Stavanger, Venice, Vienna, Warsaw, Zagreb.
We have always recommended skyscanner for general flight search and have hosted their search widget on our flight search page.
The company, based in Scotland, has always been best for the UK market with better links to more UK low-cost carriers than other companies such as Kayak from the USA, etc.
And we are delighted that Chinese company Ctrip has bought Skyscanner for $1.75 billion
Gareth Williams of CEO Skyscanner said to Tnooz,
“Ctrip is the leading OTA in China and working with it allows us to deepen our understanding and offering to the Chinese market, where we’ve already seen great success, as well as leverage Ctrip’s product investments and insights.
In short, this allows Skyscanner to strengthen and augment its existing offering, ensuring that it’s the world leader in the metasearch field.”
We say, from the perspective of a daily users of Skyscanner, that there will be benefits in terms of content of the China market which is rapidly expanding.
And that content will assist the many of us that are unfamiliar with Chinese cities and airport codes enormously.
The BookingBusinessTravel.com service is unique.
We find business travelers the best deal irrespective of agency commission and without bias towards preferred booking systems.
Wherever the best deal is, we’ll offer it. Every time.
Hilton Hotels offer a discount to members of the Hilton Loyalty Club, HHonors™
The percentage discount is typically 2% – 3% but can be as much as 10%
This rate is not available via 3rd part websites (Hotels.com, Booking.com etc) but only via Hilton.com direct or via a travel management company.
Bookings can only be made direct and online and must be via log-in using the HHonors membership number and the guests’ password.
Alternatively, you can sign-up the guest in the booking process. But, if he/she already has a membership and is an avid points collector then that’s not recommended. Ask your traveller for their password.
Book here direct on the official Hilton website here
This must be one of the best fares I’ve seen for a long time!
It’s an example of how European originating tickets are still competitive despite the decline of the pound against the Euro:
Venice – London,
London – Dubai,
Dubai- London,
London to Venice/Milan/Rome at a later date,
From £1,257 return. Business Class throughout!
You need to book by 22nd September 2016
You need to book direct on our British Airways links and use the multi-city search
Book and travel before 31st July 2016 and you could earn up to double the normal Avios (Air miles) that you would normally.
You need to register on the BA website here:
You may or may not be accepted or eligible for this offer. I was declined. But it’s worth checking.
All you need to do is submit your exec number and password.
Flights must be booked and ticketed in the UK and is available to both published AND corporate negotiated net fare return flights, in any class!
Applies to the following destinations:
USA / AMERICAS / CARIBBEAN
Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York JFK, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tampa, Washington, Cancun, Mexico City, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Antigua, Bahamas (Nassau), Barbados, Bermuda, Grand Cayman, Punta Cana, Grenada, Kingston, Port of Spain, Providenciales, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, Tobago, Buenos Aires, Costa Rica, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo.
AFRICA / INDIAN OCEAN
Luanda, Cairo, Accra, Nairobi, Abuja, Lagos, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Mauritius, Maldives.
MIDDLE EAST
Bahrain, Tehran, Amman, Kuwait, Beirut, Oman, Doha, Jeddah, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Baku, Bangalore, Chennai/Madras, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Sydney, Beijing, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok, Tel Aviv.
And Moscow!
British Airways has launched another sale, for travel in Premium Economy, Business and First Class.
Fares valid for travel up to and including April 2017!
You cannot combine the sale fares with the free upgrade offer as described in my previous article, from Business to First!
Book before midnight of Tuesday 17 May.
British Airways has introduced some new fare rules and a better advance seat-selection policy.
In short, pay approximately £30 extra to ensure you can choose your seat, make same day change,
and check-in one bag if you wish to.
BASIC FARE
No check-in bag
No seat choice
Changes incur a fee
Not Refundable
Cheapest fares
PLUS FARE
Check-in bag 23kg
Seat choice from 48 hours before departure
Changes: No fee, fare difference may apply
Changes: Free on the day of departure
Not Refundable
Fares are approximately £30 higher than Basic
PLUS FLEX
Check-in bag 23kg
Seat choice at time of booking
Changes: No fee, fare difference may apply
Changes: Free on the day of departure Fully-refundable
Plus Flex Fares are the very expensive last-available seats (Y and B class).
Example PLUS FLEX Fare to Nice (South of France), from Heathrow, £821 – £957 return!
Compare that to the lowest fares from £92 return (BASIC) , £121 (PLUS), up to the highest fares of £538 (BASIC) and £588 (PLUS)
we believe the PLUS fares are very good value
To make reservations online, the lowest fares are only available on British Airways.com and not from any other online agent.
British Airways typically announce sales five times a year.
My article, “When do airlines announce sales” here give a guide to when to expect fares to be reduced. It focussed on British Airways because, as they are the dominant carrier in the UK, most airlines follow their patterns. For example, Virgin Atlantic nearly always have the same sale periods, to compete.
The current sale is an early Spring Sale and you must book by midnight 22 March 2016
Remember that an additional £200 can be saved by using part-pay with Avios (air miles) The value in redemptions is 1.3p per Avios if you redeem the maximum 15,000 for a £200 saving
The complete list of British Airways Sale Prices can be found here
Fares are extremely low. For example, Dubai Club World (Business Class) from £1,376 return
Please be aware that the long haul fares are targeting leisure travellers and not generally suitable for booking business travel. This is achieved by the following rules:
Travel from London Heathrow and London Gatwick to all longhaul destinations, must include a Saturday night stay Travel to European Destinations requires a minimum 3 night stay
Travel to most US and Caribbean holiday destinations require that you book at least 2 weeks in advance.