Category Archives: Booking Tips

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

How to extend Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles expiry date

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A traveller friend of mine has some 36,000 miles and a silver status about to expire because she hasn’t flown recently.

I telephoned Virgin Atlantic yesterday to check, because their website isn’t 100% clear regarding extension of miles.

Please note that we’re discussing miles here, not status. There’s nothing you can do about your status.

The cheapest and most effective way to extend the life of your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles is to logon to your account and DONATE 1,000 miles to “Free the Children”

Yes, that’s correct, not “save” the children but “free” the children!

Such activity will renew your account for another 3 years.

There are alternatives. You can buy miles but at £30 for 1,000 that’s very poor value. Or you can spend miles at Virgin Wine for example – 12,500 miles provides a £50 voucher

But we believe that the donation avenue is the most cost effective.

STOP PRESS!
If you travel Premium economy or Upper class with Virgin we have access to fares that may be cheaper than online. Contact us.

Single fare Milan-London £500. Is this the most expensive easyJet fare ever?

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A company has contacted us to ask to verify the unbelievable.

Yes, it’s Friday and they’re arranging flights for travel on Monday so it’s at short notice.

London to Venice on Monday and Milan to London on Wednesday

The cheapest outbound flight is with British Airways, at £340 which is high, but not ludicrously high, unlike the only option on the return, which is with easyJet at £500! Or EUR591 plus a booking fee plus a checked in baggage fee of 15 Euros for 20kg

Two suggestions from this rant!

1. ALWAYS book as far in advance as you can – I have never seen a “last-minute” bargain on any of the no-frills or full service airlines.

2. Don’t call no-frills airlines or web-airlines “low-cost” airlines, because they’re not low-cost when you need them. They’ll charge as much as they can. They’re in business to make a profit. Yes they may dump some seats at £9.99 in advance but that shouldn’t earn them the “low-cost” badge.

How to find the lowest fares on British Airways

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We have provided booking tips on the British Airways booking page that will help you to find the lowest air fares when booking specific dates.

But if you are flexible with your travel dates, British Airways has an excellent calendar display that will help you find the cheapest dates at a glance.

Although this function is aimed at leisure travellers, bookers of business travel may find it useful when planning meetings well in advance

Visit the We have provided booking tips on the British Airways booking page that will help you to find the lowest air fares when booking specific dates.

But if you are flexible with your travel dates, British Airways has an excellent calendar display that will help you find the cheapest dates at a glance.

Although this function is aimed at leisure travellers, bookers of business travel may find it useful when planning meetings well in advance

Visit the Lowest Fare Finder here

We also recommend that you price flight+hotel and compare against the hotel prices offered on our hotel comparison page

How far in advance can I book Eurostar?

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I’ve just been asked this question and for flights, I know that the answer is up to one year but I’ve checked and rail bookings have a surprisingly short selling period:

For Eurostar journeys to mainline Paris, Lille and Brussels stations, you can book up to 4 months in advance, minus 2 days

This applies to both French Rail, the UK arm of French SNCF railways and Eurostar. For the genuine links to both companies and for booking tips please visit my Eurostar Page

Reduce your UK train fare by splitting tickets

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If you require travel today or tomorrow, the rail companies will quote you exorbitant fares.

Their assumption is that you will either be a business traveller attending meetings or making a multi-million pound sales pitch, or as a member of the general public, that you have to travel, perhaps in an emergency.

And they assume that in these scenarios, you’ll pay whatever they charge.

They take no account for leisure travel taken on impulse.

For some time now, it has been possible to undercut fares by booking separate tickets to intermediate destinations but that used to require an intimate knowledge of the routes taken.

A new tool from MoneySavingExpert.com provides the intermediate fares for same day or next day journeys, also known as walk-up fares.

Try the tool for yourself here

http://splitticket.moneysavingexpert.com/

To book these tickets, you can request them individually at the station ticket office. If you prefer to book online, be warned that some companies e.g. TheTrainline.com may charge a booking fee per ticket thus cancelling any saving achieved!

Our recommended company charges no booking fees or credit card fees – see our UK Rail link above, or book direct with the train operators

 

 

British Airways Go After The Games Sale

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We highlight the main conditions:

The sale is for flight only and BA holidays
Bookings must be made by midnight Tuesday 25th September
All Long Haul travel requires a Saturday night stay (targeting “leisure” travellers”)
Euro Traveller bookings from LHR must be booked at least 14 days in advance
World Traveller bookings (except to Mauritius) must be booked at least 7 days in advance
World Traveller Plus (except the Americas and Mauritius, 21 days) also at least 7 days in advance
Club World and First Class from LGW must be booked minimum of  14 days in advance

Please select your flight dates from our British Airways Page, and see our booking tips.

If you require a hotel, do compare the BA Flight+Hotel with flight only and hotel separately using our hotel comparison site.

 

How far in advance can I book flights?

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Travel Agents, both online and offline tend to use one of the four major computer reservation systems: Galileo, Amadeus, Sabre and Worldspan.

The Amadeus reservation system can book up to 360 days in advance, almost a whole calendar year, whilst the other major system, Galileo will only offer bookings up to 332 days – a difference of 4 weeks.

Amadeus powers the online agency OPODO so you can book 12 months in advance using their website here.

But other well known companies such as Expedia cannot book this far in advance.

As different travel agencies use different systems, one agent may say that you have to wait before accepting bookings, any travel agent using Amadeus, for example Capable Travel, Telephone 020 7489 8787, will be able to help you.

 

 

Is Etihad Frequent Flyer scheme worth joining?

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If you are travelling business class with Etihad to Australia, is it worth signing up to their loyalyty scheme?

We took the following example

Etihad business class to Melbourne Australia

One round trip in Business Class at the lowest fare type (W class) earns 27,700 miles which is enough to buy a pair of Oakley ANTIX sunglasses (21,214 miles)

If you want to redeem miles for flights, an economy class ticket to Dubai requires 62,043 miles

Useful links:

Where you can fly to with your Etihad miles calculator:

https://www.etihadairways.com/sites/etihad/global/en/guestrecognition/visitor/yourmiles/whereicanfly/pages/whereicanfly.aspx

How many miles will you earn from an Etihad Flight

http://www.etihadairways.com/sites/Etihad/global/en/guestrecognition/visitor/Pages/mileagecalculator.aspx

See my related article:

Emirates Skywards or Etihad Guest loyalty schemes – Which is more generous?

 

 

Google Hotel Finder

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As you would expect from Google, their HotelFinder site is slick!

They provide a date-driven availability and price display on the left hand side and a very good Google Maps on the right hand side.

So, full marks for presentation.

But the site is still in experimental stage and we have two issues with the site

  1. The availability is received only from the hotel itself. This means that hotel brokers who may have availability in the form of allocations, will not be featured. So the hotel will have a ‘likely sold out’ sign against it. When booking business travel, availability can often be an issue as a specific hotel will be requested. Therefore, it is better to use our hotel comparison site which searches hundreds of suppliers with one click.
  2. Prices are those provided by the hotel to Google and are usually exorbitant. We priced several hotels and soon realised that our recommended search engine consistently undercut the Google Hotel Finder rates.

Try our Hotel Search option above and compare the results with Google’s (below) to see for yourself!

http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/

 

Discount fares from Australia to the UK

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How to find discount fares for travel from Australia to the UK, if you are buying the ticket here in the UK.

Here’s a trick that just saved £471 on the price of a business class ticket:

Scenario: You’re in the UK and you want to buy a ticket originating in Sydney, Australia to travel Sydney-London-Sydney, in Business Class

Emirates airline fare, priced on the Expedia UK site, was £6,636 return.

But if you search on the Expedia Australia site, the fare was AUD9338 which equals £6,165 saving £471

This is because availability and prices are often cheaper locally as airlines can be somewhat protective about their local fares.

To find the Australia Expedia site, click on the link on our Expedia Page (above) and at the very bottom of the site, look for the Australia Flag.

Click on the Flag and then search for fares. Ensure that you have an up-to-date exchange rate to hand.

Booking Tip: Google the following: “AUD to GBP” and you’ll be given the exchange rate which is currently only 1.51 dollars to the pound.

I remember the time when it was 2.20…

 

How to apply for a free Australia Visa

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Never use the companies that advertise on Google for a Australia Visa as you’ll end up paying a fee to them – unnecessarily.

Only use the official government site, which is free of charge. You can identify an official site because the address will end with a .gov.au (as per below)

Full details are here:

http://www.immi.gov.au/

But if you are from a European country and require a tourist visa or a visa for business purposes, you can apply free of charge directly here:

https://www.ecom.immi.gov.au/visas/app/uu?form=TV

IMPORTANT NOTE: After clicking on the link above, you must SAVE the first page after which you’ll be asked to make up a password and the system will generate a Application ID, before proceeding with the “Next” button!
I wasted time trying to figure that out!

I hope that you appreciate this advice and that you compare hotel and flight prices using the search engines that we provide on this website

Thanks!

 

Booking Tips

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A travel industry expert suggests the following 5 booking tips:

  1. Always use a comparison site. The best in the UK is Skyscanner
  2. Always choose to book short haul flights directly on the airlines sites, examples:  easyJet, Ryanair, Wizz.
  3. Book British Airways direct here directly with BA as they don’t discount short-haul fares
  4. Long haul travel should be booked through Expedia or Opodo as these two companies consistently offer lower fares. Expedia do not charge for credit card payments.
  5. Always search for one seat as you may be offered the last seat at a lower tiered price level which, if you ask for two, you will not be offered.

 

How to discount Eurostar Fares to Amsterdam

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The through fares from London to Amsterdam are generally good value when compared with flight costs including all the additional charges of baggage, check-in, transport to the airport etc.

By “through-fare” we mean the price given if you search from London to Amsterdam and the reservation system includes the connection in Brussels. Rail Europe offer these fares – see our Eurostar Page heading above.

But we’ve just saved £116 by booking the cheapest fare London – Brussels – London with Rail Europe, costing £69 for the dates we required.

Then we booked this special offer which is valid for travel 15th July through to 19th August:

19 euro each way for travel from Brussels to any Dutch station. That’s approximately £31 return

To book this onward fare, visit the Belgium Rail site, below:

http://www.b-europe.com/Travel/Promotions/Holland

UPDATE 6th July 2012

The onward fares Brussels to Amsterdam are not valid on the high speed THALYS trains. The intercity trains have to be used which take just under 3 hours.

The through fare includes the THALYS train service.

Do also use our flights page as prices start from £99 return with Air France KLM and Cityjet

Top 5 Tips for finding best hotel prices and availability

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Always request just one room

Even if you need more than one room, start by requesting one. That way, you’ll be offered the cheapest room price available.
Then, change your search to see if additional rooms are available at the same price.

Searching for a specific hotel?

If you know the name of the hotel, don’t waste time scrolling through all the hundreds on offer.
Use the “Hotel Name Contains” search option on the left hand side under Refine Your Search

Need flexibility?

Choose a rate that only requires a credit card to guarantee, as opposed to the pre-paid prices and pay at check-out. Booking.com and Hotels.com routinely offer this option.

How to get to the hotel?

Most hotels provide public transport information but Google Maps has an excellent tool. After locating your hotel use the Get Directions button to the left of the map. Choose by car, public transport or walking.

Book direct

Always use our hotel comparison engine but if the best price is available directly from the hotel’s web site, make that your preferred choice. The hotel will prefer that as they’ll pay lower “distribution fees” and they’ll have immediate access to the guest name.You may get preferential treatment dealing with any problems with your reservation and, for special requests such as a late check-out.
Otherwise you may be redirected to the third party booking agent through whom you made the reservation.

Eurostar Arrivals Board

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There are no online arrivals boards dedicated to Eurostar but this site provides live information on all trains arriving at St Pancras International station here.

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/ldbboard/arr/STP

It includes domestic trains so you may need to scroll down. You cannot filter the display because it doesn’t recognise Paris / Brussels or Lille as being valid stations!

If you’re mobile, the best train app that features live arrival information is called “Train Tickets” by Cross Country trains. My experience of this app is that it is sometimes more up-to-date than station announcements!

I hope that this information is helpful and do come back.

If you need a hotel near the Eurostar Terminal in London, read my short article here

If you need hotels elsewhere, we feature the best hotel comparison site in today’s online market here:

http://www.bookingbusinesstravel.com/hotels/

 

 

Eurostar Quiet Carriages

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For Premier Class only, coach number 8 and 11 will be designated quiet coaches from 11 September 2012

Amusingly, Eurostar state that “due to the nature of” direct trains to Disney, they cannot guarantee that there will be quiet coaches on that service, nor on Ski destinations

If you need to pre book specific Eurostar coach numbers or seats, this can only be done on the Eurostar website

Please visit our Eurostar Page for further information

 

Etihad chauffeur new limits

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Some changes have been announced to Etihad complimentary chauffeur service….

Etihad frequent flier members, Gold and Silver, continue to receive free chauffeurs for departure and arrivals throughout the Etihad network.

If stopping in Abu Dhabi in each direction, that’s a total of 8 chauffeur transfers!

But for non members or those that haven’t attained Silver status, travellers in Business Class (Pearl Business Class) will be eligible for a limit of TWO single chauffeur transfers PER PERSON

This applies for new tickets from 1st May 2012

Best hotel search engines reviewed

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Several new hotel booking companies have emerged online and we review a selection here.

We’ve considered three questions:

Is the website quick, friendly and easy to use?
How many hotels are featured?
Are the rates competitive?

We searched for hotels in some obscure European towns to compare content major cities to compare actual hotel rates

The first two companies are “Hotel Booking Agents”. That is, they sell hotel accommodation.
The third and fourth companies compare rates from over 50 hotel booking agents and then you are free to make your choice.

Roomkey

A good name for a hotel booking engine and the site is quick but when we searched for hotels in smaller towns, only one or two hotels were offered, whilst as fifteen options are provided by our recommended search engine. Hotels featured appear to be those of the major international chains only.

BBT summary: A nice site but lacking in content

Tingo

From Tripadvisor, Tingo offers to refund your credit card if the price drops. That sounds like a good idea but…
Patterns of travel bookings nowadays are to book at fairly short notice. The price-drop feature would only be meaningful if you booked well in advance, allowing sufficient time for any reductions to take place,
Also, the price-drop offer doesn’t apply to all the hotels room types.
And how do you know that you have the best rate in the first place? You’d need to use our recommended comparison site.
Rates are displayed in USD and the prices excluded taxes and fees until selected on a subsequent page, which makes comparison difficult. We found some hotel rates to be competitive but not all, because we believe that the rates offered come from just one company, Expedia. For that reason, only 4-5 hotels were offered when we know that 15+ exist

BBT Summary – A novel concept but lacking in substance and content.

Hotelicopter

A slick website when it works, Earlier today we took a look and found that the site lacked content in Europe. It appears to be more US centred but claims to have 160,000 hotels in its database. We have tried a more detailed review but the search form is not responding when we try various cities. We’ll take another look tomorrow.

HotelsCombined

We feature this company on our hotel search page. The reason for our choice is not based on the website design so much as the accuracy of the information, the range of hotels and sheer number of hotel booking agents offered.

The site “it does what it says on the tin” It searches all the relevant sites, hotel booking agents and the major hotel chains.
Even in obscure towns e.g. Liberec in Czech Republic, a selection of all 20+ hotels and quality pensions are offered.

We have corporate clients who use this search engine every day and we frequently hear of the savings they are achieving.
I personally saved over £200 booking an all-inclusive resort in Morocco, despite working for a travel agency at the time!

Frequently, availability is found even when the hotel itself has sold out of rooms. This is because some of the agents featured hold “room allocations” This can be essential to business travellers.

Another plus is there is usually a choice of payment in advance, (preferred by holiday makers) or pay at check-out (preferred by Business Travellers, providing additional flexibility) Several companies allow you to hold a room and cancel without charge. A real bonus.

BBT Summary: The best search engine for content, rates and availability. Try the site here and save the webpage to your favourites.

Where to find cheapest Germanwings airfares?

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We conducted this study on behalf of a client who travels frequently to their offices in Stuttgart from London.

We recommend using our Skyscanner flight search engine to compare schedules and fares but the following booking tips will save you additional time and costs:

Tip 1
Choose the “Compare Times” option for an easier display by departure time

Tip 2
After choosing the German Wings flights you will be offered a choice of companies through whom you can book.
Always chose German Wings direct – even if the fare appears to be cheaper elsewhere!

We compared Skyscanner Fares for a Heathrow-Stuttgart-Heathrow flight, midweek travel on specific flights.

Opodo quote £209 but actually £273 plus £20 booking fee plus £7 credit card fee Total £300!
Ebookers quote £273 which increased to £283 plus £7 credit card Total £290!
German Wings direct originally quoted at £283 appeared to be the most expensive but after researching the above options, it is clearly the best booking option. German Wings also added a £7 credit card fee at the end.

Additional benefits of booking direct:
Your reservation is made directly on the airline’s booking engine and not through a third party.
You can deal direct with the airline if there is a problem later on
The option of reserving a seat directly with German Wings is available for direct bookings
Special offers and different fare types are offered direct.

British Airways On Business Discounts

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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.

Best hotel comparison site

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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

 

Airline Alliances Update December 2012

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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)

 

 


 

Ryanair baggage charges increase for bookings made after 15 December

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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!