Save 35% off the onboard price of £37 return
I have sat on the Heathrow Express Train and watched in disbelief a number of people paying this fare.
By booking online the current promotional discount fare is £24.00 a saving of £13 or 35%
For more details read my post here
Discount Heathrow Express Tickets are currently on sale directly from Heathrow Express with a 25% reduction. That’s a discount of £8.00
A standard class return ticket is discounted from £32 to £24
And the Heathrow Express discount single fare is now £16.50
This offer applies to tickets sold up to 31st December for outward travel up to 31st January 2012
NB The return date can be up to one month after outward travel (so you can return in February)
This discount offer is not available from the machines, the ticket office or on the train. Neither is it available from online train companies such as thetrainline.com or Redspottedhanky or travel agents or travel management companies
Even the Heathrow Express website does not automatically give the discount. You must visit their site by clicking on a Google advert. Simply Google “Heathrow Express Sale” and you should see the advert at the top of the page.
Return fares on the Heathrow Connect service which takes 32 minutes against Heathrow Express’s 15 minutes still cost £16.50 return.
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.
The best Eurostar Arrivals Board for London St Pancras International is available here, at the National Rail Enquiries web site:
http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/ldbboard/arr/STP
If you’re meeting someone at the station, download the ‘Cross Country Trains App’ for live information on-the-go.
This is the most informative and friendly app for UK train timetables, station information, delays and tickets.
Eurostar Arrivals in Paris Nord here
http://www.gares-en-mouvement.com/fr/frpno/horaires-temps-reel/arr/
Eurostar Departures from Paris Nord here
http://www.gares-en-mouvement.com/fr/frpno/horaires-temps-reel/dep/
Eurostar Arrivals in Brussels Midi here
http://hari.b-rail.be/hafas/bin/stboard.exe/fn?
The lowest discount Eurostar Fares are available from our Eurostar page here:
With so many flights cancelled due to fog at London and Amsterdam airports today, I am being asked about Eurostar to Amsterdam.
Booking Direct via Eurostar:
– Same day bookings cannot be made online
– Book through Eurostar’s call centre, telephone 08432 186 186
The passenger’s credit card must be used to pay for the booking as the card is used to retrieve the ticket from the machines at St Pancras Eurostar terminal
– Eurostar is quoting their service to Brussels and an open onward ticket at £117.50 today (one way)
Or Book online through Netherlands Rail
– You can print the ticket at your home / office
– Netherlands Rail include the high speed THALES service from Brussels to Amsterdam, total journey from 4 hours 46 minutes
– Through price to Amsterdam quoted from EUR117.00 one way
If you appreciate this advice, please bookmark my site and subscribe to my blog
INTRODUCTION
This article is intended to help SME companies choose a credit card for payment of business travel bookings.
The author has managerial and operational experience of implementing corporate charge cards within a Travel Management Company environment, for companies with a spend of up to £1 million
OVERVIEW OF CORPORATE CARD TYPES
Credit card companies offer a bewildering choice of options. The MAIN card types are as follows:
LODGE CARDS
CORPORATE CREDIT CARDS
INDIVIDUAL CARDS
LODGE CARDS
What is a lodge card?
You have to use a travel agent.
The lodge card is “lodged” with the agent, who charges every purchase you make to the card.
It is not intended for other direct purchases.
They focus on added value to travel agent services:
Monthly statements include purchase orders, and/or cost centres, and other predefined fields.
Some cards provide additional reporting detail.
The initial setup can be complex thus the travel company you choose should already be working with a lodge card partner.
How does a lodge card work?
You have to book through a travel agent. If you book an EasyJet flight on www.easyjet.com you enter the card details but where do you enter the cost centre, or purchase order information etc?
How does that information end up on a statement?
The same procedure applies to any other suppliers, Eurostar etc.
Who offers lodge cards?
There are several companies offering lodge cards, including the major banks.
The most popular cards specifically designed for travel services are provided by AirPlus and Amex
AirPlus Card
https://www.airplus.com/uk/en/
Six Reports costing £250
Payment terms – Up to 28 days credit
AirPlus Company Account Card
As above with:
Uploading to ERP (e.g. SAP) systems
Invoicing – flexible data fields including Cost Centre, Staff ID, Dept, Accounting Unit, Project Number
Not all suppliers accept AirPlus cards for payment and in these situations, Airplus can generate a virtual MasterCard number.
BookingBusinessTravel Advice:
Your travel agent should be supplying more meaningful reporting and we don’t believe the AirPlus reports are worth the £250
The refund report is a good facility to have, but only covers a few airlines. Your agent will have a system that identifies all unused tickets, but is your agent refunding you?
American Express® Business Travel Account (BTA)
http://corp.americanexpress.com/gcs/intl/unitedkingdom/corporatecards/bt/default.aspx
BookingBusinessTravel Advice:
The travel reporting provides much the same data as your travel agent should be providing.
The incentive of 50% extra on-business points is of value especially for companies that have significant long-haul travel in premium class / business class on British Airways.
CORPORATE CREDIT CARDS
These are very different to Lodge Cards
Individual cards are issue to employees for business expenses and can be controlled and monitored by your company.
Who offers corporate charge cards?
All major banks will provide you with these cards but American Express offer more rewards than other banks.
The British Airways American Express® Corporate Card
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/corporatecards/public/en_gb
The British Airways American Express® Corporate Card PLUS
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/corporatecards/public/en_gb
The same benefits as the corporate card above PLUS:
BookingBusinessTravel Advice
Your company needs to use BA and the BA On Business programme regularly to benefit most.
From our experience to date, most UK companies spend 50% of air travel with BA.
The accrual of executive air miles for all other spend is an added bonus
INDIVIDUAL CARDS
For SME companies wishing to maximise reward and cashback schemes, the best card types are individual cards. Whilst these cards are not marketed to companies for company expenses, there is no prohibition against making purchases for your travellers online, and you will earn significant rewards or even cash-back.
AIR MILES:
British Airways American Express Credit Card
http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/ba-credit-card/
British Airways American Express® Premium-Plus Card
http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/ba-premium-plus-credit-card/
The miles are redeemable against a flight (valid for cardholder+companion only)
BMI Amex Credit Card
http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/loyalty-programmes/credit-card/credit-card.aspx
Works well with BMI Diamond Club Rewards and redeemable against BMI flights or Star Alliance Airline partners
CASHBACK CARDS
American Express Platinum cashback card
http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/platinum-cashback-credit-card/
Save £12 per person per return ticket by using the Ryanair Cash Passport card
But be aware of the following:
More information and apply here:
From the 1st November it seems Ryanair intends to charge £6 per flight per passenger for paying by any card online.
That amounts to a charge of £24 for two people booking a return trip.
The airline has announced that it will provide reimbursement in the form of £6 travel voucher(s) if they use the Ryanair Cash Passport card which is a prepaid card type.
See the Ryanair article here:
http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-launches-branded-prepaid-mastercard
For more information on how to apply for the Ryanair Cash Passport please subscribe to my blog and I’ll keep you posted.
A brilliant enhancement to Air France booking site is the option to book a flight with a deposit of as little as £10 and to confirm the booking by paying the balance up to one week later.
Short Haul fares are usually cheaper direct:
AirFrance.com to Amsterdam quoted £97.91 return compared to Expedia £102.41.
Expedia offer 200 nectar points but these are only worth £1
For long-haul bookings, online agents like Expedia may be cheaper.
Always check our flight search tool first, then make your choice.
For most business bookings you’ll need flexibility – to hold a room quickly and to cancel without charge.
Always use our Hotel Search to compare the rates and availability and then, unless substantial savings are available elsewhere, we recommend choosing the following two companies:
Booking.com
HRS.com
The Wizz booking site is the worst I’ve experienced when it comes to providing total costs, booking fees etc.
You need to complete the booking before receiving the total quote.
I suggest that you check what the charges will be here first
The total costs (Wizz charges are per person per flight) for two people on a return flight are:
Booking Fee – Credit Card £20
Baggage per return flight £52
Check-in fee online per flight £16
Total extra cost £88 or £44 per person. You need to add that figure to fares quoted on our flight comparison site
Wizz allow changes, which many airlines do not, at a fee of £26 per flight per passenger, or you can book a flexible fare for £18
And uniquely, Wizz allow change of passenger names after booking, at a fee of £34
Remember to always book direct with Wizz rather than through an online travel agent as you’ll only pay more ….
Having researched airport parking at Heathrow, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton we’ve conclude that instead of booking through 3rd parties that you should book direct.
Example:
One week Stansted Airport Short Stay (convenience of a walk to the terminal) just £77.00
BAA Official Airport Parking guarantee:
Easily save over £20 on your next Ryanair booking
Ryanair now charges £6 per flight per passenger to take your payment!
That’s £24 for two return tickets!
Avoid credit card charges by using the FairFX Anywhere MasterCard
The FairFX Anywhere £ MasterCard
The £9.95 application fee is waived if you apply here.
Future top-ups of any amount are free of charge. Although you have a sterling balance, the card can be used abroad and a competitive prevailing rate of exchange is applied.
A low 1.4% charge is made on all purchases on the card.
International ATM charges are £1.50 plus 1.5%
UK ATM incurs a flat charge of £1.50 (no 1.5% charge)
For two Ryanair passengers with bookings costing £90 each, the FairFX charge will be £2.52 but you will avoid the Ryanair card fees of £24.00 saving £21.48
SPECIAL OFFER: The FairFX £9.95 charge is waived for Booking Business Travel customers:
Always search for just one seat
There may be just one seat left at a lower fare and then others at a higher price. See a full explanation here
Always use our flight search comparison engine
You may be surprised by an option or airline that you hadn’t considered.
Book check-in baggage after you’ve booked your flights
If you require a check-in bag in one direction only, you can do this in the Manage My Booking facility after you’ve completed your booking.
One direction booking of baggage is not offered when you make your booking – so you can save up to £35 by arranging baggage afterwards.
Use a FairFX prepaid MasterCard to pay for your tickets
On a return booking for two people you’ll save as much as £21.48. See my article here
Book Stansted Express Tickets via the Ryanair site
And you’ll save £8.10 per person
Eurostar does not offer discount ticket prices below those on its own site.
You will not find discounted Eurostar prices through travel agents or online websites below those offered direct from the official Eurostar site.
However; we do recommend that you compare fares with those offered by Rail Europe
Rail Europe is the UK representative of French Railways (SNCF) and they use the French reservation system which may offer availability at prices that Eurostar may have sold out of.
Both official search engines are provided on our Eurostar Page
There are benefits of booking Eurostar direct:
• Option to book Rail + Hotel for further discounts
• The system warns you if there are less than 10 seats
• Fixed £4 credit card charge, debit cards are free
• Choice of window/aisle/solo seat preference, or
• Specific seat selection at the 3rd booking stage
• SMS text message option in case of delay/cancellations
• Print ticket at home (or office) option, free of charge, and go direct to check-in!
• Ticket on departure, free of charge, but collection by the card-holder only
• Telephone support: 08432 186 186 from 8am to 7pm Mon-Fri, 9-5 Sat/Sun
For your convenience, we provide both Eurostar and SNCF search forms on our Eurostar Page
For booking a train ticket to Europe to stations other than the Eurostar mainline stations: Lille, Paris, Brussels, we suggest you use Eurostar to price your through journey first.
Then compare the through journey with Rail Europe
Through tickets are more convenient as you will make one online booking, with little chance of making a mistake. However, it may be considerably cheaper to split the booking into two:
Price the ticket as just as far as the Eurostar mainline station with Eurostar, and, separately, using Rail Europe (SNCF), or German Rail (DER), price the onward domestic ticket.
You may reduce the fare considerably.
An alternative to Rail Europe and worth taking the time to check, is French railways SNCF direct, but you must use the French Language Site*
Booking Tips for Booking French Railways French Language Site
If your French is really poor, use Google Chrome as your web browser as there is an automated page translator which will help.
You will be asked, “Sélectionnez le pays de réception ou de retrait des billet” which translates as “Select the country of receipt or withdrawal of the ticket”
If you choose Grande Bretagne you will be redirected to a Rail Europe site which may cost you more.
Choose FRANCE
Choose e-billet …“Imprimez ou modifiez votre confirmation e-billet en ligne quand vous voulez” which translates as Print or edit your e-ticket confirmation online when you want
You can even choose to book now and pay later! (Ou posez une simple option et payez plus tard)
Always use a flight comparison tool.
Even if you know which airline you need to book, you may be offered a cheaper alternative that you didn’t think of. We’ve selected the most accurate and reliable search engine on our Flight Search page.
Use our “Who Flies Where” tool.
Use our impartial tool to check which airlines fly the route. Flight comparison tools may exclude an airline if a) there is no availability or b) if there is a technical communications glitch between systems. (even the best professional systems e.g. Galileo GDS and Sabre GDS occasionally suffer connectivity problems)
Always search for just ONE seat
Even if two or more are travelling. See this article HERE for the reasons why you should do this, and, we guarantee you’ll frequently obtain a lower fare for at least one passenger.
Pay with a credit card that offers cashback or rewards
…If the airline/agent doesn’t charge extra. Expedia for example, never charge credit card charges – and they offer nectar points.
See our article HERE regarding the most rewarding credit cards.
Always book internet airlines e.g. EasyJet, Ryanair, WIZZ, direct with the airline
You will never find a cheaper fare through third party online agents. They will mark-up the fares. The same applies for British Airways short-haul, but it may be worth checking around for long haul and business class.
Use a travel agent if you need a booking to be “held” whilst a passenger decides
Opodo will tell you exactly how many seats are left at each fare and if there’s just one or two seats left, it may be worth using an agent who can normally hold seats at least until 6pm, before having to pay and issue tickets
Sign up your company to the following reward schemes
British Airways On-Business
Star Alliance Company Plus
See our full article HERE
Use TRIPIT to organise itineraries
Forward all your confirmation emails to www.tripit.com and they’ll assemble your flight + hotel + airport parking etc., all in one place
More details HERE
Check health requirements, visa requirements before travel!
More details on our “useful sites” page HERE:
Subscribe to our blog and we’ll keep you informed of airline sales and industry news.
In a complete reversal of the low cost airlines policy of encouraging you to book direct and online, easyJet has introduced a range of higher priced “flexible fares” starting at £99.99 which are only available via travel agents.
Stated Benefits:
Consider the following:
Booking Business Travel suggests that to buy the cheapest fare on the day is the best policy.
British Airways On-Business
Your company will accrue points in addition to your individual
travellers’ executive club points.
More details – and sign up here
Sign up takes just 3 minutes, but before you start, check:
*Your company registration number
* An estimate (or guess) of your annual air travel spend.
* Nominate a ‘company authoriser’ (able to book rewards) and programme administrator (can be one and the same)
* The IATA number of any travel agent(s) you may use
Your membership number needs to be quoted when you book at ba.com and you can nominate up to 5 travel agents.
Star Alliance Company Plus
Free promotion – 1,500 points when you join
Tailored to small and medium sized companies, Company Plus encompasses the following (mainly European) airlines:
Air Canada, ANA, Austrian, Blue1, BMI, Brussels Airlines, Continental, LOT, Lufthansa, Scandinavian, Swiss, TAP Portugal, United.
Our view: It is difficult to administer and accrue points on this programme. E.g. Booking at Lufthansa.com, there is no option to enter your membership number. Flights need to be manually entered or uploaded from a spreadsheet to their site.
More details and application HERE
Airlines (and train companies, including Eurostar) allocate a certain number of seats to be sold at various prices.
They don’t want to fill an aircraft with £9.99 fare-paying passengers!
So they’ll allocate for example:
10 seats at £9.99
30 seats at £39.00
50 seats at £150.00
50 seats at £200.00
If 9 seats have been sold at £9.99 there will be just one seat left at that price and the next seat to be sold will be at £39.00
However, if you request two seats, the airline reservation systems will not offer you that “last seat” price, but will sell you two at the next higher price, even though that lower priced ticket remains available for sale.
By requesting and booking one seat at a time, you can achieve one fare at the lower price and one at the higher price.
Having spent 20 years selling air tickets in a travel agency, I know that this scenario occurs more frequently than you would imagine!
I recently saved £150 by booking separate tickets on a trip for two to Dubai by booking individual seats. One seat left was priced at £250 and the next one was £400
Make sure that enough seats are available on the aircraft though, by checking for the total party first!
OPODO show the actual number of seats available at the price quoted, click HERE
Ryanair charge a debit card or credit card fee of £6 per passenger per passenger. That’s £24 on a return booking for two people!
Apply for a “Prepaid Mastercard” NOW – so that you’re ready to save on your next booking!
We trawled through the cards on offer through moneysupermarket.com.
We were enticed by offers such as “no application fee” but by reading the small print we were alarmed to find clauses such as:
Card issue fees applied of typically £10.00
PLUS monthly management fee of up to £3.95
A charge of up to 2.75% on purchases
A turnover limit of £650 per annum….
The best card in our opinion is from KALIXA with a one-off fee of EUR4.95
• No purchase fees
• No monthly management fee
• Load via internet free
• No maximum daily spend
More details on their fees:
http://www.kalixa.com/en-gb/Guest-Areas/About-Kalixa/Fees_de/
Delivery takes 5+ working days so apply now!
http://www.kalixa.com/en-gb/Guest-Areas/About-Kalixa/Kalixa-for-Business-SME_de/Kalixa-in-detail/
UPDATE MAY 2011 … The search engine now sends you directly to Wizz Air. This is our recommended way of booking low-cost-airlines.
The price is the same – to the penny, if you choose to pay by SWITCH or VISA DEBIT card.
Lastminute accept AMEX, DINERS, cards which WIZZ do not but they make a charge.
Check-in baggage is £16 if you use Lastminute and £13 if you go direct to WIZZ
So, our advice is: Use Our cheap flight search to compare and check alternatives, but, unless you need to pay with a card that is not accepted by WIZZ, then we recommend that you
Book direct with wizzair.com HERE
The best fares are booked in advance, however;
London to Paris, Brussels or Lille is only bookable up to 4 months (120 days) in advance.
EXAMPLE: Today 30th March we can only book for an outbound date of 28th July
To onward destinations, for example, Bordeaux, you can only book 3 months (90 days) in advance.
EXAMPLE: Today 30th March we can only book for an outbound date of 28th June.
This limit applies to the outbound AND return date so if you are staying for a week, you risk losing the cheapest seats on the outbound whilst you wait for the return to become available.
A travel agent should be able to reserve seats the outward whilst waiting for the return so if you are travelling peak time it may be worth paying an agent’s booking fee to get the lowest prices.
Make a diary note and book here!
Three easy steps to reduce the price of train travel to French destinations:
1. Use RAIL EUROPE to obtain best connecting schedules, noting the timings and the “through fare”
2. Use the EUROSTAR site to quote the London-Paris-London trains
3. Use the RAIL EUROPE for the Paris-End Destination-Paris ticket.
Splitting the fares this way saved us £136 on a business trip to Chateauroux
CLICK HERE for the links to Eurostar and Rail Europe
1. Use our comparison site to compare options
2. Air Asia charge up to £60 per return trip for baggage so include that in your decision process. Plus charges for food
3. You’ll only have 9 minutes to complete the booking so make sure you have all the passenger information to hand
It can be frustrating – you’ve found a flight and you want to look at a hotel or check a train.
Or you simply want to go back to the previous page, but you don’t want to lose the information you’ve found and you certainly don’t want to have to retype search stuff again!
Or you’re interrupted, and need to do a Google search….
We recommend that you change your Internet Explorer settings to open links and new pages as “MULTIPLE TABS”.
Here’s an example of how I use multiple tabs:
Google, Booking Business, Flights and Hotels are all readily available by clicking on tabs instead of going back and forth.
3 easy steps to change your Internet Explorer settings
1. On your Menu Bar, select Tools, then Internet Options
2. In the General Tab, under Tabs, select Settings
3. Tick the boxes as per the example below and click OK to save changes:
Now enjoy lower stress levels!
Sorry…we can’t do anything about your boss!