This brilliant and concise article by the British Airports Authority explains the impact of fog on Heathrow’s operations.
It answers the commonly asked questions such as:
Why does fog cause delays (with all our technology)?
Why can other airports cope when Heathrow cannot?
Why cancel flights in advance?
Who cancels flights?
After reading this, I doubt that anyone will complain again!
Here’s the link to the Heathrow Airport Media Centre article
Anyone having tried to book flights on Ryanair will know how painful the process is!
And the boss of Ryanair Michael O’leary has admitted that, “We have got to stop making it so difficult”
Initially, the airline makes you type or guess what the code is before you can even get a quote. This is to stop unauthorized online travel agents from screen scraping the Ryanair site and reselling to consumers with a hefty markup.
And during the booking process, the site, which is “clunky” attempts to sell you every imaginable extra. Furthermore we’ve received reports of difficulties using Chrome compared to Internet Explorer
The good news is that Ryanair is to continue working with our choice of flight search engine – so you can compare schedules and fares immediately, in addition to other airlines.
Our flight search even compares two one-way fares and gives a step-by-step process
But the airline will not offer availability via expensive travel agent “GDS” systems so agents will still have to go online to make the booking in exactly the same way that you can do.
According to travel industry observers, he said “We are not going back on GDSs and pay ludicrous amounts to Amadeus, Worldspan or Sabre who add nothing to the process.” “It used to cost us 20% of revenues for a service 80% of passengers are happy to do themselves online.”
Booking Business Travel agrees.
Whilst the travel agent systems are more efficient for the agency, the cost of the technology would be incurred by the airline. And as Simon Calder, the travel writer once said, “‘Low-cost airline’ means an airline whose costs are low, not necessarily an airline whose fares are low”
If you are a frequent traveller, you’ll probably belong to several loyalty schemes, both airline and hotel.
And you may also collect shopping points such as Nectar, or Tesco Clubcard and perhaps Shell petrol etc
Awardwallet.com provides an online facility to file all your various memberships and check them automatically in one place. An excellent way to keep track of your points
It is also available as an app but we suggest using the online version to set-up your account.
If you are concerned about placing your login and password(s) on their servers, you can choose to store the information locally on your desktop computer. Be careful that your browser doesn’t delete the cookies when closing though, otherwise you’ll need to re-enter your passwords all over again!
Award Wallet accepts a wide range of loyalty schemes – it even checks my Boots Advantage account details.
And it’s free of charge, although you can benefit from additional features such as a Business Account
Try Award Wallet via this link now!
Roomkey is an online hotel booking engine.
It has been created by a collaboration of the following hotel chains:
Hilton
Hyatt
Intercontinental
Wyndham
Marriott
Choice hotels
And Roomkey recently signed up agreements with:
La Quinta
Millenium Hotels & Resorts
Leading Hotels of the World
It’s important to recognise that Roomkey is not a hotel comparison site. All it does is drive visitors to the above hotel’s websites.
It attracts visitors by popping up if you close your browser on one of the above hotels without having made or completed the booking
And it tries to entice you back, to one of the above properties
So whilst Roomkey is an innovative produce we do not recommend using it for hotel price search as you’ll only be provided with the rates as advertised on the hotel’s own websites.
Our hotel comparison site however, compares these rates with hundreds of others so you can rest assured that you’ve got the best deal.
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.
I absolutely love this app for UK national rail.
It provides up-to-the-minute station information e.g. 2 minute delay on the train that I’m running for…
I’ve found it to be more accurate than station announcements.
It meets my criteria: Fun to use, intuitive and useful.
It gets information directly from the ATOC system (Association Train Operating Companies)
Once, it offered me an alternative route that saved me about 10 minutes and one less change.
The app is offered by “crosscountry” and is called “Train Tickets”
If you appreciate this advice, please subscribe to my monthly blog and come back next time you need to book travel. Thanks!
www.superfly.com mocks other search engines such as KAYAK as being outdated so we thought we should take a look.
Yes the site is slick and simple. Yes, you can access all your frequent flier / memberships from one dashboard, which is nice, but others services do that too.
When it comes to flight search, the service MUST include ALL airlines. And the service must connect directly to airlines rather than to online travel agents such as Expedia, who, may add a mark-up to the fare.
And of course, the system needs to quote £ rather than $
So, for now, we continue to recommend Skyscanner as the best, most comprehensive and accurate search engine.
Visit our Skyscanner page here to see for yourself.
I had to search long and hard to find a live Eurostar Arrivals and Departures Board.
The official St Pancras International arrivals and departures are available here but the system does not recognise Paris or Brussels! You’ll need to scan through ALL arriving trains and departures including domestic train services
Surprisingly, the best live Eurostar Arrivals and Departure information is only available as an app.
The “Cross Country Trains” app provides Eurostar information as well as live station information and timetables throughout the UK
If you require hotels near the Eurostar St Pancras International train station, please read my short article here
For hotels worldwide, we host the best comparison site at our hotel page here
I’ve used my travel agency background experience to select what we consider to be the most useful and essential travel apps using the following criteria:
Create a homepage shortcut to all your Travel Apps.
With just one icon revealing all your travel apps, you’ll avoid the frustration of searching through All Apps
Search for: Apps Organizer (version 1.5.18) by Fabio Collini
This is the best app ever!
You’re on that station platform, wondering what time the train will really arrive … or what the best alternative route is going to be.
Or, you’re in a meeting and wondering if your train will be leaving on time or do you have an extra 10 minutes?
Immediate help is at hand, just one click away, from the easy to use, friendly app that provides up-to-the-second train operating information and offer alternative routes
The information can be more up-to-date than station announcements!
Top Features:
This App is produced by Cross Country, a “Train Operating Company” so you can trust the information 100%
This App is FREE whilst similar alternatives (Thales “National Rail Planner Live”) cost £3.49
Search for “Train Tickets” by CrossCountry
The British Airways App is an essential tool for your next flight.
Helps with the following:
You need to be a BA Executive Club member to take full advantage of this app
Our Verdict: A must have app even if you only fly once with BA!
We would expect Google to provide the best flight search app. What they offer is OnTheFly, which was created by a company called ITA, which Google purchased for $700 Million
Some of the look-and-feel functions are slick, such as the option to choose other airports by distance from that requested, however you cannot choose LON for all London airports; rather, you are forced to select Heathrow, Stansted, and Gatwick individually.
Flight Search should be unbiased and all airlines must be included.
OnTheFly is, in our opinion, useless because of the absence of no-frills airlines such as easyJet or Ryanair. Furthermore, the fares displayed are expensive – only “published” fares, and no discounted ticket prices.
Our verdict: Don’t use this app!
KAYAK
Similar to the above, there is an absence of Ryanair so you cannot rely on the flight search results.
Prices seem to be fixed in USD
Skyscanner
This must be the best flight search app, brought to you by Skyscanner. We feature Skyscanner on our site because it is the most accurate and unbiased flight search available in the UK today.
Skyscanner offers all low cost airlines including Ryanair. And it sends you direct to the Ryanair and other airlines sites directly.
Flight booking by app is in its infancy and we recommend booking via a standard internet browser, but the Skyscanner app gets our approval for information on the go.
Hotel Reservation Service HRS
The HRS app is friendly, easy to use and the following features make it our top recommendation:
For bookers of business travel, flexibility is essential. HRS allows most bookings to be held up to 6pm and cancelled prior, free of charge. And credit cards are charged locally at check-out.
Hotels.com
Hotels.com offers discounts of typically 10 – 15% via this easy to use, if American biased app.
The search facility using your GPS location is particularly handy for business travellers. Their loyalty scheme, ‘Welcome Rewards’ gives one night free for every 10 nights booked.
But, bookings have to be prepaid in full offering little flexibility.
Hotels Combined
Our favourite Internet based hotel search engine is HotelsCombined but their app is a relatively unfriendly. It behaves more like a web portal than a true app. Hopefully Hotels Combined will update their app.
Whilst apps are good for on-the-go research, they cannot replicate all the benefits of a full sized web based search engine such as the one we feature for booking hotels: http://www.bookingbusinesstravel.com/hotels/
The essential travel app will translate your phrase into most languages with a playback facility.
Can’t say more, simply try it!