Wizzair.com 2 day sale – bookings made 1st & 2nd June

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If you travel on Wizz more than 3 times a year, as some of my clients do, you can access cheaper fares….

Pay an annual membership of £25.49 (EUR29.99) and save up to £8.50 per flight

  • Immediate access to discounted member fares
  • Up to 9 companions on the same booking also eligible for the discounts
  • Access to exclusive offers such as this current 20% off

For more information and to sign up, on the Wizz Xclusive Club visit their site here

You should continue to use our flight search tool because you never know what other airline options may exist. You can still sign in to Wizz after you see the public fares

Ash cloud map

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The best ash cloud map with predictions which will help you see at a glance what flights may be affected is available from the met office site here

An alternative and perhaps clearer forecasts are also available here

You’ll see why Germany is suffering airport closures 0800hrs Wednesday and the UK is not.

Also, we suggest that you follow TravelHelps

If this information is helpful please subscribe to my blog

Bonus BA Miles Offer Extended

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Apply for a British Airways AMEX card now and get 3,000 bonus miles.
This offer has been extended until Monday 23 May 2011

Click on the advert to the right of this article to receive 3,000 miles after spending just £500 over the first 3 months and collect future miles at 1 mile per £1 spend

You’ll also earn extra miles if you recommend the card to others

Top 10 tips for booking business travel flights online

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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.

How much extra do Low Cost Airlines charge? Survey Results

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A study of thousands of fares offered by 20 airlines concludes that the low cost airlines add approximately 44% to the base fare, in fees and charges!

Despite this, the overall savings offered by low cost airlines averaged 33%

The report suggests that domestic flights only offered a 20% saving but that international flights saved 41%

The study was conducted by Kelkoo, the travel comparison website.

Google Travel to go ahead

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The US Justice Dept has cleared Google to proceed with its purchase of ITA for $700 million. Google will have to allow other companies to use ITA’s technology but with Google’s dominant position in search, why will anyone go elsewhere to search for flights if Google provides the answers?

Google in its blog said, “How cool would it be if you could type “flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May” into Google and get not just a set of links but also flight times, fares and a link to sites where you can actually buy tickets quickly and easily?”
Google could not conceal its excitement by adding, “We’re confident that by combining ITA’s expertise with Google’s technology we’ll be able to develop exciting new flight search tools for all our users. Up, up and away!”

Click HERE to read Google’s blog

Initially, this will be good for consumers, bringing greater accuracy and transparency to the flight search process. It will however, be to the detriment of companies who currently offer flight comparison. Once they have disappeared, will we live in Google Land?

EasyJet for Business Travel Bookings

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EasyJet has flexi fares for bookers of business travel which allow changes to tickets free-of-charge, and to date, these fares are only bookable through Travel Management Companies.

By end June however, these fares will be available on the EasyJet.com web site.

See my article, EasyJet flexible fares – are they worth it about the pros and cons of these fare types.

Booking EasyJet online direct rather than through an agent saves you the travel agent’s booking fee of typically £15, plus the agent’s reservation system fee of £3.30 plus any hidden mark-up of up to £50

We recommend that you always research and book EasyJet via our flight search engine

Heathrow Express Discount Fares

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I made the mistake of buying two single Heathrow Express tickets at the station, costing £36.00 round trip! You can discount by £4 by booking online direct with Heathrow Express

UPDATE December 2011

Heathrow Express discount of 25% for bookings in December 2012 and outbound travel up to end January 2012
The normal online fare for Express Class Return is £32 but the sale fare saves £8 at a price of £24.00
To obtain the discount Heathrow Express fare you have to click on a Google advert, otherwise you will be charged the normal fare.

Simply Google “Heathrow Express Sale”

Update January 2012

The Google Advertised Sale has ended.

If you appreciate this advice, please come back BEFORE you book your next trip!

Subscribe to my blog for future advice and deals

PS Check out our best hotel search engine CLICK HERE

EasyJet flexible fares – are they worth it?

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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:

  • Unlimited free date changes with a 4 week period (1 week and 3 weeks after departure)
  • 1 piece of hand baggage (unlimited weight)
  • 1 piece of hold baggage (20Kg)
  • Free speedy boarding
  • No extra booking fees

Consider the following:

  • The change fee on normal cheap tickets is just £30
  • Hand baggage is already free on all fare types, unlimited weight, dimensions: 56 x 45 x 25cm
  • Hold baggage would cost £18 extra but how many business travellers require check-in luggage when flying short haul with easyJet?
  • The travel agent may charge between £10 and £25 to make the booking (and maybe mark-up), and a fee to change.
  • easyJet already allow you to board an earlier flight on the return, for free.
  • The “flexible fares” are not refundable, whilst full service airlines flexible fares usually are.
  • How often does Speedy Boarding work in practise? Is it worth the extra?

Booking Business Travel suggests that to buy the cheapest fare on the day is the best policy.

British Airways free upgrade extended

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The BA upgrade from Business Class to First Class has been extended from 30th April to 27th May for bookings and travel.

This offer only applies to the more expensive fully flexible BA fares (J Class), is not applicable to corporate deal fares and cannot be booked on ba.com but via travel agents – or BA direct on 0844 493 0787

EasyJet longest new route: Gatwick to Amman, Jordan.

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EasyJet has launched a three times weekly service, departing Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

With a flying time of 5 hours, this is believed to be the outer reaches of time that passengers will tolerate a no-frills service.

The fares are approximately half that charged by existing services – Royal Jordanian and BMI and can be used to construct lower prices from London to Baghdad and other Middle East destinations

Stansted Express – discounted further

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Discounted Stansted Express tickets

UPDATE: January 2012 Now save 27% off the normal fare.

RyanAir has reduced their prices further, now offering a discount of approximately £8 on Stansted Express Trains

The normal return fare from London Liverpool Street is now £29.50

Online Price £29.50
EasyJet Price £28.00
Ryanair Price £21.60

Book via this link to RyanAir here.
NB There is no requirement to be a Ryanair passenger
PS If you liked this post, subscribe to my blog to keep informed of special offers and travel industry news

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.

Also, take a look at what we consider to be the very best discount hotel search engine here

 

 

Additional Ryanair fees

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Ryanair is to charge an additional €2.00 fee from the 4th April, to cover the costs of disrupted travel due to incidents such as the ash cloud, Air Traffic strikes and snow.

We wait to see if this is per flight or just per booking.

It will be described as a “EU261 Compensation Levy” because
The airline says, “It is unfair and discriminatory that airlines are made liable for providing refunds, meals, hotels and phonecalls during ATC strikes, bad weather airport closures, or (volcanic) airspace closures when even travel insurance companies avoid liability during these “force majeure” events, and when competing transport providers (rail, ferries and coach operators) have no such “force majeure” liability under their equivalent EU261 regulations.

Best Airline Reward Schemes

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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

Always search for just ONE seat!

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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 Sale – Book by Midnight Monday

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Fares from £6 each way, for travel Monday to Thursday only, anytime throughout May.

I usually ignore these Ryanair “sales” but after checking, these prices really do exist and there appears to be reasonable availability.

The only extra that you have to pay is the credit card charge £6 each way unless you apply for a prepaid mastercard card, see my article here:

Go direct to Ryanair here

Is “Google Travel” the future of travel search?

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In July 2010, Google announced an agreement to acquire ITA Software, for $700 million.

ITA provides search technology and connectivity between airlines and client-facing web sites such as ORBITZ and KAYAK.

Acquiring ITA will empower Google to provide answers to consumers search queries itself, instead of leaving that function to the online travel companies.

Ask Google,”What is the local time in New York?”, and Google provides the answer. Similarly with travel queries, Google will be able to provide fares directly from airlines.

Thus the intention to purchase ITA is under scrutiny by regulatory authorities.

Here is a preview of ITA’s search engine capabilities. CLICK HERE

This site, with the the inclusion of multi-sector journeys, and the country of sale information, is a very powerful tool.

ITA do not sell tickets but they do arm the consumer with as much information as a travel agent.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

ITA also provides a mobile app OnTheFly™ for iPhone and Android™ and bbmatrix.itasoftware.com for BlackBerry®.

Save £24 off your next Ryanair booking

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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/

Skyscanner chooses Lastminute.com to fulfil Wizz Air bookings

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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

Booking Eurostar for this summer

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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!

easyJet Holidays – new website launched

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I was excited at the prospect of lower prices by combining flights and hotels in the same booking, but disappointed after pricing the separate components.

easyJet holidays package price was £25 more expensive, and that was before the website mysteriously added another £17.55 during the booking process.

I rang easyJet to point out the problems. They said that they were using a different system. Strange, that their “support” agents don’t use the same website to be able to see what we see.

I did receive two calls back from easyJet but all they wanted to do was to sell me a holiday, rather than address the issues with their website.

The only advantage to using this site is that in the event of an Icelandic ash cloud situation, easyJet will presumably share responsibly for amendments to hotels as well as flights …. but is the extra cost worth it?

Comments appreciated!