If you’re flying to Sydney you could stopover in Europe for more than 24 hours and save £73 UK departure tax! (the Europe tax-band is applied)
However, the fare with a break of journey may cost considerably more than the saving!
What is feasible is to stopover in say Dubai with Emirates and you’ll save £25 tax which you could use towards against your hotel bill!
For details of airport tax see my article here
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?
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®.
We’ve found a very helpful site which provides answers to your travel-related questions.
Travellr.com (no e)
Alternatively Mygola.com uses a real life team of human researchers to answer questions but after 3 free searches you need to pay … and the initial search process requires you to register. This is an obstacle as nowadays, we expect immediate answers.