Wednesday, December 31, 2014

vacation 2015 - getting started

Hubby and I were trying to decide whether or not to vacation this year, considering all the other expenses we are about to have.

We figured, we should. What the heck, that's what we live for.

Brazil it is, but Should we travel to the Northeast (natal and its sand dunes, beaches, and the largest cashew tree in the world), or Southwest (Foz, and the waterfalls of iguassu and the largest hydroelectric plant in Brazil)?

I went on compare prices of flights.

HOW I DO MY FLIGHT SEARCH
I always try to keep my options open. My first try is always my closest airport. Then I move on to the next closest ones.

I let my dates flexible +-1 day so I can check a different flight in case the one we want leaves too early or arrives too late.

Kayak is a good overall search engine, but to go to Brazil, I also check BACC.


SEARCH RESULTS THIS YEAR.

Leaving from our closest airport this year is prohibitive. It's close to $1300 and we have a 12-hr layover in SP.

I moved on to the next option:

To Foz:  $1063
To Natal: $ 1130                      Foz wins with a difference of $67 a person.

Just for ha-has, I decided to try NYC. Whoa! Surprise, surprise:

NYC-Foz: $718
NYC-Natal: $ 802                           Foz wins again, this time with a difference of $84 a person.

However, this time both vacations just became so much more affordable!!!! Even with the cost of the ticket to get into NYC.





Monday, June 2, 2014

London-Paris be careful where you buy it!

So, I was required to quit  stalling and buy the darn london-paris train tickets.

So I got to work., instead of looking at my bookmarks for the correct Eurostar web address, I typed "london-paris" on Bing.com and got a number of sites. one for them was this one:

http://www.parislogue.com/travel-tips/getting-from-london-to-paris.html

Oh, cool, let me read about all the options to get to Paris.

Well, I did read, and it turns out that the train was the best one for us.
Then if you clicked on the link I gave you you probably noticed they offer a link for you to book your tickets.

What do you do? You click on the damn link. and it brings you here:

http://www.raileurope.com/european-trains/eurostar/how-to-book.html?WT.mc_id=CJ.eurostar+tickets.affiliates&AID=10410506&PID=1524307



Isn't this perfect? it even gives you a coupon for $25 (yes, US dolars) off.

Well, just that RailEurope is a retailer, and it sells tickets for way more than than Eurostar http://www.eurostar.com/rw-en

I used the coupon to buy mine and Dean's tickets. Then I tried using the coupon for buying tickets for the rest of the family. Not only did the coupon not work,, but I also learned there was a booking fee of almost $8.

This is absurd.

So I decided to start over and see if they waived the booking fee again. This time I simply typed Eurostar on Bing.

Surprise surprise! I was at a completely different website, and that was the real Eurostar website, which by the way allows you to choose your seats, and by the way, is cheaper!!!!!

Why did the author of Parislogue.com sent me to the more expensive retailer instead of sending me to the source? I don't know.
But that is a lesson. Don't settle for the first seller you find,even if reccomended by another website. Search around first. Especially, go to the source and check whether their prices and fees are lower than the middle men. (they usually are)