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British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
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The
A-Z of travel www Since retiring four years ago I have travelled for a total of about 18 months; in the process I have found that the internet is invaluable as a tool, both to save money and find facts. I have not used a travel agent since 2005 when I had problems with a flight to East Timor; I was not on a flight that I had a confirmed ticket for; the agent in London, after expensive phone calls from Bali, left me to sort out the problem myself with a local travel agent. The only reason I can see for using a travel agent is to get extra service if things go wrong. I did not get it. For flights: the first stop is to find the cheapest flight. I use www.skyscanner.net and www.kayak.co.uk, both of whom scan airlines and most online flight providers for the best prices. Some low cost airlines are not included, however. Wikipedia is invaluable as there are entries for most main airports; amongst the information given is a list of the airlines that use the airport and which destinations they fly to. Helpful when making an itinerary, also for finding airlines not covered by the search engines. As an aside, if you have, between flights, an eight hour or longer stopover on the same airline and you are checking in straight through to your final destination, you are probably entitled to free accommodation and food, paid for by the airline. This is not advertised and can be a way to get a short trip into a city at an airline’s expense. Recently I had a 12 hour stopover in Bahrain with Gulf Air. They put me up in a good hotel, paid for two meals and my visa. Go to the transfer desk when you arrive at the hub airport to enquire. For hotels: www.hotelscombined.com is an accommodation search engine, you put in the dates and city you want accommodation in, then it searches through about 450 accommodation websites and displays the results. It is surprising how much the same room in the same hotel can vary between websites; from experience you can usually pay considerably less than booking direct with the hotel. Often www.agoda.co.uk comes up with the best price. I have used them many times; I have had to cancel or change my booking and always get a quick refund. For facts:
www.xe.com gives currency rates from almost every country in the world.
I find it always pays to get your local currency on arrival. To stock
up on US dollars and Euros, if you live in or near London go to Oxford
Street, the currency booths there give much better rates than the chain
bureau and don’t charge commission. The website http://kropla.com/electric2.htm
lists which sockets are used in almost every country - useful for taking
the correct adaptor(s). See website www.savacall.com for cheap rates if
you wish to phone from the UK to abroad. The calls go through an access
number. I have phoned Malaysia at 1p a minute at a time when a local call
would have cost 5p a minute. I find Wikipedia
and Wikitravel are also invaluable for finding facts (usually reliable)
and more up-to-date than guide books on things like transport costs and
options to and from airports, the main sites to see etc. First published in VISA 94 (Dec 2010) |