Travel this summer
Oh man… I’ve been working in Travel a long time and I have never seen a summer like this summer. An industry term that any Travel Pro with a strong air background fears is “IROPS” which is short for “Irregular Operations”. This is the realm of delays and cancellations within 24 hours of departure . When it happens to me or my clients, I refer to it as “Airport Hell”. Because even though it’s more like limbo, it sure feels like hell to me.
I just got back from a big multi-generational trip for my family to Aruba. You can see the blog here. Family Members flew in from California, Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin. We only all made it for two reasons as nearly every flight, for everyone, was delayed. The first reason is I took my own advice and scheduled an overnight on the East Coast in the connection city for those of us coming from the Western United States. West of Chicago, flight times to/from the Caribbean tend to suck and without that “safety” stop, we would’ve missed the flight to Aruba and lost at least one day. The other reason is that we got lucky in that every connecting flight was also delayed. So, we all made it home too. I’m so glad, because the help lines at MIA and CLT for accommodation for missed flights were INCREDIBLE! I even made this cute little video on Instagram and Facebook showing a few moments of my own trial of getting to Aruba.
If you’ve been reading the news this isn’t new, but this part doesn’t get into the news.
People are having a great time. I have never gotten so many great stories of how fantastic a trip was. If you read the Aruba Blog, you’ll see a bit of how mine went. It was amazing.
Every travel agent reposted this. I did above on Facebook and Instagram but had to whittle it down for character count, here is the whole thing.
I saw this posted by one of my travel agency co-workers, wanted to share:
For any of my friends that are planning on traveling by air this summer this is a really good read, it’s a long post but definitely worth reading. 
Reposted from a flight attendant on another page. Good advice for those who have to fly.
Just some good advice for those who plan to travel this summer:
Flying this summer is ROUGH!!! I feel like as a Flight Attendant I should attempt to share some tips to get you through airline travel for the foreseeable future.
1. Things are not good..... if its less than 7 hours - DRIVE! I'm not kidding. There is nothing enjoyable about flying right now. On any airline. If you must fly, keep reading.
2. Download and use the app of the airline you are flying. You can do everything on it - get your boarding pass, track your bags, see your incoming plane, and change a flight. It sure beats waiting in the long line to talk to an agent! Trust me - Usually these apps will tell you a flight is cancelled before the crew even knows!
3. Fly MUCH earlier than you need to - a whole day early if its important!! This week I saw many people miss important things like weddings, funerals, cruises, international connections, and graduations. The tears were very real, for very real reasons, and there was nothing I could do! If you have to be somewhere, spend the extra money, go a day early. Have a glass of wine and stay in a hotel, enjoy your night not being stressed while everyone else misses their events.
4. ALWAYS fly the first flight in the morning so you have all day to be rebooked if the shit hits the fan. Yes, that means it might be a 3:00 alarm, but morning flights don't cancel nearly as often.
5. This is not unique to this year, but keep in mind summer is thunderstorm season. A single storm can shut down a whole airport. We can't fly through them. Storms usually build as the day gets later. Book early flights!
6. Schedule long layovers - Your 1 hour layover is NOT enough anymore. 30 minutes, not a chance. 3 hours minimum.
7. What you see on the news is an understatement. We are short staffed and overworked. Not just pilots and flight attendants, but also ground crews. Without ground crews there is no one to park the planes, drive jetways, get your bags on/off planes, or scan boarding passes. This causes many delays that snowball throughout the day. Sometimes HOURS.(Another reason morning flights are best!)
8. When flight crews get delayed we time out. We can NOT fly longer than 16 hours. Its illegal. So it doesn't matter if you have a wedding to get to, when we are done we are done. The way things are now, there are no back up crews, so when this happens your flight cancels. (Now you are starting to see why those morning flights are best!)
9. Avoid connecting in Newark. It is literal hell. You have a 50/50 chance your flight will cancel or missing your connection. They have been cancelling flights at their starting points just to keep the planes out of Newark because there just aren't enough people to manage the planes, so the gates stay full. Also the restaurants are expensive, it is not a great place to be stuck.
10. Be nice. As stated above, we are overworked and tired. We will not help you if you are mean. No one cares that you are going to miss your cruise if you are an asshole. So even if we can help, we will save our help for someone nice. Tensions are high. Our patience is gone. If you make us mad - you will not be flying on our planes. We will leave you behind without a second thought, and laugh about you later.
11. Being drunk on an airplane is a federal offense, so don't overdo it. If you drink too much at the bar waiting for your delayed flight you risk not being allowed to fly at all. We are too tired to deal with your drunk ass when we have legitimate issues to deal with.
12. Get trip insurance if you have a lot of money invested. I hate the whole idea of this, but I also hate the idea of losing money. Example: I was working a flight yesterday that waited over an hour for a gate. A family of 8 missed their flight to Rome. The only flight of the day. They were going to a cruise which they would now miss. They were all crying, there was nothing I could do. (Also a reason to fly a day early!)
13. Flights are FULL. If you buy the cheap seats you will not be able to sit with your family. It says so when you purchase your ticket!! Flight Attendants aren't there to rearrange the whole plane just so you can sit with your family because you tried to save $100 on a third party website.
14. Speaking of third party websites and saving money..... Like I said flights are FULL. If a flight is oversold, and no one volunteers to give up their seats, who do you think is the first to be bumped? You guessed it, the family that saved a few $$ by using sites like Expedia, Kayak, Hotwire etc.
15. Pack smart. Don't be "That guy" Don't hold up boarding because you have your extenders open till they are busting and you can't figure out how to make it fit in the overhead. (Passengers are stressed too, they can be aggressive when boarding a delayed flight)
16. Take showers, brush your teeth, leave the perfume off, don't eat stinky food (caesar salad and tuna fish I'm talking to you!), and bring headphones. Trust me. These things sound basic, but add to stress on crowded planes. If you are stuck on the tarmac for 3 hours after a 4 hour flight, you will thank me for this.
17. Bring a sweater if you tend to be cold. So tired of half naked girls asking me to turn the heat up. NO. Wear clothes!! Side note: If you dress like this and ask for heat, there's a chance I will turn the AC up.
18. Thats not water on the bathroom floor. For the love of God wear shoes to the bathroom!!!
19. Don't tell a Flight Attendant they look tired. We are and we know. You may cause us to ugly cry right there in galley.
20. Happy Travels!
Aurora Expeditions
I got so excited about extreme Aurora Expeditions when I found out about them a couple of months. I met the representative at a big event a while back and they just blew me away. I could say why, but it’s in the Videos.
For Expedition Ships, “X-bows” have been becoming common. I first noticed it with Linblad and a client who had done the drake passage once already on her own did it again with her grandkids and raved about how it made that rough water better. Aurora Expeditions pioneered the use of these ships.
Video 1 Xbows.
Video 2 What matters most with expedition cruises (Especially to the arctic and Antarctic.
Video 3 A Company you can feel good about booking.
Every once in a while I find a travel.. “Something”… that I don’t know about that I should. It could be a destination, a tour company, a cruise option, a train..or whatever. It doesn’t happen that much and I realize that sounds arrogant. Maybe it is, but the fact of the matter is that I not only love Travel, but I spend almost all of my time ‘in it’ and I’ve got a freakish recall for it. So much so that a colleague from my host company, the Travel Society, said to me “Oh my god, you really do know everything!” when we met a couple of months ago. I was flattered, but even among other pros, I stand out with what I know, I know a lot.
However, after spending some time with Aurora Expeditions that agent walked by I yelled “I didn’t know about these guys at all!” She totally did, so just goes to show you, even though it can seem like I know everything, I don’t. Also, in the Travel Business, things you know can be dangerous because really, it’s things you knew, the world changes all the time. That’s why the only really valuable thing I ever know is where to look to verify how things are currently.
A note on Video Production.
Video production is not my job.
Video production is not my job. This is a hobby for me and frankly, it’s not even advertising. I don’t really need advertising. I’ve got a good book of clients and a lot of those clients make good referrals. So, these are things I do for fun and because I’ve always wanted to and my old company never let me do it for them. Actually, when my old company had to make some hard choices, this was one of the reasons I wanted to go. I loved that company and it was pretty good (great for corporate travel) but when I was hired from travel blogging I as supposed to do Social Media. It never worked out. Frankly, because they focus on business travel, having me do social media for them wouldn’t have made sense. Still, I always wanted to and thought I could, now I can and I do.
These videos start out on Instagram just because Instagram makes captions really easy, that’s also why they are formatted the exact opposite way they should be for Youtube. Another Downside of Instagram captions is that, though easy, they also tend to misspell things and while you can correct them, they have this annoying habit of going back to their original misspellings. It’s annoying.
I’ve been finding video production on social media more fun than blog writing lately. Social media videos are new and shiny to me and I love new and shiny. I was a social media blogger way back in 2008-2011 for the now mostly defunct Brillianttrips.com. That website was formed by a friend of mine from the heyday of STA travel. That gentleman, by the way, is now the marketing and technology director for one of the top five asset management companies in the world. I won’t say which one, but it’s ranked higher than Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan to narrow it down a bit.
If you like them, great, if you don’t. That’s fine, I love constructive criticism, but this is a side hobby. I have a low threshold for boredom and making these videos has gotten quick and easy. I imagine someday, I may even get good at them.
Aruba!
So I just got back from my third Caribbean Island in six months to Hurricane-free Aruba.
One of the reasons I changed my business model is so I wouldn’t have to do what a lot of travel agents do. A lot of agents either bad mouth AirBNB, VRBO and the like or… pretend they do not exist.
Do I love fine Hotels? YES! I really do for a list of reasons and it’s how I prefer to travel for the most part. However, there are circumstances where a Vacation rental is a better option and here are some.
A large family traveling that wants to spend time together. The larger the family the harder it is to find hotel options where the entire family can spend downtime together privately. A big house, with a big dinner table and a big living room is much easier to do with a vacation home.
When it comes to fine hotels, some places don’t have them or just don’t have very many of them. In Travel (as in all real estate) Location is KING. Taking the lovely port town of Rijeka, if you want a really nice place to stay in the old Korzo, it’s apartment, otherwise there is a very nice resort 15 minutes outside of town. Iceland? Outside of Reyjavik, nearly every really nice place is a vacation rental.. The list goes on and on. Some destinations skew so heavily the other way around that the hotels compete heavy and the value is insanely good and that makes sense. Aruba Isn’t one of those places. I love the Ritz, Hyatt Regency and the Bucuti, but none of those hotels are hotels I’d travel to just to stay at, they are just the best places on Aruba.
Sometimes you don’t want to be with the other tourists and want to be around locals. So, you obviously can’t do this anywhere. There are places in the world that if you forget your privileged status as an international tourist, you’ll likely get robbed and that’s a best case scenario. However, some places, staying with the locals is nice and refreshing and Aruba is one.
So my Mother In Law came to me about this trip and we wanted to do a Dive trip. I originally wanted to push in Indonesia, but my Brother in Law had a week maximum and with just a week in North America, we have to stay close. Some family members had budgets to hit and the primary focus of this trip, for her, was scuba diving. My first job in Travel was in a company that did a TON of Caribbean and I didn’t go back to the Caribbean in over 20 years and now, Aruba is my third island in 6 months. I also hadn’t been diving in a long time and so. I decided to get recertified. The Scuba diving went pretty darn well.
Weather-wise, for a weather snob like me. June is starting to push it for the Caribbean and Mexico. By July, we have a mounting hurricane risk that doesn’t go away until November (we used to say August-September, thanks global warming) However, even aside from that, it just starts getting hotter and wetter than I’d like.
BUT, as many of you probably know, Aruba is out of the Hurricane belt and even tropical storms are rare. It’s a desert island and this is part of why it’s only forests consist of cacti, this is also why it and the other ABC island (with Bonaire and Curacao) have a longer tourist season than most of the Caribbean. Also, rivers, streams and the like are terrible for diving visibility, so while there are better places for diving than the ABC’s, it’s pretty darn good.
We ended up staying down in Savaneta so close to one of the best reefs on the island that I could’ve thrown a ball from our front yard into the water. Friends, it doesn’t matter how much money you spend on Eagle Beach, you can’t get that close to the water despite how popular it is. We also found where the locals ate.
One of the most amazing things that happened is that my daughter fell in love with a SWEET stray cat and her nana (my wife’s mother) decided to adopt her. My MIL asked me if it was “crazy?” and my first thought was “Yes, probably.” Because in my experience, bringing in an animal from overseas, especially without a lot of preparation…. Usually doesn’t work… at best. However, like I’m always saying, “In travel, never assume anything.” I checked it out, due diligence and I am always ready to be surprised.
And I was!
It turns out bringing a pet back from rabies-free Aruba with US customs being cleared right there at the airport is much easier than I thought and now Mittens has a home in Wisconsin.
I likely will be posting about Aruba for some time, but mostly via Instagram and some via Facebook. Some more things may find their way to a blog or a newsletter. A lot of the content there is more personalized and will even cover nights out locally and family camping trips.
Singita How I love thee~
There is a travel company in Africa I love so much. I can’t lend words to it. We could call it a chain of “African Game Lodges” or a “Safari Company”. That wouldn’t be accurate, it’s a Conservation Company that operates some of the very best Game Lodges in the world and gives some of the best safari experiences known. I'm talking about Singita.
I was originally going to do 4 videos. However the last, would’ve been on my amazing experience where my Guide and Tracker got me within literal spitting distance male lions taking down a Cape Buffalo on a sunny, Sunday morning. This not only was perhaps the most thrilling travel experience of my life (and I’ve been blessed) it also dispelled 3 myths about lions that 1. Male Lions do not hunt. 2 Lions do not hunt during the day and 3 Lions do not hunt Cape Buffalo. Yes, of course I have lots of video and photos of this, but it’s too graphic for wide audiences so I decided not to. If there is a huge outcry I will.
AIRBNB for Ukraine
One of the reasons I changed my model to one that allows me, for some, to only advise is because of Airbnb and VRBO. These platforms don’t want middle men (cough) like me involved. However, sometimes, in some places for some people, the are truly the best option and if the right thing to do is to book an AirBNB. I’m going to say. I can’t help with the booking process, but I do help people find the right ones from time to time.
We are seeing in articles like this one, this one, and this one about helping Ukrainian individuals by booking their airbnb.
Advising fees are waived for anybody wanting to book an Airbnb in the Uktraine. I can’t book it for you, but if you let me know how much you’d like to spend, I’ll find you an option and send it to you.
Travel Insurance will not help with War
Travel Insurance does not help with war
So, somewhere, an unethical travel professional may read this and be mad at me.
But the Truth is the Truth.
On every policy I have ever seen, Acts of War are big, fat Exclusions on travel insurance.
Which means if you try to get money back for cancelling a vacation due to War, then too bad.
Here are examples from three policies from three large carriers.
I wish I could say that you could book with confidence right now with a Travel Insurance back up, but you cannot.
You can, often, still work he established rates to be refundable or even better, on guarantees with no penalty until closer to departure.
Some people don’t know, but ‘classically’ this is how hotels have been run for the most part for a long time. Online Travel Agencies, Tour Companies and Package Companies have made prepaypment seem almost normal with leisure travel, but it isn’t. What is normal is that a valid credit card is put down to lock the room in. The room can be cancelled with no penalty so long as it’s outside of a certain amount of time (often 24 hours, but read the fine pring").
But insurance? Not for this Ukraine thing. This comes just as Travel Insurance was starting to work for Covid19 reasons ( to some extent).
Watching the hopeful end of the Pandemic 3
There is so much good news here I stopped recording it. And I’m too upset about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to make a big deal of it, but. Here are some good things about covid at least.
Watching the Hopeful End of the Pandemic
I have some more news articles I’ve snipped. I also have narrowed down since Mid January when the first of the restrictions started to lift.
***-Added one day after blog creation on 23 Feb.***
EU recommends lowering restrictions to member states.
This one goes the other way. We should watch Puerto Rico and Hawaii. If rates do start to go up, will they stay down in this US territory and State?
Japan lightens restrictions (a little)
Austria is easing restrictions.
Aruba, Sint Maarten, Saba, Puerto Rico and Bermuda all ease restrictions. This is a podcast.
Jordan lifts pre-testing restrictions, Like Israel, maybe even for Unvaccinated travelers?!?!
Lithuania is changing, Maybe for US travelers too? I’m getting competing info on this.
Driving in Iceland with Elfis
I’ve been running loose destination guides in Iceland. I asked my followers what they wanted to see next and it was… Iceland.
Iceland is great to drive and hard to deal with in any other way. It does have quite a bit of special considerations. Among those is insurance on cars which is more complicated than other places. Volcano coverage and other special coverages are a thing in Iceland.
But just for Safety, I couldn’t do a better job than Elfis the Elf here.
Tracking the end of the Pandemic 2
What do the numbers say?
The Numbers
In the past few days, I haven’t seen much in any more countries jumping onto the loosening of Covid Restrictions. Now that some countries have opened up for nearly a month. A look at the data seems to be warranted.
At First glance, just looking at case counts, things do not look good. (keep looking it gets better).
If you look at my previous blog, many of the countries featured in those articles are featured in these metrics from ourworldindata.com . In much the same way I state that I am not a health care professional niether am I a statistician or other expert in looking at numbers. However, I do love data. The data is looking good.
Case Counts are up, but mostly still going down. Omicron spikes are really something, aren’t they. It’s not just the way they spike up, but also how they come crashing down.
But hospital patients do not appear to be increasing with the lightening of restrictions.
Hospital Admissions are also mostly going down also. Hopefully Denmark will keep going down
I think this is becoming the most important metric. ICU Numbers, restriction changes does not seem to be a factor.
And the death data… Also shrinking.
Tracking if the Pandemic is ending
Tracking news to see if the Pandemic is ending/ changing, at least as far as travel is concerned.
Here is more news with what I’ve been talking about. It’s turning on. These are news articles I’m collecting about the shifting tide away from covid restrictions
Somebody is going to say “Why is this so expensive.” And I will say, “I’ve been seeing this coming for a long time, here are my blogs about it.”
Is that mean? I guess we will see.
Hey folks, also, if you see any news of restrictions going back. Please let me know.
Portugal and Greece relaxing restrictions
Lots in this article, but for 4, I am also seeing airfares start to jump.
The UK, with its easing of restrictions iis seeing a vacation (holiday) rush.
Added 9 Feb:
Scandinavia is unifying with lifting restrictions.
Greece Is dropping negative covid testing for travelers with a European Vaccination certificate. (I *think usa paper certs are ok.)
Parts of this article is covered (Scandinavia and France)
Canadian airlines are pushing for it.
Added Feb 10th
The Calgary Travel Lady showed a little more insight into UK restrictions lifting. I agree with her about Cornwall too. She also mentioned what she thinks the Canadian ‘temperature’ is about lifting their own restrictions. Like me, the travel lady wants to see things lift, let’s keep an eye out also for retightening of restrictions, eh?
This article mentions Morocco.
Great Article about domestic restrictions falling in the USA
USA talks about the Caribbean here.
And something on the otherside, sorta. A number of state are lifting restrictions, but the CDC is still advocating caution. Two thirds of the countries on earth are still ‘very high’ covid risk.
I’m also looking for news showing a prolonging of Travel Restrictions, like this one from Uncle Sam and the CDC.
Added Feb 11th
On the bad news side, Japan is doubling down and has made restrictions TIGHTER!
On the good. Ireland, Israel and El Salvador (and 5 others otherwise mentioned) have dropped restrictions.
Return to Oz
I am keeping my ear to the ground for Travel Restrictions to certain places and one of those places is Australia. (Some of us call it “Oz” for short) . Last month, Australia did an utter about face on it’s previously strict covid restrictions within country, with the new policy being called “Let it Rip”
This is the first article I’ve seen announcing the allowing of foreign travel restrictions to Australia. I’m having a busy morning so I am yet to corroborate this information. Since changing it’s policy Australia has experienced its most pronounced, by far, explosion in new cases and death. Yet, like with other Omicron surges worldwide, levels are dropping.
A great article on business class travel
This article,is an article that I have considered writing many times and it’s done better than I probably could. Simpleflying.com is a great website for air travel nerds (and a huge potential timesuck) and they clearly have some ‘ins’ which shows up in the research in this article. As great as this article is, it has an intrinsic flaw, it’s out of date. At only 6 months old one of the airlines mentioned here is now gone (with details on its successor still forming) the article is also inaccurate at the features of two of the airlines mentioned.
The Travel Industry reflects the world, and as such, it is always changing.
I sometimes get the feeling when I’m helping people with their first/business/premium class purchases that I’m beleaguering a point. It may be a very fancy seat on an airplane, but at the end of the day, it’s just a seat on an aircraft, right?
No. The fact of the matter is that it’s possible to spend more for some of those seats on some of those trips than one might pay for a used car. When people are spending that kind of money, I want to do my best to make sure they understand what they will likely get. Likely, because the airline industry moves fast. If an airline has a broken aircraft on a day with lots of sold seats and they have a choice between sending an inferior aircraft or sending nothing they will do what they have.
Things are always worth a simple double check.
Predicting if the Pandemic stage will begin to end soon
I made a prediction in my last newsletter that the US Case Count would be Begin to rapidly drop in 4-6 weeks and. I was right. You never know what really will happen with this wily virus, but I’m goong to make another prediction.
It is my personal opinion that the next 4-6 weeks will be very telling for the fate of travel in 2022. Right now we are seeing several countries cutting back in country covid restrictions and even some, a few, Travel restrictions. Some of the countries that are turning about are some of the countries that hit covid restrictions with the most vigor.
Israel and the UK, Scandinavia and other countries including Australia. If you’ve been keeping an Eye on the land down under that last one is very surprising. Now, I’m not here to promote or condemn the loosening of restrictions. I find myself simultaneously worried and so sick of restrictions myself I feel nearly ready to let it rip myself. If I had a child under 5 I’d be less cavalier, my daughter is 7 and as vaccinated as a marine on day one of boot camp. OORAH, MADDIE, OORAH!
Anyway, while I’ve been watching Case Counts for literally years now I think it’s time to move to watch (this is cheery) Hospitalizations and Deaths. If those stay fare enough Pandemic peak levels, then I think we will start to see the travel restrictions come off.
And then my friends. The Travel Game is on and OMG. The prices are looking rough. Some countries are betting on it. I pulled higher prices in Paris for this summer than I’ve ever seen before.
I’m still a proponent of getting options that are flexible early, but if you are hoping to travel in 2023. Keep your ear to the ground. Tracking flights with Google is great. I’m going to take a little while soon to look for an article on strategies on this. I have a few small things I do like isolating certain routes and nonstop flights and focusing on key travel days. I may write one, but I bet somebody has. If you see one, send it my way please.
I loved this podcast
I don’t want to sound like I’m a podcast reviewer. I do love podcasts and audiobooks. Anything that lets me learn when I’m exercising or driving is muy bueno. I’m the kind of person that if I’m not learning something, i’m at least somewhat uncomfortable.
So, I found this podcast and I WAS SO TICKLED!
I’m going to keep listening, this Jackie seems like a true lover of travel and somebody after my own heart and she has been doing something that Americans eschew… Group Travel.
I’m not going to say tour, you don’t even say “tour” in the travel business, it has a bad connotation to Americans. There are so MANY reasons to go on the right group travel experience (AKA tour). They are easy, they are fun and they are a tremendous value… again, so long as you pick the right one, that’s the only hard and most important part. This Jackie, by taking her audience, has a good thing going.
So, what I loved most about this particular podcast is that it showed something that I’ve tried to convince so many people of and I’ve seen proven over and over again. People make friends when they travel. Traveling with somebody is a powerful bonding experience. I’ve seen a few clients make friends in other countries (i tend to advocate tours with a multi-national pull) that they have kept their whole lives. If you listen to this podcast, you can hear that these people BONDED. They sound like old friends, but their aren’t, but you walk a mile with a person, you learn alot about them.
It also touches on the value. They talk about croatia. Croatia from the water… Well, it’s the only way to really do it, IMO. You can rent your own boat and do what these folks did, but they… split the price twenty ways. THey also got all of the brain drain taken out of it. I love planing my own travel (of course) but it’s something of a stress festival, Find this car rental depot, be at this hotel by this time, etc etc. A good group tour. You just have to show up and all of that is done for you.
It was so refreshing to hear a bunch of young people get turned on to group travel.
And I keep saying americans. It’s true, in my experience, most other nationalities love tours. It’s really easy to be the only american with a lot of group travel companies and I love that.
The Big Back Up
This is probably the most drastic pandemic travel plan I have helped with. The Back up.
Simply put, you book two possible trips, taking pains to make each one refundable or, even better, with arrangements that you pay for there such as on check out.
This is my latest example.
Imagine this. Let’s say you’ve only got one 2 week period in April all year in which to travel? You partially want to go to Kyoto, but you also have a dream trip to Madeira you’d like to take.
With the Pandemic, there are decent chances either place could get shut down for travel restrictions.
What to do?
In this case, There were two issues. One is that for Madeira, My client wants to stay in the Reid’s Palace. He wants the best and that hotel has to be cancelled at least one week prior to stay to hold a reservation and cancel it without having to pay any $$. In the case of Japan, the Ritz Carlton, you have to fly first to the west coast, because that’s what you have to do for refundable tickets. (Tickets to Asia get much more competitive in many ways where the Asian Carriers can compete)
He is set to leave April 9th, on March 30th, we have a meeting and on that date. We will cancel and refund in full the option he does not take. Also, hopefully, right before he leaves he’ll get about $5-7K added back onto his credit card from the refunded plan tickets (he flies business class)
The Pandemic Extreme Back Up plan is possible for economy travelers too. Refundable tickets are much cheaper and easier to get than ever. I’m never a fan of nonrefundable specials under the best of circumstances and for pandemic travel, no way.
Also, I keep having people say “I will get insurance.” Folks, for Travel Insurance, Covid is a big, fat exclusion. It’s not covered. Even when you get a CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) policy, you still can’t say Covid. You have say “bad hair day” or “I suddenly find I don’t like Mexican food”
But, what you can do, for this, is just book trips leveraging items like credit card guarantees and fully refundability. You can’t find this in every case, but in many of them you can.
This is to the point that I have some clients planning two trips at the same time. It is seeming smarter all the time.
How Airfare is priced, at least in one case.
I just had a client book a trip for 8 couples and one of the couples had a slightly lower cost.
Of course, he asked why, and I had to say that the fare classes weren’t available for the rest of the group. What does that mean?
I will explain.
Airline pricing is exceedingly complicated and airlines also vary up their pricing structures with various strategies to get ahead. Since his flights were with JetBlue, which tends to price by individual leg, I thought it would be a good example for this post. Jetblue also operates a single cabin (no business, first or premium economy) which makes this also a little easier.
Here, we see flights as I see them. I’ve asked for flights on JetBlue (B6) from Salt Lake City (SLC) Via New York City (JFK) to Nassau, Bahamas (NAS)
All of those letters on the aircraft are “fare classes” So when a travel pro says “fare class” in respect to flight availability, they aren’t talking about a better seat, they are talking about the components that determine price. Now, sometimes, an airline would need to have the same fare class all the way from the origination to the destination, in this case, from SLC to Nassau, or it could be, like Jet Blue, where each leg can be priced separately and combined with the others.
Here we have the flights back. That is Nassau to JFK via Orlando.
And here we have how these price for two.
And how do we get the fares.? Well, you have to look at what we call “fare ladders” and here are two, SLC to JFK on the 1st of february and JFK to Nassau on the send
In the case of Jet Blue, they assemble tickets based on the cost of each flight. On the NYC to Nassau flight alone, Jetblue has over 250 fares or ‘prices’ possible for that flight alone on the 2nd of February, yes, the specific date matters too. (keep reading below) Each of those codes is called a “fare basis code”. That is the code the fare is based off of.
The below is what we call a “Fare Calculation” and if you look at these enough, they read like sentences. This one reads.
From Salt Lake City on Jetblue to New York, the fare is 160.93 with code OI4QBEY5. From New York on Jet Blue to Nassau the fare is 75.00 with code PL4AUEY5. Returning via Orlando the fare is $100 with fare basis UI4AUEY5. From Orlando to Salt Lake City the fare is 261.40 with fare basis RH7AUEY5. The total fare is $597.33 and with the accompanying taxes (each two letter code is a different tax) for a total fare of $771.77 per person.
So, here is one example of how plane tickets are priced. I’ve been considering doing a post like this for some time, but I wanted to wait until I got asked the question again “why is this price the way it is?” I have to thank the client that asked me this time. So often I have to waive my hand and be a little mysterious. It’s not that I don’t know or I think that you can’t understand, it’s just that it’s so complicated, I’d literally have to teach a class to have people understand it industry wide. Even just one example, with one airline, on one route, took a whole blog post.
Keep flying. This is high on the list of reasons why if you are serious traveller, you also have a serious travel professional working for you. To answer my client’s question on why one couple has a slightly different price is simple, slightly different fares were available. He also should know that these flights are BOOKING and moving a lot. I could’ve tried to have cancelled the first six to get the lower price and I did look at it, but by the time I did. One of the flights had booked out and the price would’ve gone up for the remaining six, even if I would’ve broken them into twos.
I originally titled this post “air fares demystified’, but somehow even after explaining it, that doesn’t seem appropriate.
To my client that asked, I hope it helps.