Travel
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How do you book international travel?
Hi Everyone,
I'm almost ready (feel like I've been in this status for months, lol) to book my summer travel to Italy and Germany, and I'm curious how you book your travel and what you find important and if you get any perks for booking. Do you book through a travel agent, a booking site that will refund if you have to cancel, directly through an airline, do you use a generic credit card that earns you miles, etc.
Let me know what you find to be the best way. I've done so much research in the last few weeks that I think I overwhelmed myself so I just want everyone's opinion on how you feel you get the most value for your big trips.
Re: How do you book international travel?
When we went to London and Paris in November I booked our airfare (with miles) directly through the airline. For hotels I researched on Trip Advisor and picked our hotels from there. For our train tickets I booked directly through Eurostar.
I like to piece together our own trips, it gives me more control over our itinerary :-)
For trans-oceanic flights, I search using kayak.com, because I like their site the best. I really like being able to narrow the results by layover time (nothing under an hour or over 8 hours), and I usually end up booking with whichever site is cheapest. If I'm flying multiple airlines (not uncommon since I don't fly from a major hub), that usually means Orbitz or Cheaptickets, occasionally Continental or Lufthansa, and very rarely Vayama. I do tend to stick to Star Alliance flights, because I have gold status, which nets me extra luggage, priority check-in and boarding, and lounge access. (For flights within Europe, I use skyscanner.net, because I'm willing to fly a low-cost carrier.)
The ability to change a ticket is usually dependent more on the ticket class than on the booking site, but I never plan to change my tickets anyway. My policy is not to book my flights until I've settled on the dates. If there's a chance that I'll have to change my flights, I might consider booking through the airline to avoid the extra change fees from Orbitz, etc. But honestly, I've never known at booking time that I would be changing my flights. Once I book my vacation days, they're set in stone, and I'm adamant that if the company asks me to reschedule, they have to cover the expenses of rebooking. (Sometimes they do it, and sometimes they decide that the "emergency" isn't really worth the cost.)
If I had an easy way to pay off a US credit card, I would probably book using that, because most of my cards offered additional travel insurance, especially for flights and car rentals. Plus I got card rewards like cash back. However, these days I just use my normal bank card.
When it comes to "getting value" for big trips, if it's a place I want to go, and I'm comfortable with the ticket and hotel prices, I figure I'm getting great value. To me, paying for travel is just like paying for any other hobby. It's like buying a big TV. If you find a great sale, that's awesome! But otherwise, as long as you're not paying more than you can afford, you're still going to enjoy it, so you're getting your money's worth. (I should probably point out that I don't own a TV, because I don't think I'd enjoy it enough to justify the cost!
)
We decided it wasn't worth getting a new credit card to earn miles or avoid foreign transaction fees. We called our current CC's to see which has the lowest transaction fee. Luckily that happens to be our card with the best rewards (Chase Freedom; percentage of purchases back); so we decided that'd be the primary card to charge and then pay back immediately after charge.
I used Yapta.com to track our flights for a while. With Yapta you book directly through the airline; but via Yapta, so that if your price drops X amount; you get money/credit back.
For our international flights I booked one directly through the airline (although I used kayak to determine which flight we wanted) and for the other one-way flight; I booked one through expedia and one through orbitz. Expedia had one ticket left $20 than all other sites and then I booked the 2nd through Orbitz incase, by chance, someone else books the flight at a cheaper rate and we'll get a rebate. This flight didn't allow for seat selection in advance; so I didn't care about booking the flights for H and I together.
For our train travel; we booked directly through the site (Thalys for AMS to Paris).
For lodging; we're doing apartments so those were booked via the procedure of the website we found them on and the apt owner.
Blog Sale
<a href="http://s582.photobucket.com/albums/ss262/hzswanson/?action=view
for our last 2 trips to italy (2 weeks ago-7nights and sept/oct 2010-19 nights) i planned out everything (hotels, flight times etc..) and then let my TA book it. fwiw i'd rather give the commission to someone i know and love rather than a faceless website. she can also get better prices than i can find online. and beleive me i look.
I like to do it myself because I have total control over everything.
I booked our flights through the actual airline site but I researched a variety of sites to find the cheapest price. I booked our flights throughout Europe through 2 sites based on the cheapest price. I researched our hotels through expedia, trip advisor, and easytobook.com but i ended up booking 2 hotels through expedia, 2 through the actual hotel site, and our 2 apartments through their respective sites.
Do your research and find the best way that works for you.
*Live, Love, Laugh, Learn*
Travel Adventures.
I book directly with the airlines and hotels.
The only exception is Virtuoso hotels and Four Seasons hotels, for those I book with an agent to get the upgrade/free breakfast/spa credit.
So Tasty, So Yummy
I usually book everything myself. I book my flights through the airline's website (after first doing research on Expedia, Travelocity and/or Kayak to see which has the best rate), and the hotels through the hotel websites (usually after looking at TripAdvisor for reviews and ratings, plus locations I want). For our honeymoon, we used a travel agent (except for our int'l flights, since I was using airline miles for free flights). I'm okay either way - for one country, it's easiest enough to do everything myself. For multi-country or multi-city travel, sometimes a travel agent is easier - if I had a great one I liked, I'd probably use a travel agent more often.