Ah, what a productive day. Late this morning, from the comfort of my bed I managed to spend a small fortune on airfare and train tickets to finalize my April holiday. Here are my plans:
After a week-long visit from my friend Jescy, who hails from the great state of Montana, here in Cote d'Azur we will fly to London on April 2 (a late flight so I can work my normal Friday schedule). I'll hang out with her in London until she leaves for the US on April 6, when I will take the train to Edinburgh to do some solo traveling for about 3 days. On the morning of April 9 I will fly to Berlin to visit a high school friend, Kate, for about 4 days. On the morning of April 14 I will fly to Barcelona to solo travel around Catalan.
Cool, huh? I have purchased all necessary travel for this trip except for my train ticket from Barcelona back to Nice because those tickets are not available for purchase this far in advance. Now all I have to do is book my hostels in Edinburgh and Barcelona, as I will be staying with friends for in London and Berlin.
It feels great to have finished my planning and purchased the necessary tickets so now I can focus on what I might like to do in each city, finding great hostels, and saving money for food, drink, sights and souvenirs. In preparation for this trip I have overhauled a few pages on my website. I completely remade my Europe page and my Italy map page plus I added a United Kingdom page to accommodate my visit to London and Edinburgh.
A few observations:
While Skyscanner is a great resource to find direct airfare between major cities, it is not always correct in its charting of airfares. For example, my flight from Nice to London was reported on Skyscanner to cost 22 euros but actually cost 32 euros. I chose to pay 34 euros for my flight because the times worked best with my schedule, but nevertheless the site is not perfect, but I would still recommend it to anyone trying to compare airfare prices.
RyanAir's advertised prices on their homepage only vaguely correspond to their actual prices after applying some very strange fees. For one thing, they charge you five pounds sterling for "web checkin," which is required when you buy tickets online anyway. EasyJet only charges you if you check in at the airport but not online. Also, you have to purchase your baggage allowance at the time of purchase, while EasyJet allows you to add your baggage fees online for the same discounted rate as long as you don't do it at the airport (then it's double the cost). My chief complaint is that RyanAir, which I believe is an Irish company, will price your flight in Euros if you choose "Ireland" as your country but will only sell tickets online in pounds sterling. I found this annoying because I earn money in euros, and so I wound up using my American money to pay for the ticket, thus causing me to pay a 3% currency exchange fee on my card. Boo.
Also, great train ticket prices can be found throughout the UK if purchased well in advance. I started by finding my ticket for 16.50 pounds sterling on East Coast Trains, the company that handles passenger trains on the east coast of the UK from London to Scotland. I was very pleased with the price and options to state my preference for a window seat, facing forward and with a table at my seat. However, upon trying to purchase my tickets I was unable to do so because the website wouldn't recognize my US or French postal code corresponding to my US and French bank cards, respectively. I emailed the company and they replied that I should "enter a full stop " in the postal code field for international addresses. I don't know what a "full stop" is or how to enter one, so I asked my Canadian counterpart to ask her English boyfriend if I had other options. He directed me to The Train Line, a website that sells tickets for all UK passenger rail carriers. I successfully purchased my ticket for the same date, times and preferences as before but for a few pounds more after fees, etc. In the end I was just happy to have my transportation figured out for this crazy trip I'm taking.
So I did finish my travel plans through mid-April, but I didn't leave the apartment and I waited until nearly 4pm to get dressed. Productive? I have no idea, but I'm starting to get really excited about the next three months!
A "full stop" in American speak is a "period". You could have googled this and found the answer in 5 seconds.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, if not a bit condescending and from an anonymous source (classy). Perhaps I should have added to this post that I didn't receive a reply from the train company right away and felt more comfortable purchasing all of my travel at once. For those of us who frequently travel point-to-point, nothing sucks more than having most of your transportation tickets purchased (and non-transferable) only to find later that tickets still needing to be purchased have 1) escalated a great deal in price or 2) are unavailable for the preferred date/time. Either option can lead to a tough couple of days, extra nights in a city you're done with, or spending the night at an airport/train station/etc.
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