I was going to write about the wild differences in prices offered by the so-called online ‘cheap’ air travel booking agents. I’m going one step further.
I’ve an upcoming trip to Dublin and London 2nd to 5th July. As this involves multi-city it makes sense to shop around. First stop Kayak. A great comparison service that found the flights from cheaptickets.com at $355. Plus $26.95 for paper tickets that it may not be able to deliver. Wipe out. How about Lastminute.com? Forget it at £588 for flights that won’t get me in and out for the times I need. Opodo? Lucked out again. I know – Rumob.es – they’ve been Ok in the past. I was able to book the same flights offered via Kayak albeit at a premium of around £50. |’ll take that to avoid the hassle factor. So far so good.
Now to book a hotel. Paul Walsh said the Grafton Capital is a good choice but again, wild price variations are rampant among the online booking agencies with Lastminute.com taking the piss at full rack rate. I ended up booking with HotelsClick.com and saving a good 10% on the best price available elsewhere. Now London – no contest: Travel Lodge Docklands. £60/night, totally predictable, wifi access £12/day and a 2 minute walk from East India Docklands Light Railway station which is a comfortable if bleak 20 minute ride into the City. Then horror of horrors.
Five minutes after I complete the hotel booking, an email from Rumbo informs me there’s a problem on my flights and could I call them. There’s a problem all right. First flight gets me in via Gatwick adding 5 hours to a 3 hour flight. The leg out of Dublin to London won’t get me there until 10 hours after required landing meaning the entire day is borked. Cancelled.
Now what? I’ve prepaid for a hotel in Dublin I may not get to. Solution?
Book direct with Aer Lingus – for my original flight requirement to Dublin. RyanAir from Dublin to London Luton (and a cheaper ride into London than going via Gatwick.) EasyJet from Stansted to Malaga. The total flight cost is £25 cheaper than the original cheaptickets.com deal and every flight is ticketless. What the heck was Rumbo’s problem? Or that of cheaptickets.com? In the latter case I suspect it’s a ploy to extract more loot. In the former? This is Spain. They do things different.
I could have flown with RyanAir back to Malaga via Stansted but they are a bunch of rip off artists when it comes to anything other than the seat you’re booking. Everything from baggage to not having baggage. Do I care about priority seating for a 1 hour flight into London? No, but I still have to pay because I am NOT checking baggage at Dublin. The last time I flew with RyanAir, the priority seating line was longer than the regular line. Using your credit card (as if there’s a choice)? – that’s another ‘fee’ and so it goes. In this case, a very reasonable €0.49 ticket to London from Dublin now costs €29.23. Still cheap but you get my drift.
At least EasyJet, which has cottoned on to the extras scam, lets me check a bag without extra charge but invites me to pay £7.50 extra for priority seating. Nope. Not doing that – even for a 3 hour flight. I happen to know the seating arrangements on EasyJet flights are good enough such it doesn’t matter where I sit.
Stansted has become a joke of an airport. Anything and I mean ANYTHING, other than a single bag must be checked. That includes a ladies handbag and computer case. I’ve already figured the computer case won’t fit my otherwise hand baggage holdall so Easyjet’s offering pips RyanAir by £5.
If you’re thinking Howlett’s a cheapskate then you’d be right. Especially when you realise the cost of getting from one place to another plus trains and hotels is coming in around £400 for a 3 and a half day trip. And that’s before the £36 minimum I’ll end up paying for wifi. Or the cost of getting around London – kiss another £15 goodbye, even with an Oyster card.
My one hope is that I don’t end up in the same situation as Damien Mulley and his wandering baggage. He is so pissed off that he’s resorted to a potty mouth post that made even this hardened traveller wince. But I understand why. Damien’s attracted the attention of some legal eagles. But sometimes there are worse things than either I or Damien have endured. As Bernie Goldbach writes:
Shortly after leaving Shannon, passengers noticed “a tidal wave of sewage” spilling from under the toilet doors.
At least I’m not flying from Shannon, or on Continental. And thanks Euan for the Twitter tip about Bernie’s story. Let’s hope Curry 2.0 in Dublin is worth it.
Technorati Tags: Aer Lingus, Easyjet, Travel Lodge, Ryanair
