SUNSITE

As I have worked for several Internet Travel Agecies in the past people often ask me where to look for the best fares and flights on the internet. Now that I am going through the process yet again my self I will share my insights with those who may be interested.

Considerations
First let me say that there is no single place where you can get all the information you are after. There are several layers of things you need to consider; airlines, season, departure locale, specialist agents and special offers. Usually people are hunting for the best price. Now, there are only four major flights reservation systems in the world: SABRE, Amadeus, Galileo and Worldspan. All internet travel agents search for flights and availability on some of, or all of these engines, except for some low cost airlines who only search their own database. Some Airlines even host their own booking websites on the reservation systems website, such as IcelandAir who use Amadeus. Most internet booking websites will therefore be quoting you the same fares but with small variations in price due to varying fees taken by the booking agent. However, an agent may have access to fares that have been sold out elsewhere so sometimes you can find that excellent fare you missed on blabla.com on blabla2.com. This is where price comparison websites come in handy. Those sites often search other websites for you and put the results in a simple format for you to compare. Here are a few such sites:

• TNT Magazine, http://www.tntmagazine.com/travelzone/ – Excellent for long-haul
• Momondo, http://www.momondo.com/en/ – Great european engine

Another breed of flights websites will show you all possible flights (that they know of) between A and B. These are very usefull to find if there are any flights at a certain time and what airlines fly a certain route:

• Dohop, http://www.dohop.com – Excellent on european flights

Yet another type of internet flights engines will give you an overview of specials on offer. This will also give you an idea of the dates when seasons change from low to high:

• Cheap Flights, http://www.cheapflights.co.uk/ – Almost like a classifieds section for flights

Having said all this, how do you find the best fare to where you want to go?

1. Know your market. Who is flying there? What websites have a special focus on this route?
2. Look for specials. The airlines often have special fares outside the most busy season.
3. Try unconventional fare types, such as a “Round the world” ticket for long haul flights.
4. Use the comparison engines to find the lowest fares.
5. Visit the website of major airlines and all low cost airlines that fly this route and do a search there.

A few good engines
The list of booking engines on the internet is constantly growing and trying to search them all will drive you mad. Try these simple steps and see if you can improve your results. Lastly here is a list of a few good booking engines:

• Travelmood – Excellent specialists on long-haul flights such as Australia or China
• Expedia – Specialists in North American flights but also do European flights
• SkyLow – European Low-cost airlines search engine

In addition feel free to browse my personal flights bookmarks on Delicious: http://del.icio.us/valberg/flights

The tribulations
The greatest problem with internet bookings is reliability. You may have your booking or reference number but once you get to the airport or hotel there is no guarantee that your reservation or booking has actually gone through to the right place. I can tell you a million stories of this happening. Usually the service provider will be helpfull and sort out the situation but when bookings are tight you will ultimately bear the grunt of the problem. Here are a few tips for you to avoid this situation:

• Make sure your credit card really got charged. Most booking engines will confirm your booking pending that your payment came through. Even if you have the money in your account the travel agent will still fail to retrieve the money and consequently cancel your booking. Worst case scenario your money will be forzen untill the bank releases it due to non-withdrawal by the agent. I recently had this happen with ebookers.com and had really bad service to sort it out.
• Check the website of the airline you are flying with, look up your booking just before you go to make sure it is still valid. Usually you can key in the 6 letter reference number (PNR) and they will bring up your booking.
• Make sure you check the mailbox of the email you gave. Any failure is usually reported to the email address you gave.
• In the case of a Hotel booking it may be worth it to call up the hotel before you go to make sure you reservation came through to them. Even ask for a reference number from the hotel it self. Hotel booking channels are more complicated and less standardized than flights bookings so the chance of failure is greater. Your booking number may be from a completely different system than the one the hotel clerk is looking at. Getting stranded in Hong Kong without accomodation on the Chineese new year due to system discrepencies can be no joke, yet this once happened to me.

When you choose a booking engine give some consideration to the customer service they provide. If they have no phone number to call then you should question wether they are really worth it and always give preference to a provider with a real agent rather than a Call center in India or something. ebookers.com only have a callcenter but Travelmood have an agent. A real agent can help you sort out your problems where as callcenters are more for providing information.

As the most intresting aspect of my trip to Copenhagen was without a doubt the fact that I brought my bike with me as a form of transport I think I will write up a sumary of my experience for anyone interested in attempting a similar endevour. Noone was really sure this would be allowed but encouraged by a story from a friend who said he had seen some tourists do this before I decided to give it a go. The plan was to just leave the bike at the busstop or airport if they refused to board the bike. I took no luggage with me, just a sholderbag with all my stuff so there was nothing going in with the bike and nothing extra to carry once I got there. I guess you could take a backpack with you or special bags that go on the bike but a suitcase or any other type of luggae, even a plastic bag would make this type of travel impossible. I also took a GPS navigator with coordinates installed for all the locations I would have to visit. This was in fact a most genius idea as I never had to hover over a map or anguish over what direction to go in to get to my destination. It made the ride much more relaxing than normally in a foreign city. And now for an overview of the process:

I cycled from home to the bus stop and got the driver to load the bike with the other luggage. It was surprising that they dont have a rack on the back of the bus to accomodate the bike like many busses do. The driver was surprised but happily loaded the bike. Later I found out that not only are you meant to pay 50% extra for your ticket when you have a bike but also that not all the busses will accomodate a bike, especially when the busses are full.

Once at the airport I took the bike in with me and felt a little silly carrying a bike when everyone else was all dressed up, carrying typical trolleybags, full of the typical I-am-going-abroad stressed self importance that Icelanders do when going into a flight terminal and giving me that “is that really allowed” look when they saw my bike. I kind of likd the feeling but Im not sure everyone would. Then when I got to the checkin the lady didnt know what to do so it took a long time to check in. In addition I had to pay 2.000kr extra to load the bike. This was all rather expected but once it was realy yo go in they were not sure wether I had to make any changes to the bike so that it would pack better. A common request is that you turn the steeing bar paralell to the bike and perhaps take off the pedals. However even if they requested this in Iceland and in Denmark I was able to persuade them not to bother. Having the tools to do that is advisable however. The one thing I was not able to talk my self out of was to deflate the tires during checkin in Denmark so a handpump would be a good thing to have. I walked the bike to a petrol station near the busstop in Reykjavík to air the tires again.

Once in Denmark biking from the airport was a breeze, it was in fact quite enjoyable and only took about 20-30 minutes. With the GPS I never worried about getting lost and really enjoyed the ride. The weather was sunny and hot. On the way back the weather was crap, rainy, windy and cold. I also left it too late to get going so the ride back was much more stressfull and hard work. In addition one of the roads was closed for about 10 minutes due to a procession of the royal family. I got to see the royals but it cut my time to get there even shorter. Once there I was wet and sweaty but actually very happy, much more so than when i take the train because the exercise was invigorating. During checkin I got the bike loaded for free as I had no other baggage but I had to deflate the tires. This was very different form the Reykjavík experience but it gave me no grief. Once I arrived at either arport the bike then came out through a special gate, not on the luggage conveyorbelt. All in all this was not a bad experience.

Once at keflavík airport the bus driver refused to take my bike as he said he didnt have room. This was the only real trouble I had bringing the bike. However the next bus had enough space but there I had to pay 600kr for loading the bike. I had to wait 20 minutes between busses so that was not too bad but honestly I was alittle crossed at the icelandic AirBus company for inconsistency in their services. I was not in a hurry though and didnt really ming the inconvenience that much. Ofcourse I should have biked to and from keflavík airport but I have to admit that I found the 45km ride too daunting to attempt.

All in all I thouroughly reconment this mode of travel. Having my own bike in CPH was really nice. You can rent a bike but those are all marked as such so the tourists never quite blend in. On your own dirtly old bike you are more like the rest of the crowd and that always feels good. The overall cost of taking the bike is 5.200kr if you get charged for all that you are meant to be charged for but due to the rarity of those situations a lack of cosistency got me away with paying 2.600kr. I probbably cycled about 60-70km all in all while I was in Denmark for those 5 days.

As I cycled from home to the bus terminal I was glad I took the gloves with me as it was bloody freezing. I wasnt sure wether to or not as I didnt expect I’d need them in Denmark and I am only taking a small sholderbag with me. The bus people were not too surprised to have to accomodate a bike amongst the luggage but the receptionist at the checkin at the airport was and so were the other passenges. I felt the familiar ‘now whats this guy doing’ glances people were giving me. It reminded me of the Valberg, Haukur og Arni days and it felt good. It was obvious that the stressed out passengers had never seen this done before, nor had I to be honest. The young girl at the reception desk gave me a ‘oh, what now’ look and got a bit flustered about how to handle this. After consulting with the older and more experienced receptionists she found out how to deal with the situation and checked the bike on to the flight. Now I am in Copenhagen with my own bike and it feels great. Copenhagen is big on bikes and I am fitting right in on my icelandic mountainbike.