Last updated on April 24th, 2024
I know it’s said that everyone gets 15 minutes of fame, but I’m not up to 15 minutes yet. Five is about right.
I got to be the lead-in for an article in the paper here this weekend. For those of you who don’t read the StarTribune, here’s my part of an article by Chris Welsch about coping with increased travel costs:
On her blog called the Travel Gal, Cindy Carlsson of St. Paul shares stories and photos from trips to Botswana, Ecuador, Cambodia and Thailand, but it was the expense of a potential trip to Berlin this summer that finally put the brakes on her wanderlust. “We looked at the cost of the air tickets and the exchange rate and decided we couldn’t do it,” she said. Fuel surcharges and increasing demand have steadily pushed the cost of tickets up. Travelocity estimates that prices rose on average by 7 percent last year; on some flights, the rise was much higher than that. Ticket price is only one measure of the increased cost of flying; passengers also paid extra for their box lunches, their exit row and aisle seats, and on United at least, their second checked bags. There are ways to fight back. Carlsson is a good case in point. After giving up on Berlin, she patiently monitored airfares. When Northwest, promoting its direct flights to Paris, offered a $2,100 deal on a weeklong hotel-air package for two, Carlsson snagged it. She and her husband, Lane Phillips, are going to France in May.
The story goes on from there, but that’s my few minutes of fame for now :-)
Hey, Stranger, nice to hear from you. I’m totally jealous that you are headed down under . . . maybe you need someone to go along and document your trip for you!
I don’t think Chris missed anything that I know about. If it isn’t too much hassle (are the kids coming?) you can look for a cheap flight to LAX and then a separate flight from there — we did that with Fiji and it cut the cost. However, since you have to claim and then recheck your luggage, it can be a drag and you need to allow lots of time to make your connection because neither airline has any reason to help you out if you get delayed.
You can also look for a package — sometimes the air and hotel package is a lot cheaper than each separately and they’ll usually you only need to book a couple of nights through them to get the reduced airfare.
The other year a couple of the airlines ran packages that were really good. I haven’t seen any recently, but I haven’t been looking either.
Let me know what you are planning so I can do some vicarious travel through you!!
Loved the StarTribune info. I’m planning another trip Down Under. . . any tips on finding flights that aren’t terribly expensive? Most web sites for airfare searching really, really, really suck.
Early stages yet (July ’08).
Great Peru images and the one of you on the camel at Giza was pretty cool.
I was very excited to come across your blog info. we’re planning another trip Down Under to stay with friends in Sydney. Do you have any tips on finding flights that aren’t so expensive($)?