Here at Booking Business Travel we focus on helping you to book business travel online. But we all like to holiday too, and I am frequently asked for inspirational holiday ideas. And what used to take hours of search can now be offered immediately. For example; You want to fly no more than 6 hours, […]
read more »A traveller friend of mine has some 36,000 miles and a silver status about to expire because she hasn’t flown recently. I telephoned Virgin Atlantic yesterday to check, because their website isn’t 100% clear regarding extension of miles. Please note that we’re discussing miles here, not status. There’s nothing you can do about your status. […]
read more »A company has contacted us to ask to verify the unbelievable. Yes, it’s Friday and they’re arranging flights for travel on Monday so it’s at short notice. London to Venice on Monday and Milan to London on Wednesday The cheapest outbound flight is with British Airways, at £340 which is high, but not ludicrously high, […]
read more »We have provided booking tips on the British Airways booking page that will help you to find the lowest air fares when booking specific dates. But if you are flexible with your travel dates, British Airways has an excellent calendar display that will help you find the cheapest dates at a glance. Although this function […]
read more »I’ve just been asked this question and for flights, I know that the answer is up to one year but I’ve checked and rail bookings have a surprisingly short selling period: For Eurostar journeys to mainline Paris, Lille and Brussels stations, you can book up to 4 months in advance, minus 2 days This applies […]
read more »If you require travel today or tomorrow, the rail companies will quote you exorbitant fares. Their assumption is that you will either be a business traveller attending meetings or making a multi-million pound sales pitch, or as a member of the general public, that you have to travel, perhaps in an emergency. And they assume […]
read more »We highlight the main conditions: The sale is for flight only and BA holidays Bookings must be made by midnight Tuesday 25th September All Long Haul travel requires a Saturday night stay (targeting “leisure” travellers”) Euro Traveller bookings from LHR must be booked at least 14 days in advance World Traveller bookings (except to Mauritius) […]
read more »Travel Agents, both online and offline tend to use one of the four major computer reservation systems: Galileo, Amadeus, Sabre and Worldspan. The Amadeus reservation system can book up to 360 days in advance, almost a whole calendar year, whilst the other major system, Galileo will only offer bookings up to 332 days – a […]
read more »If you are travelling business class with Etihad to Australia, is it worth signing up to their loyalyty scheme? We took the following example Etihad business class to Melbourne Australia One round trip in Business Class at the lowest fare type (W class) earns 27,700 miles which is enough to buy a pair of Oakley […]
read more »As you would expect from Google, their HotelFinder site is slick! They provide a date-driven availability and price display on the left hand side and a very good Google Maps on the right hand side. So, full marks for presentation. But the site is still in experimental stage and we have two issues with the […]
read more »How to find discount fares for travel from Australia to the UK, if you are buying the ticket here in the UK. Here’s a trick that just saved £471 on the price of a business class ticket: Scenario: You’re in the UK and you want to buy a ticket originating in Sydney, Australia to travel […]
read more »Never use the companies that advertise on Google for a Australia Visa as you’ll end up paying a fee to them – unnecessarily. Only use the official government site, which is free of charge. You can identify an official site because the address will end with a .gov.au (as per below) Full details are here: […]
read more »A travel industry expert suggests the following 5 booking tips: Always use a comparison site. The best in the UK is Skyscanner Always choose to book short haul flights directly on the airlines sites, examples: easyJet, Ryanair, Wizz. Book British Airways direct here directly with BA as they don’t discount short-haul fares Long haul travel […]
read more »The through fares from London to Amsterdam are generally good value when compared with flight costs including all the additional charges of baggage, check-in, transport to the airport etc. By “through-fare” we mean the price given if you search from London to Amsterdam and the reservation system includes the connection in Brussels. Rail Europe offer […]
read more »Always request just one room Even if you need more than one room, start by requesting one. That way, you’ll be offered the cheapest room price available. Then, change your search to see if additional rooms are available at the same price. Searching for a specific hotel? If you know the name of the hotel, […]
read more »There are no online arrivals boards dedicated to Eurostar but this site provides live information on all trains arriving at St Pancras International station here. http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/ldbboard/arr/STP It includes domestic trains so you may need to scroll down. You cannot filter the display because it doesn’t recognise Paris / Brussels or Lille as being valid stations! […]
read more »For Premier Class only, coach number 8 and 11 will be designated quiet coaches from 11 September 2012 Amusingly, Eurostar state that “due to the nature of” direct trains to Disney, they cannot guarantee that there will be quiet coaches on that service, nor on Ski destinations If you need to pre book specific Eurostar […]
read more »The Ryanair website will be closed for maintenance over this weekend – during which time online check-in and boarding pass printing and new bookings will not be possible Bookings and flight changes cannot be made from 10pm on Friday until 10pm Saturday Online Check-in not available from 4pm Friday until 12 noon Sunday
read more »Some changes have been announced to Etihad complimentary chauffeur service…. Etihad frequent flier members, Gold and Silver, continue to receive free chauffeurs for departure and arrivals throughout the Etihad network. If stopping in Abu Dhabi in each direction, that’s a total of 8 chauffeur transfers! But for non members or those that haven’t attained Silver […]
read more »Several new hotel booking companies have emerged online and we review a selection here. We’ve considered three questions: Is the website quick, friendly and easy to use? How many hotels are featured? Are the rates competitive? We searched for hotels in some obscure European towns to compare content major cities to compare actual hotel rates […]
read more »We conducted this study on behalf of a client who travels frequently to their offices in Stuttgart from London. We recommend using our Skyscanner flight search engine to compare schedules and fares but the following booking tips will save you additional time and costs: Tip 1 Choose the “Compare Times” option for an easier display […]
read more »British Airways is offering discounted fares for travellers of companies who are signed up to their loyalty scheme, “On Business”. The traveller must also be a member of the British Airways Executive Club or the Iberia, Qantas or American Airlines schemes. The programme is called Business Bespoke and the standard discount is 5% off normal […]
read more »We looked at 10 hotel booking and hotel comparison sites before deciding to recommend the one that we feature on the Hotel Page of BookingBusinessTravel. This site searches and compares approximately 40 different hotel companies and hotel bed banks and provides the results in a concise readable format. We’ve seen the site compare the following […]
read more »It is important to be familiar with the airline alliances because these airline groupings may share their loyalty schemes and they also share fares, routes and around-the-world options Here is a complete list: There are three global airline alliances: oneworld, Star Alliance and Sky Team ONEWORLD ALLIANCE American Airlines (AA) Finnair (AY) British Airways (BA) […]
read more »Baggage fees are increasing for departures during June, July August and September 2012 from £20 per bag to £25 Bags that are booked through call centres or at the airport (as opposed to online) will increase from £35 to £60 per bag From January 15th, the charge to issue a boarding card at the airport […]
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