Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by cmyden

WestJet has scheduled their new route from Calgary to Tokyo, Japan (NRT)

The nonstop flights to Tokyo, Narita are 10 hours there, 9 hours back on the 787. They start on April 30th, 2023. Scheduled through to August 2023.

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Also announced YYC-Barcelona and YYC-Edinburgh.

Paris also going daily next summer and bumping up frequency on DUB and Rome too.

That almost maxes out the 787 fleet for utilization.
Hope these routes stick.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Paris also going daily next summer and bumping up frequency on DUB and Rome too.

That almost maxes out the 787 fleet for utilization.
Hope these routes stick.

Paris daily is sweet, I wonder if the next step will be year round for it?

[topfiverecords]

Will definitely have to make use of the Barcelona direct flight. Thanks Covid for screwing me out of a week there.

[Bunk]

All these routes are amazing.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Nufy

Best option for a flight to Barcelona next August for 4 ?

As well recommendations for a hotel / Air BNB for a few days as well.

Aug 30 to Sep 3 ish...

Originally Posted by Sliver

Maybe call a travel agent if you don't have anything but a destination and dates and don't want to do any research? Not sure how badly people will want to plan your trip for you for free lol.

Or pull a few flights up and get input on if the prices seem reasonable. I just think you need to give a little to get a little.

Originally Posted by Nufy

I ask questions on a message board looking to leverage past experience.

Got a problem with that ??

I can book flights and hotels all on my own with no issues Dude...

Don't you have a cloud to yell at or something.

Fair enough. I apologize.

I'll bump your question for you.

Anybody able to plan Nufy's trip for him? Heading to Barcelona and leaving August 30 and returning September 3. Needs flights and accommodations. Four people (ages unknown). Activities of interest unknown. Unclear if they'll need a car, if they're looking to stay somewhere they can walk to and from and unclear if they'll be travelling around a bit. Since it looks like they'll be on the ground for three days it'll probably be best to stay somewhere in the heart of things as I don't imagine they'll do much travelling around in that short timeframe.

No budget given, so perhaps you can put together an itinerary for a luxurious vacation, a budget vacation, and maybe something in the middle.

He's able to book the flights and hotels all on his own; just needs you to plan it out for him.

TIA.

[woob]

Sliver, would you prefer he start a new thread titled "Barcelona Advice?", as many others have before for other destionations and ask the same flight/stay recommendations? Bit of odd thing to get so sassy/prickish about.

Especially in the "Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie" thread.

[cmyden]

Just to correct what I wrote earlier, the flights from Calgary to Tokyo NRT are scheduled until the end of October (not August).

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by woob

Sliver, would you prefer he start a new thread titled "Barcelona Advice?", as many others have before for other destionations and ask the same flight/stay recommendations? Bit of odd thing to get so sassy/prickish about.

Especially in the "Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie" thread.

I just think if you are planning an overseas trip for four people you'd include enough relevant information for people to be able to help you. There's a reason nobody gave any assistance; there wasn't enough information to even begin to help him.

It's like going to the car thread and saying, 'looking for a car what should i get ? "

IDK, maybe anticipate what information people will need before asking them to go to a bunch of effort for you. Say somebody goes to the effort and finds flights for him and a nice hotel and then he's like, 'nah, too expensive,' it would be a little frustrating. Again, it's why nobody is helping him. He does this all the time, so while it may seem prickish to you, I'm honestly doing him a favour to let him know he has to give a little to get a little. Otherwise it just sets people up to waste their time.

[Fire]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

I never use third party sites like Expedia and always book directly with the hotel. They prefer it, better service, and then if something happens and the reservation needs to change I dont have to deal with Expedia which is horrible for customer service

I have used Expedia quite a bit. I have cancelled and modify reservations with them and did it all online without issues. Also the prices are often cheaper. The only time you don't want to use 3rd party site is you have a hotel rewards card where you get points if you book directly.

[timun]

My sister works for one of the biggest hotel chains in the world (rhymes with chariot...), and she's told me Expedia and the like are only useful for aggregating search results. When booking, book directly with the hotel. If anything goes awry and you have to change or cancel it's incredibly easy to do with the hotel, and if booked with Expedia you're at their mercy; the hotel can't do anything for you.

As for pricing, pretty much any hotel will easily match a price you get on Expedia or any other similar site.

The hotel will also assign rooms preferentially to guests who booked direct, while Expedia/other travel website bookings are given the worst rooms.

[getbak]

When you say "book directly with the hotel", do you mean calling the specific hotel and talking to someone local to book, or is booking through the chain's website good enough?

[Maccalus]

Originally Posted by getbak

When you say "book directly with the hotel", do you mean calling the specific hotel and talking to someone local to book, or is booking through the chain's website good enough?

Booking through the hotel website is good enough. The problem with expedia/booking.com is you put a middle man in the middle of the relationship, which removes power from the accommodation service to solve issues.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by timun

My sister works for one of the biggest hotel chains in the world (rhymes with chariot...), and she's told me Expedia and the like are only useful for aggregating search results. When booking, book directly with the hotel. If anything goes awry and you have to change or cancel it's incredibly easy to do with the hotel, and if booked with Expedia you're at their mercy; the hotel can't do anything for you.

As for pricing, pretty much any hotel will easily match a price you get on Expedia or any other similar site.

The hotel will also assign rooms preferentially to guests who booked direct, while Expedia/other travel website bookings are given the worst rooms.

Your sister is wrong I’ve booked, modified, and cancelled close to a hundred hotel stays on Expedia with a literal click of a button. The rewards are great.
The prices simply can’t be beaten.

I’m not wasting my time contacting the individual hotels directly.

Get over this romanticized sense the hotels care more about you if you book thru them.

If anything I notice I get treated better with gold level on Expedia (which didn’t take long)

[marsplasticeraser]

Originally Posted by Maccalus

Booking through the hotel website is good enough. The problem with expedia/booking.com is you put a middle man in the middle of the relationship, which removes power from the accommodation service to solve issues.

I have a different experience than you.

Typically hotel websites are more expensive than prices I get on booking.com. I’ve tried the old “but prices are cheaper on booking” when I called reservations and best I’ve had is they match that price. A pain in the ass to get the same.

With booking I had an issue with a hotel charging my credit card incorrectly. I trie working with the hotel first and they sucked, it was just some run of the mill customer service that couldn’t do anything. I was going to start a chargeback and my sister said to call booking, and they sorted it out in 12 hours and we’re outstanding to work with.

Ultimately booking has way more power than me to get good prices and to sort stuff out with hotels.

The exception to the above is where you have significant loyalty programs which give great discounts or points are valuable.

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Marriott will beat any price you see on Expedia, etc. by 25%:

https://www.marriott.com/look/claimForm.mi

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

I always prefer to book directly with the hotel. You get better customer service, and if they're overbooked you're more likely to get an upgrade (had it happen several times, once was just a regular room to the slightly larger regular room with a desk but still, twice it was to a full suite, one of which was a 4 night stay in Vegas, $300 for the 4 days as opposed to $400 per night).

I just cannot beat the prices that I get using the code I got from a friend of mine for one of the aggregator sites... I'm heading to Santa Monica next week for a few days and needed to book a hotel the first night for before everyone gets there and we move to an AirBNB. There were 5 hotel options that were all about 20-50% cheaper than the rates shown on the hotel sites or expedia or any of the other services. The place I booked cost $250 when searching those dates on Google showed the same room for over $400. I'm just not going to pass that up.

That said, when I do book through an app (like I'm using points) I usually get their cruddiest room.

I've never had any issue getting my room changed if they put me somewhere I have a problem with. Sometimes it takes a couple of hours and once I had to wait for the next day but it's never a big deal.

[Maccalus]

Originally Posted by marsplasticeraser

I have a different experience than you.



With booking I had an issue with a hotel charging my credit card incorrectly. I trie working with the hotel first and they sucked, it was just some run of the mill customer service that couldn’t do anything. I was going to start a chargeback and my sister said to call booking, and they sorted it out in 12 hours and we’re outstanding to work with.

Ultimately booking has way more power than me to get good prices and to sort stuff out with hotels.

I was giving that advice based on responding to someone who would potentially have to cancel on short notice basis. Based on my experience, owning and operating a bed and breakfast with rooms listed on booking and expedia, this can be an annoying process with third party booked rooms(expedia, booking, etc) as the customers don't always understand the full relationship of the third parties in the process.

For example, if a room is booked through a third party, if you phone the hotel directly, they most likely won't cancel that booking directly as they would still owe the third party the commission on the room. That commission is typically approximately 15% of the room rate, so a large chunk. What has to happen, is the customer has to cancel the booking through the third party, who will then inform the accommodation, who will then issue the refund (if they took the deposit themselves). We had many customers who would get annoyed that we would have to direct them to cancel with their third party to get their deposit refunded. If we were to initiate the call on our end, the third party would make one attempt to contact the person (if we were lucky) and then give up and continue the booking if they couldn't make contact. For most people, this can be done through the online portals, assuming that the accommodation is setup to accept that properly, but for some people this was a step too far.

If they were booked directly with us, we had full power to refund, move, upgrade, offer credit, offer discounts, etc.


With regards to direct rates vs. third parties, you can often find discount codes/offers which beat the third parties, but it is more work. They make accommodations sign agreements around advertised prices, so usually the accommodations make up the difference through other added value additions. Value per person may vary.

This is not meant to discourage people from using third party sites for booking accommodations. They can and are cheaper and easier alot of the time. I just hate how much of the market that they control.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Your sister is wrong I’ve booked, modified, and cancelled close to a hundred hotel stays on Expedia with a literal click of a button. The rewards are great.
The prices simply can’t be beaten.

I’m not wasting my time contacting the individual hotels directly.

Get over this romanticized sense the hotels care more about you if you book thru them.

If anything I notice I get treated better with gold level on Expedia (which didn’t take long)

You can cancel expedia/booking but usually within a certain time frame. Need a last minute change the day before? good luck, Expedia says, contact the hotel we are keeping our money.

They definitely do "care" more because they don't have to send Expedia a cut. So of course, they are going to give preferential rooms to guests booking through the hotel.

You don't call all the hotels, you find one or two online on Expedia and go to their website after. Easy peasy.

Example. Just looked at Toronto, January 19-23 (Thrusday - Sunday) - Ace Hotel Toronto.

Booking.com Price (Genius Level 3) for King Room - $1,307.00 with $229 in taxes.

Go to Ace Hotel website. I'll give you one guess how much the room costs

Don't get me wrong, i use Booking as stated in a previous post, but i will generally tend to try to book through the hotel when i can - I typically try to book in smaller boutiques and independents though. Hilton, i couldnt care less

[chemgear]

Those Tokyo flights "sold out" yesterday. But more flights opened up again. If anything, prices are lower and their "flex" option was free.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat

Marriott will beat any price you see on Expedia, etc. by 25%:

https://www.marriott.com/look/claimForm.mi

But, but, "ThE pRiCeS cAn'T bE bEaTeN!"