Flight Prices December/January

[shushh]

aussietravellers, I think colinA was trying to say that there was nothing rude in what you said rather than what Figment 2101 said?!

Anyway...Ms Shuttergirl congrats on booking the flights!

 

[aussietravellers]

aussietravellers, I think colinA was trying to say that there was nothing rude in what you said rather than what Figment 2101 said?!

Unfortunately I think he was with Figment2101, but that's ok
I'm sure they are husband/wife or partners . Am I right ColinA and Figment2101?
Anyway, It's all good We're all here to spread the

PS, as you can tell, I really do love using all the Smilies (emoticons)

 

[DisneyGirlInOz]

No we got the Covermore cover through the TA. She couldn't do much in the way of discounts off the flights from what I found online, only just under the online price but she discounted the insurance and we got our $20 vouchers for finding the cheaper online price and she was happy to apply that straight to the insurance so that worked out great.

Just wanted to say how impressed with Covermore I was on our last trip. I got really sick overseas , having to change flights amongst everything else and when we got home I just sent all the paperwork to them and they paid what we were out of pocket very fast.

Agree with aussietravellers. It's always good to have cc insurance as well. As the old saying goes, if you can't afford travel insurance you can't afford to travel

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Yay, for FC vouchers!!!

I have spent the last couple of days researching cruises - they only go during a short window in September/October - weather can be iffy,and probably a bit boring for the teens, -I am thinking they wont be coming

I just want to eat fresh Maine Lobster!!!

Oooooh Maine lobster and a leisurely cruise - sounds pretty fine to me.

It's a big step forward and a big one to have locked away. Congrats

Thanks Melbourne5 - now just to organise the rest of the internals.

Congratulations on getting your "big" flights booked!

Just a suggestion for your packing, I found that those roll-up compression bags were a great space saver for our cold weather trips. I put our heavyweight jackets and things like gloves, scarves etc in them for the warmer weather sectors and we just wore or carried them in the chilly places.

I'm really looking forward to our next trip as its the first time in years that we only have to pack warm weather gear.

Andona

That's a good tip re the roll-up compression bags. I know we won't need the heavy duty jackets for WDW, not sure about the rest of the places though. I think they will be a necessity for then. Great idea to put all the gloves, scarves etc in there too. I'm going to look online for where to purchase some. Thanks.

wow ms shuttergirl -- i can't believe you've got your international flights locked away so early -- yay for you!!

i'm keeping an eye out for mine...we're only doing bne - lax there, but we have to fly lax - syd/mel - bne on the way back as apparently there are no direct flights for the day we want to come back...

we're having difficulty with our internal flights.. we were going to book through delta for our lax - mco leg, then with jetblue for our mco-lax leg (we ended up cutting out our chicago trip).

now with the jetblue fiasco they are off my list, and i just saw the delta prices for luggage so i am now thinking of flying southwest and their first 2 bags fly free -- their flights aren't direct though, so it would involve stopovers.

last time we used southwest, we managed to get direct flights which was great but i don't know how we'll be with stopping over & changing planes. the last thing i want is for our luggage to go missing...

delta have direct flights for approx $100 more, plus the $60 for the 2 bags each, means an extra $220 over what we could pay for the indirect southwest route....

i think i need to do more research to see if i can do maybe a southwest flight direct mco - las, then las - lax as direct flights for less than the delta direct flight...

the only good thing about still being on bed rest -- extra time to work through these scenarios

Thanks Alicia, yep we probably got in too early but I couldn't relax until the big flights were locked in.

Sounds like you have a few scenarios to work through with your flights. I hate non direct flights so I'd be looking at paying more for that but the luggage costs are a killer so I can see why you are torn.

On a personal note - how are you feeling?

I hope your starting to feel better With Southwest i was worried about the same thing with luggage so we decided on the flights that say no plane change then hopefully our luggage will not get of and neither do you so you dont have to reboard.

Congratulations on having your flights booked

That's a great point about minimising plane changes to minimise opportunities for luggage to get lost. This is totally feeding into my crazy hysteria you know that right .

Congratulations on getting your flights done! That's exciting!

I wouldn't be too worried about Jetblue to be honest. If it's cheaper, includes luggage i would still fly with them. What happened with them could happen with any airline and really it sounds like the co pilot did an amazing job (and the off duty pilot on board) with handling the situation. Really any airline could have the same problem. I'd be more worried about an airline having plane issues due to maintenance.

Thanks Aussietravellers. I agree about Jetblue, it does sound like the copilot was amazing!!!!

Good, you have the easy flights sorted, now for the internal flights and where to stay.

We get our travel insurance direct through QBE. Credit card travel insurance really covers very little.

In the past we have applied for the flight upgrades to PE or Business 3 months to the minute of the flight time, this year the Qantas site accepted the upgrade request after we made the booking. If you have the points I would not be leaving the upgrade request until you get to the airport.

Will you pay the extra $20 per person per sector for seat allocation on Qantas.

Next trip I will definitely get pricing from QBE for travel insurance also. Thanks for the recommendation.

Thanks Ms.Shuttergirl

Yes, I actually wouldn't have been able to travel that trip if I didn't have my cc insurance We would have had to cancel As the QBE insurance I had didn't cover my condition and i couldn't risk travelling without it. My cc insurance actually had unlimited emergency medical, unlimited hospitalisation cover (amongst other things). Can't get higher than that. And it's not necessarily something that would suit everybody or you would rely completely on (although many do as the insurance on mine is provided by a major Australian insurance agency). But it's good just to know that it's there too, an added bonus. If someones cc does have it, they can check the policy and see what's covered on theirs (if someones cc has it, they don't have to pay any extra for it, they have it wether they want it or not, so it doesn't hurt to see what's covered) and decide if it's enough for their family or not .

I'm looking forward to hearing about the rest of the flights. I'll get ours booked... sometime before we leave in December . Knowing me, we will leave the 2nd and I'll do the flights on the 30th Nov

I believe my card does have a good travel insurance attached. I like the idea of having a good back up.

aussietravellers, I think colinA was trying to say that there was nothing rude in what you said rather than what Figment 2101 said?!

Anyway...Ms Shuttergirl congrats on booking the flights!

Thanks Shushh

Just wanted to say how impressed with Covermore I was on our last trip. I got really sick overseas , having to change flights amongst everything else and when we got home I just sent all the paperwork to them and they paid what we were out of pocket very fast.

Agree with aussietravellers. It's always good to have cc insurance as well. As the old saying goes, if you can't afford travel insurance you can't afford to travel

Sorry to hear you got sick DisneyGirlInOz, that is such a shame. Great though that your insurance company came through for you.

I totally agree about insurance. I love insurance. You have it so you don't need it I always say.

 

[alicia1506]

hey all,

thanks for the good wishes and thoughts. turns out there was some internal damage from the surgery so my recovery took a little longer than expected.

there have been some side effects and some rather nasty surprises with how my body now reacts to certain types of food, or eating at certain times of the day, but all in all, i feel 100% improved over where i was 2 weeks ago. still recovering and it will probably take another few weeks to feel 100% healthy again, but i am just so grateful that they chose to do this operation. it's improved my quality of life a hundredfold.

i spent the majority of the day yesterday wrangling flights etc. we've decided we're going with our old friends SouthWest. Their 2 bags fly free policy really just can't be beaten, and their flight prices are lower. They have a direct LAX - MCO internal flight right when we want it.

The return leg of MCO - LAS i believe they have 2 x direct flights each day, but none are currently showing as available and they have not yet opened up their booking dates for our dates (nov 23 and dec 1) so i'm basing this off a dummy booking for dates in october. i will be frantically watching their website over the next several months, and as soon as our dates are released, i will be swooping in to scoop up those direct flights. last year we didn't have as much trouble flying direct, but our travel was during nov when it wasn't so busy... now this year we're going end nov - beginning dec and it seems every man & his dog wants flights then -- grrr. doesn't help that our first flight is the day after thanksgiving


re: the travel insurance thing -- we get our travel through lonely planet.. it is underwritten by World Nomads, who are in turn underwritten by LLoyds of London. We use them cause their policy premium is cheap, we get to donate part of our premium cost to a charity, and they cover a huge amount. we also book our big expenses like flights & accomodation & such through our CommBank mastercard so that we are covered via their trip insurance as well -- i love being covered by 2 different policies just in case something goes wrong & one insurer won't cover it, or will only cover up to a certain amount. Lonely Planet insurance does have some really high levels of cover though, and to be honest, I doubt we'll ever claim, but only paying $98 pp/ $198 for a family, for cover for our whole trip is pretty nice

and i will second the comments about great info and advice from some very well seasoned travellers on the boards always being appreciated and coming in handy when I am trying to plan my travel needs

sorry for the ramble

 

[Andona]

Alicia, Glad to hear you are feeling a bit better.

Shuttergirl, I think I bought my travel-compression bags from Big W last time. I've seen them at Myer too.

I've been dithering over travel insurance and would be interested to have other opinions. ? We have always purchased travel insurance except on our last trip when we were covered by our credit card. I paid for our flights with it this time so we are also covered . I'm happy with the cover for cancellations, luggage etc etc BUT I'm not sure that it's enough for medical cover.

We were happy with the medical cover last year when we went to Europe/UK but the Medical expenses cover is only $2,500,000. That was adequate for Europe but I'm concerned that it isn't really enough for the USA. ( Knowing what their sky high medical charges are!!) Do you think I should purchase a policy with Unlimited???

I'm still shopping around for quotes - we usually go with 1Cover as they have nearly always offered the best cover/value combination for our trips but I'll be investigating Covermore and Lonely Planet now too - thanks for the recommendations!

P.s. Isn't it ridiculous that $2.5 Million doesn't really seem adequate.

Andona

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Andona - thanks for the tip about where to buy those bags.

As for the insurance, it's really what you feel comfortable with. I've had a think about what I would do and I would purchase unlimited but I'm a very cautious person and it would stress me to think was it enough, what if something happens, did I do the right thing, yadda yadda yadda. My SANF would be unlimited. But your SANF might be good at the 2.5mill. Whatever feels right.

 

[alicia1506]

hey andona,

i know... 2.5 mil seems like a lot, but for some reason, i also don't think it's enough to fully cover medical expenses if something serious was to go wrong.

when i got sick in NYC, i spent 2 days in bed rather than go to a hospital, because i was sure that i would end up $$$ out of pocket just for them to see me i did have insurance, but i also didn't want to go to hospital, so i toughed it out in my room.

next time, if i get sick, i'm getting medical attention straight away

i just reviewed the lonely planet policy and it covers up to $5mil for medical expenses, plus $500k for medical evacuation & repatriation, $2.5mil for personal liability & $2500 for loss of luggage, $1000 for loss of passports etc and $10k for pretrip cancellation etc. the loss of luggage can be increased to cover specific items which are high value (ie laptop, video camera, jewellery etc) for a small additional premium.

that was the reason we chose the policy... high limits on the claims, the ability to claim online and from overseas, the ability for a fast claims process, and the low initial premium... certainly not trying to say that this policy would suit everyone, but for us and being first time travellers, and travelling relatively light and without much in the way of value on us (we took the cheaper camera, cheap laptop and cheap phones etc) and left the $$$ ones at home... we found it worked well for us.

hope you manage to find a policy that works for you!!!

 

[aussietravellers]

Shuttergirl, I think I bought my travel-compression bags from Big W last time. I've seen them at Myer too.

They are awesome aren't they! We have used those before, also with winter jackets. Only problem is they compact things SO well, that you put so much more in your suitcase and send the weight over the limit

I've been dithering over travel insurance and would be interested to have other opinions. ? We have always purchased travel insurance except on our last trip when we were covered by our credit card. I paid for our flights with it this time so we are also covered . I'm happy with the cover for cancellations, luggage etc etc BUT I'm not sure that it's enough for medical cover.

We were happy with the medical cover last year when we went to Europe/UK but the Medical expenses cover is only $2,500,000. That was adequate for Europe but I'm concerned that it isn't really enough for the USA. ( Knowing what their sky high medical charges are!!) Do you think I should purchase a policy with Unlimited???

I agree with the others, it's really depends on you and your families needs I have medical "issues" So I make sure that I have a high a cover for medical as possible. I think a lot of the travel insurance co's have a recommendation for specific regions.

I'm still shopping around for quotes - we usually go with 1Cover as they have nearly always offered the best cover/value combination for our trips but I'll be investigating Covermore and Lonely Planet now too - thanks for the recommendations!

P.s. Isn't it ridiculous that $2.5 Million doesn't really seem adequate.

It is completely ridiculous! Oh how things have changed over the years.

Andona

Another potentially useless piece of information for anyone interested .

I was flicking through my new 2012-2013 Entertainment Book and there is a member offer in it for 25% off QBE travel insurance

 

[aussietravellers]

Andona - thanks for the tip about where to buy those bags.

I have bought the bags from KMart too . They were the Space Bag brand, their travel space bags.

 

[Kangarucci]

I have used QBE insurance purchased from the entertainment book several years ago and I have found that the premiums have increased substantially since then.

Look around for better deals. I have bought 1cover a couple of times with good rates. At the moment I like the look of Allianz but you need to shop around a little.