J's Travel Notes

J's Travel Notes Helpful hints when booking a holiday yourself without the help of a travel agent.

07/11/2020

Refunds for unused tickets or credits (in particular Expedia)

I have discovered the best way to get an airline or agent to refund a ticket or credit during Covid is to lodge a dispute through your credit card.

Ring the bank and state that you have not received the service for which you have paid. It may take a while, maybe a month or 2 but eventually they will have no choice and refund your credit card. At present there doesn’t seem to be any time limit on when you can lodge a dispute. It used to be 3 months, but I recently did it almost 12 months after the transaction/purchase.

I would definitely recommend against using Expedia or any of their other companies such as Wotif, as they take no responsibility for the booking and consistently and stridently claim this is the airline’s issue as the payment was made to the airline and not Expedia. This is correct and totally fine until something is changed and no one takes responsibility.

You will need to lodge a dispute against the actual transaction, which in my case was Singapore Airlines.

07/05/2020

As you can imagine, nothing to say right now but we are thinking about travel within Australia once we can leave the house!

11/03/2020

Coronavirus

Not much to say really except not to book or travel at the moment and definitely avoid cruise ships.

However, there will probably be some very cheap airfares for the rest of the year.

27/01/2020

Almost all airlines have a sale on at the moment, so if you're planning to travel this year now is a good time to book.

11/11/2019

Just to let you know that Virgin Australia quite often publish promo codes on the web. I got 10% off my flights to Melbourne recently.
Definitely worth a look.....

02/11/2019

If you want to travel to Europe next year now is the time to book.

Today I found Qatar flights to Dublin for Perth in April for less that $1100!

Make sure you check the web for Qatar promo codes. You can almost always find a code for a 10% discount if you book directly through Qatar.

23/10/2019

I recently booked some flights to Melbourne through Wotif. I booked a Qantas flight to Melbourne and a Virgin ticket for the return flight.

Due to a change in plans I needed to move these flights. I rang Wotif and they told me I could cancel the flights at no cost as it was within 12 hours of the booking.

I couldn’t believe it! I cancelled the flights and rebooked them for the next day at no cost.

If I had booked these flights through the airlines the changes would have cost me close to $400.

This is standard Wotif policy and they answered my call within a couple of minutes. The service was fantastic and I would definitely use them again.

07/09/2019

I was reading the other day and a website suggested that the best time to book the cheapest flights is 18 weeks prior to your travel date. I’ve looked around and it seems to work.

Don’t forget to check Wotif and Expedia for comparison fares. Although I prefer to book directly through an airline I recently saved $300 a ticket booking the same flights through Expedia.

Also, sometimes booking a flight and hotel through these sites can also save you some money.

18/05/2019

Around the world airfares.

As you can’t book these tickets online you have to go through an agent. I prefer not to book this way but there are some good people out there.

Roundabout Travel in Adelaide seem to offer good deals but if you use someone like Flight Centre the fares can vary depending upon the person you speak to.

Lufthansa usually have some very good around the world deals.

If you want to delay payment, STA offer a layby offer for $39 a ticket with $100 deposit. This needs to be paid 10 weeks before departure.

I would advise you speak to a few agents to get the best option for you.

20/01/2019

Just a quick note to anyone booking a hotel or an apartment in Germany.

When they talk about the number of beds they actually mean the number of people staying. If you are booking for 4 people and the hotel says 3 beds it does not mean a double and 2 singles. It is referring to the number of people who can stay in that room.

If you are booking an apartment be careful when they list the number of rooms as they literally count the rooms including the living room and bathroom.

20/12/2018

We’re just about to leave for our Christmas holiday and all I seem to be hearing about is Japan.

I think this is going to be our next holiday destination!

29/11/2018

I’ve been having some problems with Qatar Frequent Flyers.

They seem to need you to add your number to each leg of your trip. This seems very strange as you add your number to the ticket number which is the same for each leg.

I received points for my flight to London but not the return flights.

Also, another complaint, their support is very poor and they’ve just changed my London flight and added another 2.5 hour layover in Doha to my flight!

Seriously thinking of booking Emirates next time........

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