Tips for Booking Cheap Flights
As some 50,000miles fans will know my wife and I are off on our annual jaunt to Italy in mid June. We’ve decided to go to the Italian Rivera this year, somewhere new, somewhere exclusive!
So as usual the hunt began for a budget airlines solution, made more difficult this year by moving away from easy travelling distance of Stansted, the home of the likes of Easyjet and Ryanair. Manchester Airport is owned by the city council and to keep council tax down landing charges at Ringway, as it used to be known, are very high so none of the usual suspect fly to the sun cheaply from there……
... but now we have Jet2! This budget carrier have recently began to fly a number of routes from Manchester at knockdown prices. Weehay!
The rules for budget airline bliss are the same wherever or whoever you fly with / from though…..
1. Book early – but not too early! 50,000miles has found from experience that the best deals can usually about 6 weeks before you want to leave. Too much earlier than this the airline still offers good fares but are not their best.
2. Be flexible on dates – the airlines know that most of us want to fly, at or near to, the weekend and bump prices up accordingly. Most carriers offer the option to see flights for the day before and the day after. Keep clicking and think about how about how important it is you’re their by a particular date. Jet2 have a great feature called the low fare finder which lets you see the prices for a whole month at a glance, very handy. I wish they all did this.
3. Be flexible on destination – yes okay so some of the airports the cheapos fly too are a little out of the way, and are, well putting it nicely, shoeboxes, but for an entrepreneur the likes of Ryanair landing at your local airstrip is like striking gold.
At every little airport I’ve been to there are usually plenty of taxis and most will have dedicated shuttle buses to the real destination which are timed for the arrival of the flights and are (usually) very reasonable.
Take Milan for example. There is a dedicated airbus service direct to Milano Centrale for 12 euro, which is probably quicker and cheaper than flying to one of the city’s 2 big airports. Great stuff!
4. Be creative – get a map out and have a look at the options of where you can fly to. On our next trip we’re flying in to Nice (from Manchester) and out of Pisa (to Liverpool), and saving a fortune! Have a play and see what you can come up with, you might even see something extra by getting to see an different city.
Also, by doing it this way you get to pay in euros to come home and, as per usual for rip off Britain, you’ll save pounds. Hopefully the EU will make sure that this unfair practice doesn’t last too long.
5. Sign up! – Each of the budgets has an email newsletter letting you find out about the best deals without lifting a finger. I’d also recommend signing up to the CheapFlights newsletter which sort of grabs these all together into a weekly brief
6. And lastly – but by no means leastly (if that’s a word), book it when you see it! The cheapest seats are limited so if you see a great price (single figures or under) book it!! Watch out for the cut off points for specials too as you may see an unbelievable price one evening, go to bed, decide to book it in the morning, and then you think you must have dreamt it because the price has rocketed. Trust experience on this one!
The result Mrs 50,000miles and I are flying to the Riviera, in sunny June for
£63! No that’s not each, that’s the total including tax!
So what are you waiting for? Check out the links below and don’t forget to send me a postcard!
www.jet2.comwww.ryanair.comwww.easyjet.comwww.cheapflights.co.uk
The Ultimate Travel Guide?
With the imminent release of the new film of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, the BBC have launched an online guide to Life, the Universe and Everything
here or at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/h2g2/ if your on your mobile.
It's kind of a wikipedia, for those of you who know about these things, but has some interesting bits in the travel section and may be worth keeping an eye on over the next couple of weeks.
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Top Travel WebsitesI'd thought I'd put a few links and mini reviews of sites I use for work and pleasure. All of these are great places to look if your booking a little trip away (and if you click through from here I make a few quid as an affiliate!).
So what are you waiting for? Let 50000miles help you book your next trip to France, Italy, the Gold Cost or just sunny old Manchester!
The first featured site is the original and the best - lastminute.com
Not only can you book flights and hotels but also buy books and CDs, gifts and even flowers (although I believe The Flower Shop in Hyde make better bouquets ;-) )
I've been using them since 1999 and are always the first place I look when I'm going away, especially for weekend breaks and nice hotels.
Brussels – A City GuideWell as we are now being linked to by
Marvbloke.com, I thought it time to do another little guide, this time for the capital of Belgium and home of the EU, chocolate and beer – Brussels.
We went to Brussels for Valentines in 2004 and it is a trip I remember fondly as one where we made some major decisions, for it was in a bar on the Grand Place (more on this monumental square later) that my then fiancée and I decided to move back to Manchester!
There are a number of ways to get to Brussels, including budget and non-budgets flights, but I think that the best way is undoubtedly by
Eurostar. It’s something a little different (standing in the bar with a beer whilst whizzing through northern France is great), but it is very quick and comfy and takes you closer to the heat of the city than the plane can, especially if you go budget as Charleroi, where Ryanair land, is a completely different place! The train is also relatively cheap and there are often good packages on offer including hotel and 1st class upgrade (which means champagne and a nice meal).
The best time to go for cheap deals, oddly, is the weekend or school holidays. This is because the eurocrats aren’t around and the hotels need the money! Check out these
deals at lastminute.com which include travel on Eurostar and accommodation!
So onto 5 tips for what to see, do, eat and drink while you’re in Brussels;
La Grande Place – 
The very heart of the city, this cobbled square makes a great place to begin your adventures. There are a number of bars and restaurants around the square, all a little touristy but great places to watch the world go by, while you plan your day. You’ll find that as you wander round town you’ll keep finding yourself back in the square and it makes a great reference point if you get lost!
Moules frites – If you only eat one thing in Belgium make sure its mussels and chips, a great combination which the Belgians do very, very well. The little hill with all the restaurants on between the Galleries Hubert and the Grand Place is a little overawing but the food is good.
And don’t forget to try chips and mayonnaise from one of the friteries on the street, mmmmm gorgeous, it’s the double frying you know!
See the sights – Try the open top bus to get a quick intro to what’s what in Brussels and visit the domey thing that you see on all the postcards. And you just know you can’t leave town without seeing the Manakin Pis, that little weeing toddler is an emblem for the whole city!
Beer! – The Belgians feel they invented beer and they do make some mighty fine brews! Stella doesn’t figure and most will have tried Hoegarden at home so try a few Trappiste beers, a gueze (the champagne of the beer world – lovely) or a fruit (girl) beer.
Find a little place up a back street and pick a few from the menu and enjoy. Experiment!
Chocolate! – Everyone knows the Belgians know a thing or two about chocolate. Visit one of the Godiva shops and pick a few to munch while you wander round town or hunt out one of then little places where they make the brown stuff on site. Try the chilli chocs and remember to bring me a bar or two back!!
Well they published it.......... my first Tripadvisor review has been published and can be found
here.
For those of you not familliar with Tripadvisor, it's a global site where you can find reviews of hotels from people like me, prices from a number of sites and what to do when you're there.
Check it out and post a review of somewhere you love or somewhere you would never go again!!
