Air Travel

I started flying business class on international flights around 2001 and have used several different companies for finding discount fares. While I haven’t used the company recommended by Deanna Palic´, Yourbusinessflights.com (Oct. ’17, pg. 13), I have used one company exclusively for the last eight or so years and recommend them highly.

I earned my first airline-mileage-award ticket in 1990 and have been fairly successful in obtaining many award tickets since then for the dates and routings I’ve needed.

A friend who is a member of an airline’s frequent-flyer-mileage program recently had a problem booking an award ticket 10 months out from when she wanted to travel. She had already done the first step, checking the airline’s website, but with no luck. I gave her the following advice, and I hope it will be helpful to others as well:

Austria’s Federal Railways, or ÖBB (www.oebb.at/en), now picks up passengers at Vienna International Airport (VIE). Trains from VIE depart twice hourly to Salzburg, once an hour to Innsbruck and once every two hours to St. Anton and Bregenz. Tickets can be purchased on location or in advance online.

Aerolineas Argentinas canceled flights to Venezuela on Oct. 9, joining a growing group of airlines that have ceased flying to that country, among them Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Aeromexico, Avianca and LATAM. Concerns over safety and security as well as the hyperinflation of Venezuelan bolivars were cited as reasons for ending flights. 

As of press time, nine airlines had flights to Venezuela: Air Europa, Air France, American Airlines, Avior Airlines, Caribbean Airlines, Copa Airlines, Iberia, TAME and Turkish Airways.

While at the Lima, Peru, airport trying to check in for an Avianca flight to Cuzco on Dec. 23, 2016, my wife and I were told that we could not check in — even after we showed them our seat confirmations — because groups and continuing passengers were being given priority. The word “overbooked” was not used, but I received that impression about the flight. (This was later confirmed by my travel agent.)