After booking, on Air Berlin’s website (www.airberlin.com) on Feb. 9, 2009, a round-trip flight between New York and Düsseldorf in May, I unhappily discovered that reserving two economy seats would cost an additional €60, or $86, round trip. Nevertheless, on Feb. 20 I phoned Air Berlin’s US office (866/266-5588) and paid this amount to ensure that my wife and I would have adjacent aisle and window seats.
In March ’09 I received a promotional e-mail from American Express stating that if I opened a credit card account (and met other requirements), I could get 25,000 air miles with Delta Air Lines plus two passes to Delta’s airport lounges. Having a number of air miles with Northwest Airlines and knowing that Northwest was merging into Delta, I called and applied for the American Express Card.
My wife, Joan, and I travel all the time, and on some of those trips we use tour companies, but we also fly independently and book tours once we arrive at our destination. We find either option acceptable, although I suppose it does depend on one’s comfort zone.
Adding to readers’ comments about making flight arrangements for tours (Dec. ’08, pg. 41 & June ’09, pg. 41), my wife and I usually make our flight arrangements independently from the cruise or tour company we are traveling with. We do this because of the following:
Near Paris, it is fine to arrive at Charles de Gaulle International Airport (Roissy CDG), but we have found departing and making connections there to be very difficult.
Nancy Tan of Fresno, Cailfornia, wrote, “What is the best way to upgrade your cabin class on a flight? Buy the ticket and then use miles? Pay for the upgrade? Just buy an economy-plus or business-class ticket to start with? Can an upgrade be made before we get to the airport?”
The following lists a series of events that occurred when my two friends and I were scheduled to leave Sacramento, California, on Jan. 15, 2009, and go to Buenos Aires one day prior to boarding the Star Princess for a cruise to Antarctica.
The 16-day cruise “Antarctica and South America,” Jan. 17-Feb. 2, left from Argentina and included stops at Montevideo, Uruguay; the Falkland Islands; Ushuaia, Argentina, and Punta Arenas, Chile. We were to cruise the Antarctic Peninsula for several days as well as Cape Horn, the Beagle Channel and the Strait of Magellan.
After staying with friends in a villa in Spain (Oct. ’09, pg. 12), my wife, Betty, and I flew on April 10, 2008, from Valencia to Athens via Rome on Alitalia, with our scheduled arrival in Athens quite late. Our friend Jan, a retired airline executive living in Kansas, flew from Valencia on another carrier.
A word about low-cost airlines — portions of our itinerary involved flying within Europe, and we found a site online, www.whichbudget.com, which shows, worldwide, who flies where and when. It lists low-cost carriers and their schedules, sites and fares.
I’m writing in response to the news item “Passengers of Size Pay Double” (July ’09, pg. 23), on United Airlines.
