Air Travel

by Charles Longo, Tucson, AZ

Our family of four took a 10-day trip to Egypt, Nov. 16-27, 2006. We booked it with Prem Sharma of Somak Safaris (2700 East Imperial Highway, Ste. N, Brea, CA 92821; 714/985-3456, www.somaksafaris.com). (We had also traveled through Somak in 2004, to Tanzania.)

On a 2-week trip to Ecuador in January ’06, my wife, Barbara, and I chose to splurge a bit and stay in Hacienda Cusín (visit www.haciendacusin.com or phone U.S. rep, Myths & Mountains, at 800/670-6984), near Lago San Pablo and about 10 kilometers southeast of Otavalo. We reserved a few days prior to arrival by calling from our hotel in Otavalo; we used a local number: 918-013. (Our Cingular GMS phone worked fine in Ecuador.)

For a 13-night program to Bhutan that I was leading, our group departed for Paro, Bhutan, on Sept. 29, 2006, from Bangkok, THAILAND’s, new Suvarnabhumi Airport, which had officially opened at 3 a.m. on Sept. 28. Due to an early departure on Druk Air, our group stayed at the Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel (Suvarnabhumi Airport, Racha-Taeva, Bangpli, Samutprakarn 10540, Thailand; phone +66 2 131 1111, fax 1188 or visit www. bangkokairportonline.com), adjacent to the new airport.

Looking for an inexpensive place to stay at Roissy Aéroport Charles-de-Gaulle Paris Nord? I stayed at the Etap Hotel Roissy (335 rue de la Belle Étoile, ZAC Paris Nord 2, Roissey en FRANCE 95974; phone [+33] 892 68 3056, fax 149 89 3342 or visit www.etaphotel.com). There are 20 Etap hotels in the Paris area. Etap is a member of the Accor chain (800/466-8356).

I paid only €39 ($51) for one night in October ’06 and got what I paid for. There was no room key (instead, you enter a special code), no bellhop, no cart for hauling your own baggage, no phone and no clock.

In the middle of August ’06, I found myself in Helsinki, FINLAND — one of the world’s “Top Ten Most Expensive” cities — without a hotel room! So I logged onto the Internet (imagine travel today without the Net?) and within minutes had a room at the independently owned Airport Hotel Bonus Inn (Elannotie 9, 01510 Vantaa, Finland; phone + 358 [0] 9-825-511or e-mail hotel@bonusinn.fi).

The rack rate for a double room was €213 ($276). I found an Internet rate of €130 ($168) for a double.

I traveled to Belize in December of 2006 for an exciting 8-night “Jungle Safari Package” booked through Belize Jungle Dome (Mile 47, Western Highway, Banana Bank, Belmopan, Cayo District, Belize; phone +501 822-2124, fax +501 822-2155 or visit www.belizejungledome.com).

When making inquiries several months earlier, I received immediate e-mail responses from Karen Turner, the manager, whereas most other jungle lodges did not bother ever e-mailing me back.

An impossible situation occurred in September ’06 while I was booking a February ’07 air trip. My wife, Tina, and I would fly Delta from New York to Amsterdam, then take KLM Royal Dutch Airlines to Hong Kong, take a cruise, then fly out of Bangkok to Amsterdam and back to New York.

After much difficulty, we were able to hold two business-class tickets through Delta’s SkyMile program using KLM. However, we were short 78,000 frequent-flyer miles, so we wished to transfer 78,000 Starpoints from our Starwood American Express program.

My wife and I have traveled to much of the world, but what stumped us was how to go by air from Georgetown, Guyana, to Paramaribo, Suriname. When we plugged the flight into the usual search engines, no answers appeared. Somehow we knew that an airline called META existed and flew, or once did fly, to that destination, but we couldn’t find it online.

We purchased BWIA tickets for a January ’07 round-trip flight, Miami-Trinidad-Georgetown, at a cost of $522 each. (On Jan. 1, 2007, BWIA became Caribbean Airlines.)