Being Smarter

A friend of mine has just travelled back to Australia and is a seasoned traveller and is extremely well versed on where to sit, and where not to sit on an aircraft. You get it wrong over 24 hours and it can make all the difference.

Quite often now you can check in online and can choose where you would like to sit.

He’s just sent me a couple of sites that can make the difference between flight hell and flight heaven.

Seatexpert is one (and you have to check this one out and hover over seat 1A.

Also, Seatguru is another – excellent source of aircraft anorakness…

In all seriousness. Next time you fly on business and on pleasure, be smarter and check out where to sit before you fly.

Price comparison sites cheap flights (UK) cheap flights (US) have relaunched with new features to make it easier to find the right deal for your personal or business travel.

You can now filter by date, price and airline and the site also remembers you last 5 searches, which is a nice touch.

Destination guides are also on the site now – always good to plan that business trip in advance.

Finally, there’s also a really useful Airlines Guide (right at the bottom of the homepage) for when you are desparate to get in touch with an airline and can’t get their contact details. They’ve pulled it all together for you here.

Happy travelling.

PS – if you want to know what cab fare you should be paying before you go, click here.

So we’ve all been ripped off at some point in a taxi from an airport into a city I’m sure? Athens was my worst experience – being offered cigarettes by the driver who appeared to be from the Greek Tourist bureau he was so helpful.

It appears his meter might have been slightly faulty, as I watched the Drachma tick up and up and up and most my spending money disappear. You then have that slightly sick feeling as you ask the hotel receptionist what you should have paid.

And don’t get me started on Tokyo’s Narita airport

So – be prepared – figure out what you should be paying before you leave your country of origin. You want that first bit of any trip to go smoothly. In some cities (Moscow definitely being one of them) it makes huge amounts of sense to book in advance and have a man holding a card with your name on it at the airport.

To help you get organised, this site is superb. It only covers around 20 cities – but will give you a really good idea of whether you’re being ripped off or not before you get in.