Air Tickets

Topics Treated on This Page


Thoughts on Air Travel

David Barry once summed up our views on flying (“the reason birds never look truly relaxed”).  And purchasing the ticket is the most aggravating part of an all-too-aggravating process.

We do not generally sell intra-European air tickets, because that would be dumb.
Editorial (code for “skip this”):  for starters, we prefer the train, even when it theoretically takes longer to make the trip, costs more, or both.  This is because it actually goes where it says it is going to, when it says it will, comfortably, without eating your baggage or leaving a carbon footprint the size of Godzilla’s, and often passing through pretty scenery on the way.  On top of that, it rarely actually ends up taking longer or costing more, once you factor in the ground time getting to and from the plane.

’t want you to blame us for the Kurtzian horror. 50% of the costs of flying are hidden outside the ticket, when it’s not 80%:  taxes, baggage charges, “issuing fees,” credit card “usage charges” (just how were you were supposed to buy that ticket only available on-line?).  Not to mention delays whose costs are borne by the passenger, like travel to and from airports, or the medical treatment of the plague you contracted when the guy 11 rows away sneezed into the ventilation duct.  And 80% of your “flight time” is spent on the ground, waiting in environments with the charm of a prison cafeteria.  Pity the fool who says “it’s just a one-hour flight.”

Nor do we sell tickets to Europe from Asia, Africa or Oceania, where we have no particular market expertise.

But we do offer tickets across the North Atlantic, between the U.S. / Canada and Europe.  This page discusses that.

It also helps you figure out where you should fly to, regardless of where you are coming from.



Where Should You Fly?

If you are on one of our organized trips, follow this link to a list of start and end towns for each trip.  Then click on the town’s name for a discussion of the closest airport or airports, and of travel between that airport city and your trip.

An editorial comment (more stuff you don’t need to read):  many of our trip start / end points are closer to local airports with only domestic (or interior European) service, than to the closest intercontinental airports.  If you are arriving from another continent, you would thus need to make an additional plane change to reach them.  This comes naturally to New Worlders, who are used to flying to places like Peoria or Rockhampton, where ground transportation is relatively slow and distances can be long.

But a warning is in order, one that comes from bitter experience.  Changing planes within Europe is usually more trouble than it is worth. Instead, get as close as possible with a non-stop flight, and then continue the rest of the way on the ground.  This is especially true if, even after a connecting flight, you would still have the hassle of a train trip, even a short one, to reach your destination.  Skip the extra flight, and make a longer train trip.

 The connecting flight implies a loss in comfort, reliability, and especially baggage.  It is rarely compensated by any significant temporal or financial savings.  You can show up hours or even days late, the result of a missed connection.  Bummer.

Our extreme case (to date, but it would be folly to imagine this as the final word on the topic) was in ‘08:  Austin, Texas to Paris, France, via Chicago and London, on American Airlines + British Air (we had advised a 4-hour bus ride to Houston, and a non-stop flight on Air France to Paris).  The flight cost was the same, the travel time via Houston slightly faster... but the bus ticket was additional, and, frankly, it was 4 hours on a bus.  So our rider took his own council...

American Airlines missed the connection in Chicage (“weather-related,” though both take-off and landing were calm and sunny).  No later flight was available to London, there was no space available the next day.  After 2 days in Chicago at his own expense, he got to London, and on to Paris.  But his luggage did not.  Since it was supposedly in London, coming on the “next flight,” he waited for it... but the next day it had still not arrived.  He reached his 6-day trip 3 days late, had to pay us to ship his bike to the middle of nowhere so it would be there for him to ride, and had to buy new clothes.  Ouch.  Book non-stop flights when you can, at the cost of ground connections.

 The vast majority of those made air connections.  Being without your baggage is a hassle, especially on a bike trip.  How does your luggage get to you, since you are moving every night?  Where do you buy replacement bike clothes on a Sunday?  How do you cycle in penny loafers?

In contrast to the horror in the skies, European trains are fast, frequent, on time, and luxurious.  You take your baggage on board with you, without any meaningful limit.  You can usually go first class for the cost of a space in the overhead bin on a plane.  And, the scenery is a lot more interesting at ground level.



Buying Trans-Atlantic Air Tickets Through Us

Why You Might Want To
Trans-Atlantic flights are irritatingly expensive during the summer months.  Finding the lowest available fare, always a lot of labor-intensive work, has more importance at peak travel times, when the difference can be significant.

We know the “bottom of the market,” and can get close to it for you if you have trouble (or don’t have the time to hunt around).

If you have a day to kill, and can spread that “day” across a couple of weeks (checking multiple sources several times during that span), you may be able to save 5% over our expert-but-sloppy attempt.  But, by having us do it for you, you save time, and avoid the greater risk (and more common occurance) of paying 30% more than you need to for your ticket.

Editorial (yes, you can skip this, too)
Selling plane tickets is not a “profit center” for us.  Nor, as far as we can tell, for anyone, including the airlines.  It is a ton of work:  it typically takes longer to identify and purchase the ticket than it takes to actually make the trip.  And, through the magic of the internet, these hours of pre-purchase work have been transferred from travel agents, whom the airlines used to pay, to you, their customers. Great!

But we have invested a certain amount in understanding the market for trans-Atlantic flight, and are willing to help.  We charge what we need to to cover the cost of the work, and do it well.

If You Do It Yourself, Please Don’t...
...ask us to “validate” your choice.  As in, “I've found this, how does it compare, can you do better?”  We don’t know until we try, and that is what we charge for.  We take this work seriously, and a serious answer to that question will take us a couple of hours of someone’s time (the same hours, at a minimum, that you have already spent on your search). 

A non-serious answer (“yeah, sure, sounds good,” and then you find that the guy sitting next to you paid $200 less), diminishes our credibility.  In other words, our advice is generally worth exactly what you pay for it.

Moreover, even if we just issued a better ticket on the same route, when we tell you that, experience suggests that you’ll just get cross, and probably buy the ticket you’ve found anyway, since it took you 20 hours to find it.  And then, when you lose your luggage, you’ll really hate us.  Nobody likes a prophet.

Award Travel (tickets “bought” with frequent flyer miles)
We cannot help with award travel.  If you wish to get a ticket on points, you must contact your airline directly.

How To Buy Your Ticket Through Us
If you would like us to find a trans-Atlantic air ticket for you, please fill out our Air Ticket Questionnaire to tell us your travel preferences.  Return it to us, along with a $800 (US or C) air fare deposit.  The funds are necessary so that we have funds on hand to grab – don’t worry, only with your advance approval – sometimes ephemeral discount seats.

Once we have both your questionnaire and your deposit, we’ll start hunting.

If you don’t like what we find at the price we quote, we return all but $60 (US or C) to you, or apply it to your trip, at your discretion.  In other words, you pay that fee for our research if you decide not to use it — but you pay nothing at all if you find something better (see “Service Guarantee,” next term).

Our Service Guarantee
If you wind up buying an alternate ticket that...

  1. ...corresponds to the choices you gave us...
  2. ...costs at least $61 less than the one we proposed, and...
  3. ...is bought within one week of our proposition...

...we refund our research fee.
Just send us your itinerary, and a link to the site where you bought the ticket.   We have never had to make good on this promise, a testimony to our reliability.  But the market is so volatile that we are sure it will come up some day.


So (especially if you think you are priced out of the market), give us a shot.  We issue the tickets for about 9/10ths of the people who ask us to hunt for them, and most of the rest buy the tickets we find on line, with our coaching, paying us the research fee.  Indeed, we even offer an unusual guarantee, if you want it....



Our Airfare Guarantee

Interested in a trip, but afraid that the best high-season airfare you’ll be able to find will be stratospheric?  Sign up for our air fare guarantee (available to all participants in our regularly-scheduled trips of 4 or more nights), which will cap the price you pay at an affordable maximum.

Maximum Prices
These guaranteed maximum round-trip prices include all taxes, fees, and agency charges.  They are valid to any European city with non-stop service from North America offered by at least two airlines.
This effectively includes every European capital, and many smaller European cities, like Geneva, Munich...

  • $1,150 US from the “coastal” northeast (Montréal, Boston, New York, Philadelphia or Washington).
  • $1,250 US from other eastern gateways:  Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta or Miami.
  • $1,350 US from Texas, and the West Coast:  Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, or Vancouver.

Add $50 to the appropriate geographical zone for less-well-served gateways, or for cities without intercontinental flights. Here are the zones in which these cities fall.

  • Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and upstate New York fall in the “Coastal Northeast” zone.
  • Ottawa, Cleveland and mid-western and south-eastern U.S. cities fall in the “Other Eastern Gateways” zone, including cities on the Mississippi, St. Louis and Minneapolis.
  • Cities west of the Mississipi (including Denver), are attached to “Texas and the West Coast.”

Add $50 to fly to a European city without intercontinental service.

Shoulder season and sale fares are often lower, and we will always offer the lowest fare we find — we have absolutely no reason to do otherwise, as we receive no commission on the tickets we sell to you.


Quality of our “Guarantee Flight”

  • We guarantee that you will have to change planes at most once more than the best service on the route.
    Example:  if the route is served by at least one non-stop flight, we guarantee that you will have to connect no more than once to benefit from our fare.
  • We guarantee that no connection will be overnight or longer than 5 hours (without your prior approval).
  • We guarantee that all connections of under 3 hours will be guaranteed by “interline” agreements, making the airlines responsible for missed connections except in the event of force majeur (circumstances out of their control, such as bad weather, or a strike by ground personnel not employed by the airline).

What We Provide / What You Must Be Willing to Accept (the fine print)
To benefit from our Airfare Guarantee, you must be willing to do the following.

  • Provide us with a 2-day band (in each direction) for your flight.
    - We will make every effort to respect your first choice dates, and we almost always can.  Of course, the more flexibility you provide us with, the more likely we are to be able to do so, and the lower fare we are likely to find.
    alsooffer you the lowest-priced flight that we can find on your first choice date(s), even if it does not meet the guaranteed price.  You may then choose between them:  it is up to you to decide whether you wish to spend the extra funds to travel on your preferred date.  Or you may reject both:  you only lose our usual research fee, and not even that if you find something better, as defined above.
  • Send your air fare deposit and Air Ticket Questionnaire within one week of sending your trip application (or 4 months in advance of your trip, whichever is less constraining).  Both must be sent simultaneously with trip sign-up if you are signing up within 35 days of your trip start.
    While we can help you with airfare at any time, our Air Fare Guarantee only applies if you respect these conditions.
  • Accept a flight on any North American or European airline.
    If you wish to accumulate frequent flyer miles with a particular alliance (Skyteam, Oneworld, or Star Alliance), we will try to honor your request.  If we cannot find a flight that respects our guaranteed price and your choice of air alliance, we will offer a flight respecting our guarantee, and also offer you the best flight we can find that respects your first choice of alliance, even if it that flight does not meet our guaranteed price.  You may then choose between them: it is up to you to decide whether you wish to spend the extra funds to travel on your preferred alliance.  Or you may reject both:  you only lose our usual research fee, and not even that if you find something objectively better, as defined above.
  • Accept a flight which does not qualify for frequent flyer mile accumulation.
    Some promotional rate tickets qualify for no or for reduced miles.  If we are aware of a frequent flyer angle, we will tell you the additional cost of a flight which lets you accumulate miles....
  • Accept a ticket validity of 30 days, or 8 days longer than your cycle trip, whichever is longer.
    In other words, return flight must take place within 30 days of the outbound flight, unless your cycle trip with us plus 8 days yields a longer total validity.

We will...

  • ...find your flight, no later than 14 days prior to your first choice departure date.
    We will try to offer you a flight soon after you tell us you want one, but for peak travel periods our ability to honor our guarantee depends on our ability to shop until close to your actual departure.  Thus it is that you may find yourself without a flight until 2 weeks before your trip.  Don’t worry!  Our guarantee is just that:  a guarantee.  We will get you a flight.
     In this latter case, we will will refund your airfare deposit (less our research charge), or apply it to your trip, at your discretion.
    If you wait it out, your patience will be rewarded with a flight at no more than our guaranteed price, even if we have to pay for part of your fare.

Want Us to Get You a Ticket?

Follow this link to our Air Ticket Questionnaire.