Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
often with a mysterious change of
planes en route. The mystery airlines
are all major, well-known carriers—
and the possibility of being sent from
Philadelphia to Chicago via Tampa is
remote; the airlines' routing comput-
ers have gotten a lot better than they
used to be. But your chances of get-
ting a 6am or 11pm flight are pretty
high. Hotwire tells you flight prices
before you buy; Priceline usually has
better deals than Hotwire, but you
have to play their “name our price”
game. If you're new at this, the helpful
folks at
BiddingForTravel
(www.
biddingfortravel.com) do a good job
of demystifying Priceline's prices and
strategies. Priceline and Hotwire are
great for flights within North America
and between the U.S. and Europe. But
for flights to other parts of the world,
consolidators will almost always beat
their fares.
Note:
In 2004 Priceline
added non-opaque service to its roster.
You now have the option to pick exact
flights, times, and airlines from a list
of offers—or opt to bid on opaque
fares as before.
SURFING FOR HOTELS
Shopping online for hotels is much
easier in the U.S., Canada, and certain
parts of Europe than it is in the rest of
the world. Of the “big three” sites,
Expedia
may be the best choice,
thanks to its long list of special deals.
Travelocity
runs a close second. Hotel
specialist sites
hotels.com
and
hotel
discounts.com
are also reliable. An
excellent free program,
TravelAxe
(www.travelaxe.net), can help you
search multiple hotel sites at once, even
ones you may never have heard of.
SURFING FOR RENTAL
CARS
For booking rental cars online, the
best deals are usually found at car
rental company websites, although all
the major online travel agencies also
offer car rental reservations services.
Priceline and Hotwire work well for
car rentals, too; the only “mystery” is
which major rental company you get,
and for most travelers the difference
between Hertz, Avis, and Budget is
negligible.
INTERNET ACCESS AWAY
FROM HOME
Travelers have any number of ways to
check their e-mail and access the
Internet on the road. Of course, using
your own laptop, PDA, or electronic
organizer with a modem gives you the
most flexibility. If you don't have a
computer, you can still access your
e-mail and your office computer from
cybercafes.
WITHOUT YOUR OWN
COMPUTER
It's hard nowadays to find a city that
doesn't
have a few cybercafes. Although
there's no definitive directory for
cybercafes—these are independent
businesses, after all—three places to
start looking are
www.cybercaptive.
com
,
www.netcafeguide.com
, and
www.cybercafe.com
.
Aside from formal cybercafes, most
public libraries
across the world offer
Internet access free or for a small
charge.
Hotel business centers
gener-
ally provide access, but most charge
exorbitant rates.
To retrieve your e-mail, ask your
Internet service provider (ISP)
if it
has a Web-based interface tied to your
existing e-mail account. If your ISP
doesn't have such an interface, you can
use the free
mail2web
service (www.
mail2web.com) to view and reply to
your home e-mail. For more flexibil-
ity, you may want to open a free, Web-
based e-mail account with
Yahoo! Mail
(http://mail.yahoo.com). (Microsoft's
Hotmail is another popular option,
but Hotmail has severe spam prob-
lems.) Your home ISP may be able to
forward your e-mail to the Web-based
account automatically.
