And ... Another Note on Airfare

Sean brought up a great point today that I think should be addressed by the group (as I told him, if I make executive decisions while everyone else blindly follows, we're all in trouble), which is whether we should book airfare as a group. Currently the group stands as follows: Drew, Michelle, Sean, Eric, Brad, Leticia, Nick and Nick's mystery woman. That would mean booking airfare for 8 - which I assume would be problematic.

When searching for airfare for the Costa Rica honeymoon (still sounds weird to me - honeymoon) I mistakenly searched for a single person. Airfare and times were extremely generous - pretty much my exact minimum standards for flight length, leave times, etc. Upon realizing the mistake, I altered the search to reflect two passengers (honeymoons, I hear, just aren't the same without the other person) and found the flight length and times were more restrictive and costs went up. I could only imagine what would happen if the search were for 8 people.

Fortunately for us, we really don't have to start worrying about this until winter or even spring 2010. At that time we'll start tracking prices in an attempt to find the right time to buy. If you're insane and are worried that the economy will start picking up, meaning prices will follow, take solace in the fact that most economists would agree that the economy will only continue to plummet through the 3rd quarter of 2010. On top of that, deflation really hasn't set in and may make an uptick soon, meaning we may see the best possible prices right about when we should be searching anyway.

The basis of this Times article may be somewhat of a harbinger for next year's airfare searching: are today's low prices as good as it gets or will they be even lower next month? Not a bad environment for travelers - a nightmare for policymakers.

A Note on Airfare

So apparently you have to actually post if you want people to read your blog. That is just crazy. Anyway, I figured I should mention something about the costliest item entailed in the trip – the airfare. Unfortunately Ed was unable to persuade the Germans to allow us to use the corporate jet, so we’ll be flying commercial. (ok Ed didn’t really try to persuade the Germans, but c’mon, they’re German.) I could write a book on how much I hate flying – or more accurately, airports and layovers – but I’ll spare everyone the diatribe. Plus Michelle says I complain too much. This will just be an update on airfare pricing in general and how we can work as a team to find the best deals out there.

Just an FYI – we’re not going through a travel agent for the trip. While they can be extremely helpful – as my successful courting of Michelle in Ireland can attest to – they do add overhead costs to any trip. Luckily there are websites that act as partial substitutes for a travel agent (plus you don’t have to interact with humans!) and I’ve listed below a few sites that I highly recommend as we all (yes, even you, Brad) conduct research in the hopes of finding the best possible deals.

www.kayak.com - this site compares airfare from a variety of other travel sites, such as Orbitz, Expedia, etc and shows you who offers the best deal. Once you’ve made your selection it forwards you to that site. I used this for booking airfare to Costa Rica – a great resource.

www.farecompare.com - this site (see image) allows you to compare the rates from a variety of dates. Since we don’t have our dates set in stone, I’m thinking this will come in handy. Don’t bother trying it yet – it only shows through April 2010.

South Africa Blog Created!

I have decided to create a blog for the World Cup trip. The title is uninspired, to say the least, but as a ethical journalist I have an inherent obligation to ensure that the headline honestly represents the content below. None of that yellow journalism here. If you are looking for that, please refer to the Drudge Report. Hi-yo!

This post is intended to notify everyone that there is now a blog where hopefully everyone can contribute (to do this I believe you will have to setup an account with blogspot, which is harmless and really easy) with anything interesting they find on South Africa. Here is the place where I hope to share my thoughts on airfare pricing, travel itinerary, monkey spottings (see image, courtesy of Sean), and any other pertinent information related to our trip.

I hope to post every a few times a week, so if you're getting sick of Facebook "news" (classic examples include: "John feels like hitting himself" & "Mary has joined the Alan Colmes fan club") and are looking for another site to completely waste your time, stop by and post.

Beware of the baboon - he enjoys peanut butter and jam.