Monthly Archive: February 2023
When staying at someone else’s house, perhaps a relative’s or friend’s place, do you respect the house rules? Do you behave accordingly? As a guest you will follow a few rules. Some are written, others are just commonsense but they are all rules a person with some decency would respect. These are the same kind of rules you would expect at home, so why can’t staying in hotels be the same for a few? We’ve already seen how bad etiquette can impact air travel so I thought let’s explore what is good and bad etiquette while staying at a hotel or other accommodation. Logically we’ll start and finish at the hotel door, checking-in and checking-out. Lobby and Front Desk First contact; where it is...
Should you book your hotel accommodation with an Online Travel Agency or through a Travel Agent or direct? A question many ask when planning their travels. Here I’ll explain my experiences and what I think is the best way of going about booking accommodation. Save money, get a good deal and be loyal. In my early days of travelling I booked everything through my travel agent (TA); flights, accommodation, cruises, insurance, etc. I was happy to give them the commission for all their hard work. I had faith in their experience and they saved me a lot of time searching and organising. This went on for a few years then I decided to start booking travel myself to see if I could save money....
I’ve always wondered about the safety issues of buying duty free items after clearing security and passport control at some airports. This all done after checked luggage has already been shipped away to be security scanned and ready to be loaded onto the plane. So the question is; why are we allowed to carry alcohol, perfumes and other flammable liquids on board the aircraft and why aren’t these items banned from the cabin? The solution would be to only be able to purchase duty free alcohol, perfumes etc., before luggage is checked-in. Correct? In fact no. Reason is that it is best to have anything flammable in the cabin where it can be put out by the crew. In the cargo hold these items...
Elite status to become much harder in 2023 for Aegean Airlines’ flyers Aegean Airlines informed its frequent flyers and status holders on the 1st of February there will be changes to the tier retention and upgrade rules. Gaining status will be more difficult, especially for those not living in Greece and not able to fly on Aegean metal. The decision by Aegean is disappointing but understandable. They have good reasons and it has all to do with economics, which I will not delve upon here. Personally as a member of Miles+Bonus, the Aegean frequent flyer programme, I will find it much harder to obtain Gold status. I’ve already lost this status during 2022 being demoted to Silver. Aegean have been generous in the retention...
