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December 04, 2004
Buying a flight
Looking for fares to fly the family to Chicago and back during summer vacation, I've tried expedia.com, opodo.fr, and now directly the Air France site.
Expedia.com won't deliver paper tickets outside the US. You find that out near the end where they have all the details you entered and just want your credit card number.
Opodo.fr -- "appartient à Air France, Aer Lingus, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa et Amadeus" -- recommends starting with the train to Paris. Opodo.fr's cheapest finds are about 50 euros more expensive than what I get directly at the Airfrance.fr site!
Is it the software alone? Opodo.fr probably has to look up flights that are in some shared place, whereas Airfrance.fr can look directly in the Air France backend. Still, I wonder where I can get a real price comparison.
Then there's the problem of layovers. How short is too short? When they propose a 50 minute layover although my query includes 3 children under 12, and you have to take your shoes off and get scanned for most international travel, why didn't they think to let you set a minimum plane-change time? Or, better yet, why didn't they do that for me?
How well do they think they're doing? This software stuff is hard, isn't it.
Incidentally, I do have a real problem with the Airfrance.fr site: Your party can be no larger than 4 max., otherwise you cannot reserve your flight. Too bad for people with families of 5.
Posted by Mark at December 4, 2004 02:48 PM
Comments
I get frustrated with the airfrance site sometimes. It seems quirky. Can't remember now just what happened but it was slightly frustrating and made me wonder what they were thinking. If you made a call to their reservation desk, could you get five seats. Maybe there are not five seats in a row on the planes they are using now. I can't remember but I think there were four in the center row that we flew in. If all the flights are on time then 45 minutes is about the very fastest you can change planes (no guarentee about luggage) considering you have to rush through the airport and read the monitor for your departure gate as you rush buy. Can't get the departures until you reach the terminal you are going to. Whatever you do do not take the bus around to your terminal. Much harder if you have to herd/carry children. Better to give yourself 1 1/2 hours at least to make the connection. Can't say what the train connection is like, of course, though Dana and I might try that some time.
Mom
Posted by: Teena Tuenge at December 4, 2004 09:54 PM
We expect not to have to change terminals if we take Air France. 2 hours to make the connection sounds about right, even if the luggage is checked all the way through.
What I expect to do is actually go into the agency in Grenoble and speak with the agent who is in front of a terminal, so we can work it out. When you're flying alone as a single adult or when you're flying as a couple, you can put up with plenty of uncertainty and having to hurry up then wait and so forth. When you have a herd of small children, you want things to be more boring and predictable.
The problem I see with the train connection is baggage. Even if you could theoretically check baggage all the way through, we might have to check things in in Chambery, then have them tranferred from train to train in Lyon, then transferred from train to plane at CDG. I'm not sure I believe that works reliably.
Posted by: Mark at December 5, 2004 09:32 AM