Here are The Traveling Professor's Top 5 Travel Tips:
Book Airfares Directly with the Airline: Forget Expedia, Travelocity, CheapAir and all the rest. When booking directly with the airline, travelers get the best response from airlines in terms of seat selection and changes, notifications, and in pricing. And when there is an issue with schedule changes, re-booking, or refunds, travelers get the best response from airlines. Booking through a third party like Expedia, Travelocity, CheapAir, etc. only adds another layer of frustrating bureaucracy when something needs to be fixed.
Book Hotels Directly with the Hotel: Did you know hotels pay about 20% to a booking agent like Booking.com, Kayak, or Priceline? How does this affect you? Let's say you have directly booked a $200 room, and someone else has booked a $200 room through a booking agent (where the hotel nets $160 after paying a 20% commission to the booking agent). Who do you think gets preference on early check-in or check-out. Who is going to get preferential service? Most hotels guarantee the best price on their website. The only use booking websites should have to you is in researching the lowest price and then having the hotel match it when booking directly with them.
Book European Train Fares Through a Booking Site: This is a departure from the previous 2 tips. The Professor finds the train booking service Trainline.Com to be the best way to book train fares in Europe with very low commissions. The website is well laid-out and simple to use. DO NOT use Raileurope.com with it's high fees.
Get the Museum Pass: Anyone who is paying museum or attraction admission prices at each individual museum or attraction is wasting their money and a lot of their time. Most European cities offer a pay-one-price admission pass (many of them include local transportation) to museum and attractions that give VIP, no-wait-in-line admission to the best attractions and museums. For instance, the Paris Museum Pass gets VIP entrance to the Musee d'Orsay, Louvre, Versailles, Orangerie, Pantheon, Centre Pompidou and many more great attractions. The Firenze Card in Florence, the Roma Pass in Rome, The Verona Card in Rome are all examples of worthwhile passes to purchase.
Have Health and Emergency Evacuation Insurance: Your domestic health insurance policy probably does not cover you while overseas. Medicare does not cover you while overseas. In no case will your domestic health insurance policy or Medicare cover the 5 or 6-figure emergency evacuation fee from overseas back home. It is just absolutely dumb for a traveler to not spend about $125 for an annual policy from GeoBlue to protect themselves from a health and financial disaster.
Join The Traveling Professor on his next small group tour!