NOVEMBER 2, WEDNESDAY

BEING PRACTICAL

Unfortunately travel is not just floating along, gravity free, unconstrained in a space ship as I suggested a couple of days ago. There is a practical side to travel which is more than just finding the money to pay for trip, or, for most people, getting free of the constraints of everyday work and family connections in order to be able to travel at all. If you’re work pays you well it is also likely that your presence at work is so important that you only get two weeks off a year during which you have to visit family for Thanksgiving or take the kids to the beach. The people who can afford to travel in style can’t find the time to travel until retirement. But by then not only are your knees giving out, but since you haven’t been able to practice independent travel you end up on a cruise ship or in a 40 person travel group led by a group leader searching for buildings to look at and talk about to fill the time.

So most people backpack when young before they get a job or hope to travel in old age, if they still feel like it then.

Cruise ships and group travel both mean that you don’t have to do anything practical for the trip except pack and have everything on the trip taken care of for you, but that you also have to pay a great deal for the service, so that you have to ration your trips.

But it is possible to travel inexpensively if you travel cheaply and do everything yourself. But the problem with that, in spite of the great help Google Flights and Airbnb give, as I am learning again is that that you have a great number of practical details you have to handle and if your desire travel is based partly on a desire to escape routine and practicality then you have put yourself in a box that the group travel and cruise ship people avoid. All they have to do is get to the boat in time and everything is taken care of.

So last night I did the first practical thing I have to do to go with Todd and Susie to travel around India, then Finland, Paris and Amsterdam for three months starting in January. The first thing we need is inexpensive tickets from Asheville to Europe and back. After that we will get tickets from Europe to India and back by way of Finland. But that is just the beginning, because after that we have to find inexpensive places to stay in four places in India and to book train tickets, a place to stay in Helsinki or more than one places if we rent a car and ride around, a place to stay in Paris and a place to stay in Haarlem just outside Amsterdam. And all must inexpensive if I am going to be able to go to Greece and Italy for the fall as I am dreaming of doing. Last year my five visits—Greece, Germany, Paris, London, Amtrak around the USA for a month and Morocco brought down my pandemic government gifted savings account by $1000. I want to do better this year, I want to break even.

So the first step, and only the first step, was to get these tickets from Asheville to Europe. Up until a couple of years ago a European round trip ticket in the off season to a place like Hannover was over $1000. I can’t afford that now. My plan was to get three tickets for less than $500 apiece using the free points I got for charging $3000 and paying it off immediately on a United Explorer Card to help pay for the tickets. That meant we had to fly on United which limited our options.

During this last week flights to Europe located by Scott’s Cheap Flights were low, probably our last chance to get cheap tickets, so when we finally made up our minds Thursday on when we wanted to be in Europe, but never having used airline points before, I was determined to buy us tickets using the points before the prices went up.

Immediately we had a problem. The best tickets located on Scott’s Cheap Flights, the ones I have bought before are basic economy: no checked bag, no assigned seat, no possible changes, no cancellations. There were apparently flights on basic economy to Paris for $550. But Covid is still all around us, we have a few health problems among us, United would brook no excuses, even Covid. Get Covid, trip on a Paris cobblestone, suddenly need to return for an emergency at home, my knees give out—it didn’t matter, we would be stuck with no refund or change possible. So we decided to go regular economy for $150 with changes possibl, raising the ante.

I first thought I had enough points for three trips, 30,000 points I had been told would get me to Europe. I had 85,000 points. But that was only good for going to Europe, it turned out, coming back was another 30,000. So I figured I had points for one and a half trips. But once I finally, later, talked with a United person I found that my 25,000 extra points, enough points for half a trip didn’t count, I had to buy an additional 35,000 points which the Airline would sell me for $1200, much more than the price of the ticket. So that was out.

By this time I was getting frazzled. But I plowed ahead. Google flights located 3 economy tickets for $709 apiece, but with one free for my 60,000 points. But when Google Flights turned me over to United’s website, I found no button there that I could push that would let me use my 60,000 points. I started over three times entering all the personal information (age, telephone number, etc) on each of us again and again but no matter what I did no chance to use points came up. I didn’t want to talk to a real person until I had something to point to so I went ahead and bought three tickets at $709 apiec and then phoned United for help, which is apparently represented by a number of very sweet and polite girls in the Philippines, one of whom helped me. She rebooked Susie and Todd and used my 60,000 points for a free ticket except for $84 in taxes. I had been working on this for three hours and was worn out. I was also irritated with United because I had now been charged $25 for both Susie and Todd for rebooking them, all because United’s web site had baffled me. But I had three tickets which, after adding all that I had paid and dividing by three came to $518 apiece. It was 10:45 p.m. and I was worn out but I had accomplished the first practical step of making the trip.

But not quite, because in all the confusion about points I had forgotten where I was going. I had round trip tickets to Paris from Asheville on the days we wanted, a good buy, but we wanted to fly to Paris and return from Amsterdam.

I sat there in the dark, worn out, and considered starting over in the morning. But the window on cheap tickets closes quickly. So I started over. The long night yawned ahead of me.

But, of course, one of the advantages of doing everything yourself instead of turning it over to a travel company, is that you learn something as well as save a lot of money.

This time I booked Susie and Todd again and paid over again, with now two paid tickets for each of them, pretty sure that I could cancel the first booking within 24 hours. And then I was determined to find out how to use my points on my own to rebook my ticket. This would give me six tickets but Scott had told me with cheap tickets you play musical chairs. When changing tickets you never give up the first ticket until you’ve bought the second because if you cancel the first ticket the second ticket may already have gone up several hundred dollars in price and you will be left with nothing. Using Scott’s advice requires a lot of faith.

So this time, in order to use my points on my own and avoid the embarrassment of the talking with a Philippine lady, I searched for “United, miles, money” on the Internet and was directed to the spot where I could use my miles without any help or fees from United. I was proud of myself.

Except that when I did this I was informed electronically that I only had 25,000 points and could buy more for $1200. Of course, I had used up 60,000 points on my first uncancelled ticket. So I was forced to call the Philippines where another very polite and sweet woman told me that it was 1 p.m. there and the sun was shining outside her window. This time I didn’t need to rebook Todd and Susie, I had already done that. And she was able to shift my ticket to return from Amsterdam with the addition of 1000 points, so I didn’t have to cancel my first flight. And then the pleasant woman cancelled the first Paris return ticket for Susie and Todd. I was again home free and greatly relieved.

Now it was now 1:30 a.m. and I was completely exhausted. But there were a couple of bright spots. Returning from Amsterdam was inexplicably cheaper than returning from Paris. The price of each ticket was now $487 instead of $518 and when the Susie and Todd’s first tickets were refunded the $50 booking fee I was so irritated by was also refunded. So I very carefully checked for any mistakes on the emailed tickets sent to me and went to bed.

So this is an example of what it is like to do it yourself and save money. It is also a harbinger of all of the practical stuff that we are going to have to do without knowing quite how to do it, before we make our low cost three month trip India and Europe.