Ask Your Contact
Chances are that you know somebody living at the place you are going to visit. If that is true, you can ask your contact to book a decent hotel for you. Communicate clearly, what kind of hotel you are looking for. Otherwise it could happen that you find yourself in the perfect hotel, but way out of your budget. Or you could end up in a hotel with quite reasonable rates, but lacking services like internet access or sport facilities. That can be annoying and expensive if you need them.

Always Book Hotels in Advance
If you do not have the luxury to ask a contact person familiar with your travel destination for a recommendation, you have other options.

1. You can do a web search for hotels at your travel destination, and give the hotel you chose a call.
2. A huge variety of hotel booking websites is at your service.
3. If you do not want to waste your time with researching hotels through the internet, use your travel agent.

Important thing: Do an advance reservation. Do not travel and look for a hotel after you reached your destination, if you are not keen to pay the highest available rate the hotel has listed. Hotel owners know that it is expensive and time consuming to shop for a room to stay, if you are a stranger in a city. If you want to get a reasonable room for a reasonable price, you must do hotel reservations before you travel.

Hotel Booking Websites
Hotel booking services through the web will offer you many different hotels, ranging from the budget hotel in the industrial area outside the city up to the prestigious and comfortable 5-star hotel at the best available location. If you are looking for a decently priced hotel with standard facilities and services, and you are not travelling to the center of nowhere, a hotel booking website can be a perfect option.
For most hotel reservations you should enter your credit card information as a guarantee. This way you keep your room when you arrive late. If you do not show up, they will charge you one night. A reservation without guarantee will usually be canceled, if you did not arrive by 6 p.m. There is no cancellation fee without payment guarantee, but neither a room if you arrive late.

Special Offers and Booking through Tour Operators
For some special offers or during peak seasons like trade exhibitions or holidays there may a cancellation fee, and a deadline after which you cannot cancel your room. If you book your hotel through a tour operator as part of a vacation package, you may also face restrictive cancel policies. As usual: Check the fine print.

Luxury Hotels
If you look for your favorite luxury hotel in a booking engine, you may or may not find it. The very best hotels provide not only superb locations and excellent services. They are also choosy about their guests and use a very high published price as a first filter to keep unwanted persons away. References, e.g. via corporate contracts, can earn you a steep discount in the luxury hotel segment. If the hotel knows you already as a customer in good standing, you may also enjoy a steep discount from the published rack rates.
Some travel websites demand a best price guarantee from the hotels listed in their system. A manager who wants to hand-pick his hotel guests has a hard time to allow a booking agency any influence on his pricing policies. My advice: If you need hotel reservations for the luxury segment, use your corporate travel department or a travel agent who has access your corporate rate. If that is not possible, go for the low tech way and give your chosen hotel a call to ask for a room.

Priceline offers currently a 100-Dollar discount when you book a vacation package in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, & more!

The offer expires on August 14,2010.

But there are a few things you need to know if you want to avoid a car rental disaster. First of all there are some preconditions you need to satisfy, otherwise you will not receive the key for your booked car.

You must have

1. A valid driving license. And possibly an international driving license.
2. There may be a precondition that the driver is older than 21 years.
3. A credit card. Most car rental companies do not accept prepaid credit cards or cards with a printed number. It must be possible to impress the card number on a special paper form. For expensive cars, two cards may be required; one of them should be American Express or Diners in such cases. If a company rents a car for an employee, the credit card can be replaced by a corporate contract combined with a customer card issued by the car rental company. The employee can carry this customer card instead of a credit card, if this is allowed in the corporate contract.

If you ignore one of these requirements, you will just not get your car.

Before you rent a car you should take also a closer look at some conditions of the car rental company.

Important issues may be:

• The opening hours of the car rental outlet, if you need to get your car outside of usual business hours.
• How many kilometers or miles are included in the price, and what is the cost of an extra kilometer?
• Which insurance is included in the price? Are a crash damage waiver and a loss damage waiver included? If not, what is the additional cost?
• Are there any additional fees, like taxes and airport fees or late hour service fees, and how expensive are they?

Limitations of Use
If you plan that more than one person is going to drive the car, there may be a fee for each additional driver. You may also find additional fees for one way rentals. And usually there are restrictions where you can use the car. (E.g. only in the country where you rent your car and not off road)

Foreign Tax Savings
If you rent a car in a foreign county, you may save some tax expenses by using a car rental broker. In this case you will have a contract with the broker. He will issue a voucher for you. You will still need your credit card as guarantee for any damages of the car. The car broker will not pay VAT or local sales taxes if you are not a resident of the country, where you rent the car. In this case the contract with the broker spells out the extra fees for insurance, additional drivers etc. You should carry not only the voucher, but also the paper spelling out these conditions. And you should have an emergency phone number of the car broker to deal with any disputes that may arise with the car rental company.

Avoid Unpleasant Surprises
These are the basic secrets you need to know if you rent a car. They should help to protect you from unpleasant surprises at the counter of a car rental company.

“This problem is not going away any time soon. The current European-wide system to decide on airspace closures is not working. We welcome the operational refinements made by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in their theoretical model but we are still basically relying on one-dimensional information to make decisions on a four-dimensional problem. The result is the unnecessary closure of airspace. Safety is always our number one priority. But we must make decisions based on facts, not on uncorroborated theoretical models,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Bisignani noted some successful exceptions which provide examples to follow. “France has been able to safely keep its airspace open by enhancing the VAAC data with operational expertise to more precisely determine safe fly zones. Today, the UK Civil Aviation, working with the UK NATS (the air navigation service provider), announced another step forward by working with airlines and manufacturers to more accurately define tolerance levels while taking into account special operational procedures. Both are examples for other European governments to follow,” said Bisignani.

Bisignani called for (1) more robust data collection and analysis (2) a change in the decision making process and (3) urgency in addressing the issues.

Data Collection and Analysis
“Numbers show that the current system is flawed. Over 200,000 flights have operated in European airspace identified by the VAAC as having the potential presence of ash. Not one aircraft has reported significant ash presence and this is verified by post-flight aircraft and engine inspections. We must back the theory with facts gathered by aircraft to test ash concentration. France and the UK are showing that this is possible. If European civil aviation does not have the resources, it should look to borrow the test aircraft from other countries or military sources,” said Bisignani.

Changing the Decision-making Process
“We have lost confidence in the ability of Europe’s governments to make effective and consistent decisions. Using the same data, different countries have come to different conclusions on opening or closing airspace,” said Bisignani.

“Ultimately the industry needs a decision-making process for ash clouds similar to the one used for all other operational disruptions. Every day airlines make decisions whether to fly or not to fly in various weather conditions. Airlines collate the information available and make informed decisions placing safety first and with full access to all the latest weather reporting. Why should volcanic ash be any different?” said Bisignani.

In the US, which has a lot of experience with volcanic activity, the government identifies a no-fly zone where ash concentration is the highest. For all other areas, it is the responsibility of the airline to decide to fly or not based on the various data sources available. “The US has well-established, safe and effective procedures for tracking the hazards of volcanic ash. In recent years, the industry had no recorded safety incidents from volcanic activity in US airspace. Europe has a lot to learn,” said Bisignani.

Urgency
“Volcanic ash is a new challenge for European aviation. We can understand that systems need to be developed to cope. But what is absolutely inexcusable is the failure of Europe’s governments to act urgently and collectively to provide real leadership in a crisis. We have vast amounts of data from over 200,000 safe flights ready for analysis to support an urgent review of the current processes. The UK is finally moving in the right direction. But what about the other affected European governments? The next transport ministers meeting is scheduled for June 24. What kind of leadership waits more than a month to make crisis decisions? European businesses are dependant on air travel and passengers certainly cannot wait that long for initiatives like the UK’s to be implemented continent-wide,” said Bisignani.

To enhance the industry’s long-term ability to address volcanic ash issues, Bisignani is traveling to Montreal for urgent meetings with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). “IATA and ICAO have been working intensely on this issue since the crisis first struck in April. IATA is strongly supporting the ICAO task force which is reviewing ash tolerance thresholds with operators and manufacturers. The responsibility of manufacturers is critical in providing performance information to back decisions,” said Bisignani.

Tomorrow Bisignani will meet Roberto Kobeh-Gonzales, President of the ICAO Council and Raymond Benjamin, ICAO Secretary-General. “It is important that we act urgently and globally to better deal with this crisis and to lay a solid foundation for better decision making in future eruptions. Even as Europe stumbles with its fragmented approach, IATA is working with the global community through ICAO and by tapping into the experience of leading regulators like the US FAA to facilitate harmonized solutions,” said Bisignani.

Change Penalty only After Ticketing
If the change occurs before a ticket is issued, the airline will not charge a penalty, although the travel agent working for you may ask for a service fee. If the change occurs after a ticket is issued, a change penalty as specified in the fare rules of the original ticket applies, if you are responsible for the change. If the airline is responsible for the need to rebook a flight, obviously no change penalty will apply.

Different Rules for Different Changes
There are different types of changes of a flight reservation and ticket. Important is the time of the change. There may be a change

• before departure
• after departure
• after no show

The scope of the change is also important. There may be a change of the

• flight date
• flight route

Change Before Departure
If you change your flight before the departure date, a new ticket will be issued according to prices and rules in place at the day of the change. All conditions for the new fares must be met, including advance purchase requirements, ticketing time limits etc. You will pay the price difference between the old fare and the new fare plus the change penalty specified in the old fare. If there are restrictions in the old fare rules regarding a refund in case of cancel, the nonrefundable amount of the original fare remains nonrefundable. The last flight of the new ticket must be completed within the maximum stay specified in the rules of the original ticket.
The change before departure is pretty complicated. For this reason carry many special airfares a rule saying “change before departure not allowed.” In this case the original ticket must be canceled completely, the fare minus the cancel penalty will be refunded and a new ticket will be purchased.

Change After Departure
If you rebook a flight after using a part of the ticket, the fare rules in place when the original ticket was issued will be used. If you do not change the routing and find space allowed with the original fare for your new flight, you pay only the change penalty and a possible service fee charged by the travel agency or airline help desk for their work with handling the change. If you need to use a more expensive fare for the return flight, or if you want to change the route of the return flight, and the new combination is allowed according to the original fare rules, you will pay the price difference between the original return flight and the new return flight plus the change fee. The fare for the already used part of the ticket will not be changed.

Change After No Show
If you did not show up for a flight on time, or if you could not use the flight because of reasons within your own responsibility, and you did not cancel the reservation before the plane started, a no show happened. Many airlines refuse to honor or refund a ticket after a no show. So, if you are stuck in a traffic jam on your way to the airport and you see that you cannot reach the plane, it is important to call the airline and/or your travel agent at least to cancel the reservation to avoid a no show.

Change Procedure
If there is a need to change a flight, two steps need to be done:

1. the reservation needs to be changed
2. the ticket needs to be changed

Sometimes you will not realize that two steps are done, because the travel agent or customer support representative reissues the ticket immediately after the change of the reservation. Many airlines demand in the fare rules that the ticket must be changed immediately after the flight is rebooked.
If you rebook a flight directly through the airline website, the ticket will be changed automatically.

Delayed Change of Ticket
Some airlines allow to change a reservation without immediately changing the ticket. This can be useful if you know that you cannot use the return flight as booked, but you are not yet sure which flight you will be able to use. Your travel agent could enter a return flight and wait with the change of the ticket until you are sure. But, again, this is not possible with all airlines and all airfares, and there may be a short time limit for adapting the ticket to the new schedule after you rebook a flight.

Insiders Remain Silent
Few airlines allow it, and less travel agencies and online booking portals talk about the opportunity. Everyone is looking for a sale, and a reservation is not yet a sale. But the travel agent has to take care for every reservation in his portfolio, whether he has issued a ticket or not yet. Early flight reservations mean work for the travel, with the hope for a payment, but no guarantee for it.

Better Access to Early Bird Airfares
But for you as customer, an early flight reservation means the chance to get the early birds fare, without an immediate firm commitment. This is important if you want to travel at peak days, around Christmas, Easter Holidays, summer vacations, or as far as Asia is concerned, the Chinese New Year season, or if you want to attend a big trade show like the Frankfurt Book Fare.

For Airlines it’s Yield Management
You may ask why the airlines allow these early flight reservations for often less than half the price you pay if you book your Christmas flight a few days before travel time. Do they have money to give away?
No. Airlines sell only a very limited number of seats for these low prices. And the cheap seats for the best timed flights are gone within a few hours after being available in the reservation systems. This helps the airlines to determine very early the really hot selling flights, and raise the prices for these specific connections early on. The aim of any airline is to receive as much revenue as possible for each movement of each plane. The industry term for that goal is yield management.

Only a few Airlines
I have to admit that not all airlines allow early flight reservations combined with late ticketing. An airline which is very closely connected to its home market will know the sensible flight dates without testing the water every year again. But airlines with a relatively small domestic market and a huge global network, like Emirates or Air France/KLM do offer such opportunities.
Price Not Guaranteed before Ticketing
I have to add one word of caution: The ticket price is only guaranteed, when a ticket is issued. Before the ticket is issued, the airline may change the schedule, add a so called fuel surcharge to the ticket price, or withdraw the fare in total. If that happens, you are back on square one, and you have to pay the price as offered on the day you buy the ticket. In most cases, airlines give an advance warning before they withdraw a fare. But at times there is no prior warning.

Relationship with Travel Agent
For this reason the best way for you to save on peak season flights is to try to use early flight reservations and back them up with a ticket order as soon as you are reasonably sure that you will travel. This requires a trustful relationship between you and your travel agent. He does not want to work for free, and he will not do that many times. But he will be happy to provide this service for you if he knows you as a good customer, booking tickets through him on a regular basis. It also is important and a sign of fairness to cancel any reservation as soon as you know that you will not use it.

1. Transit Visa
2. Visitor Visa
3. Business Visa

You Have to Get it Right the First Time.
If your visa requests gets rejected, you may be entered into a database of declined visa applicants. And these databases are shared between many countries. If you mess up with your application for a Schengen Visa, it may turn out that you get also problems when traveling to the US or Canada.

The embassies have a lot of leeway to decide for or against you. You need to convince them that you have the means to pay for your stay, or somebody who is going to pay for you. And that you will return home, if you apply for a nonresident visa. This makes it very important how you talk to them. It is not enough to satisfy all their formal criteria, they also need to believe you.
Two more formal requirements for a Schengen Visa are a travel insurance policy by an approved insurance company, and a return flight ticket. I have seen time and again, that German embassies ask for that ticket, before they give the visa. But if you offer them a flight reservation, for which no ticket is yet issued, they will accept it. You can tell them, that you cannot buy a ticket, before you can be sure that you will actually travel.
The insurance policy must be submitted with the Schengen visa application. But if you provide proof to insurance companies, that your visa application has been denied, almost all of them will cancel the policy without a penalty. Please check that out, before you buy the insurance policy.

Be Truthful and Believable
The bottom line is: Provide all information requested in the Visa application forms correctly. Try to convince them that you do not intent to overstay your visa. Tell them how you will pay for your living, while you are in their country. Provide prove of a travel insurance and return flight reservation. Be aware that they will check to find out if you cheated.

Get Professional Advice
I am not allowed to give specific advice on how to apply successfully for any visa, and you should always check for professional advice from a qualified person or organization. I recommend for that I stumbled upon them only a few days ago, and I found them so helpful that I signed up as an affiliate.
offers comprehensive support service for all those who need a Schengen Visa. A good step to start is their

There are two security relevant topics you should take care of: Your travel schedule and your luggage.

Airport Security and Your Travel Plan
If you travel from e.g. Manchester to San Diego, you will have several choices: You can look for a direct flight, or for a flight with only one transfer. Or you could look for the cheapest flight, or the flight with your preferred airline. In our example, there is no direct flight from Manchester to San Diego. But you could fly with Delta from Manchester to Atlanta, and connect there to a flight to San Diego. Or you could take a flight or train to London, and fly from there via Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, New York or other hubs to San Diego. This way you could choose between many connections, giving you flexibility in the timing of your trip, and possibly access to a cheaper fare. But what does that mean for the security of your journey, and how does airport security affect you in these cases?

Although you can check in your luggage in Manchester, and pick it again in San Diego, you will have to pass security screening every time you change a plane. They will have at least to check your hand luggage again, and look for dangerous items. The reason is, that somebody could deposit a weapon in the transit area, e.g. an airport worker, and somebody else could pick it up while changing the plane.

Airport Security and Your Luggage
It can be simple and almost painless to pass the security check at the airports, if you avoid dangerous or suspicious items in your hand luggage, and conform with all regulations regarding the luggage you check in. You have access to your hand luggage in your plain. You cannot carry items, which could be used as a weapon, like knifes, scissors, any tools like screw drivers, hammers, box cutters etc. And you should carry only small quantities of chemicals which could be explosives. I am talking about skin care products, tooth paste, but also beverages, even plain water.
In the luggage you check in, tools and sharp items are allowed. But some items will result in a personal check of your luggage by a security worker: This can be any bigger metallic item, also a battery. Even a glass of honey or olive oil may lead to a request that you should open your box. This is necessary, and cannot be avoided. The fasted and least disturbing attitude is to cooperate with the airport security people, and follow their directions.

Additional Tips
Avoid all jokes about security measures at the airport. If you tell the security officer that in your box is a bomb, he may believe you. And do not leave your luggage unattended. A box left in the airport which does not belong to a person, can result in an alarm, even up to the closure of the terminal by airport security services. And it is at least possible, that you will receive a big bill, if your forgotten piece of luggage triggered the alarm.

Conclusion:
To avoid unhappy encounters with airport security systems, you should fly as directly as possible, with few connecting flights. You should avoid dangerous or suspicious items in your hand luggage. If you have to carry suspicious things in your checked luggage, plan for enough time to pass the check. Never react with anger or stress, if a security official asks you to open your box. Never leave your luggage unattended. Check, whether you carry all luggage before you leave the airport.

You find a list of items you should avoid while flying at the Transportation Security Administration’s website at http://www.tsa.gov

Single Open Jaw
A simple example for a single open jaw would be a combination of flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles with a return flight from San Diego to Frankfurt. It makes good sense to combine these air flights in one ticket. Otherwise you would have to travel on the road or railroad from San Diego to Los Angeles to get your return flight to Frankfurt, or you would have to buy two separate one way tickets.
Another variant of an open jaw flight would be an arrangement where you travel from Frankfurt to Los Angeles, and return from Los Angeles to Munich.

Double Open Jaw
This would be a combination of a flight from Hamburg to Los Angeles and a return flight from San Diego to Munich. You could buy two one way tickets, but you can save a bundle if you manage to combine these two flights into one ticket as an double open jaw flight.

How to Book an Open Jaw Flight?
Many flight booking engines have a link you can use to search for an open jaw flight, or a multi stop flight. If you click on such a button, you get a new input form, where you can ask for a flight from A to B plus from C to D, maybe even afterwards from E to F. You enter your travel plans, and with good luck, you get a reasonable offer. Reasonable is the half price of a return ticket from A to B, plus the half price of a return flight from C to D. If you find an airline is flying both routes, and B is in the same country as C, while A is in the same country as D, you should be able to get a ticket for this flight. But if you do not get a reasonable for this flight on a booking engine, you still have the chance to call your travel agent and ask him to look. The rules about open jaw flights are included in the rules text of the airfare.

Ask Your Travel Agent
Booking engines often sometimes unable to understand all fare rules, and if the engine does not understand the rule, it does not offer the fare. But a human travel agent should understand the rules text and thus be able to price an open jaw flight, even if each air segment of the journey is flown with another airline. This is often possible, if all airlines concerned belong to a single airline alliance.
Sometimes you get a reasonable offer in the fare listing of the booking engine, but when you press the purchase button, you get an error message with a new expensive price. In this case ask again your travel agent for a price quote. Chances are a travel agent can sell you the ticket for the lower price. If the booking engine cannot find it, the open jaw flight may still be available.

Not to Ask Means Not to Get It
An open Jaw flight may even be possible, if the airports concerned are located in different countries. One example would be a flight from Germany to Kilimanjaro, with a return flight from Mombasa to Germany. Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, Mombasa in Kenya. But in this example you can still combine these flights in a single ticket. There are offers from KLM, Ethiopian Airways and Condor of Germany.

There are three general types of travel insurance you should consider, if you are planning a trip:

1. Health related insurances covering the risk of sickness or an accident on the road
2. Luggage Insurance
3. Insurance covering change or cancellation penalties

I want to make a few points for each category.

Travel Health Insurance
You want to have coverage of medical expenses at home. On the road you need it even more. The first step before buying special health coverage for your trip is a check of the policy of your existing health insurance. On the road you need treatment costs, including hospitals, and transport back home, to be covered. Very helpful is an emergency phone number, where you can reach somebody familiar with the country you are in. He may know the right doctors, have an idea which hospitals are good, and have a relationship with them. This may allow a settlement eliminating the need to pay the hospital before you are admitted.
But please check the fine print. Mental conditions are almost always excluded from coverage. If you have an address in the country you visit, or if you are a citizen of the country you visit, travel insurance coverage may also be declined.

Luggage Insurance
This type of travel insurance is straightforward. If your luggage gets damaged or lost during transportation, you will be refunded. But check the fine print for excluded items. Expensive gear, like computers, cameras, jewelry and obviously cash are excluded. There may be also provisions that you cannot leave your luggage in a car, or that some items need to be kept in a safe etc.

Insurance Covering Change Penalties
A classic form of travel insurance covers the costs of changing or cancelling a trip for a predetermined set of reasons. The triggers may include sickness, pregnancy, death of a family member, unexpected unemployment and more. Check the policy of any insurance for these triggers, because they are not always the same.
Before insuring against a change penalty you need to have a hard look, whether you really need it. The trick is that insurance premiums are determined by the price you pay for your ticket or vacation package. But, on the other hand, penalties for changing or cancelling a ticket are generally lower for higher priced flights and packages. This means, if you do not take care, you may pay 50 Dollars to cover a risk of 100 Dollars in case you need to cancel your travel project. This does not make sense.
But it is also possible, that a policy of no change allowed and no refund policy is connected to your ticket. In this case, you may lose the whole price you paid for your package, if you become sick a few days before you travel. Under such rules travel insurance covering change and cancel penalties make definitively sense.