ski-air travel stories

ChrisC said:
Another smaller plane wreck is in the British Virgin Islands - Coral Gardens Airplane. This one is located in The Dogs Islands just off Virgin Gorda, which is home to "The Baths."

Diving to see the wreck can be fun, except when multiple barracuda hang out inside.

A recent addition to the dive site is the remains of Atlantic Air BVI's Shorts 360 airplane. In 1993, after an unsuccessful takeoff, their one and only aircraft landed in the water about 200 feet off the end of the runway.

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I spent a week on Virgin Gorda in 1980 on my honeymoon. We stayed in a little cottage a stones throw from The Baths.
jasoncapecod said:
I’m in Annapolis for a full navel wedding
The groom is a p8 pilot

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I was a Navy Civilian for 30 years and worked a bit indirectly on P-8 issues. Wore a P-8 logo'd shirt about a week ago playing golf. My Dad was USNA graduate, class of 1943.
 
We're approaching late August. I wonder what the FF-mile gods have in store for us this coming season? I only have 130,000 United miles and (following last year's award-level reset) have to be prudent about cashing them in.
 
This just sent out by United. It's for fall travel but hopefully they'll also offer it for winter. Not the 30-40K sale prices that we'd enjoyed for several years; still, better than a snowbank.

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Check out this NY Times travel ombudsman piece about an Irish family hit with the maximum $450 cleaning fee after returning their car at JFK. I learned a few things:
  • When you return the car, just because the person who inspects it doesn't charge you any additional fees (e.g for vehicle damage or excessive interior stains, rubbish, or dirt), and gives you the "final" receipt DOESN'T preclude them from charging you later for those things!
  • Clawing back unfair charges by complaining to your credit card issuer can put you on a "do not rent" list across all of the various agencies owned by the parent company (I find it hard to believe that there isn't some consumer protection law against this).
  • Always take extensive photos of your car at the return, even if it looks perfectly fine, not just two or three.
:eusa-think:
 
jamesdeluxe said:
This just sent out by United. It's for fall travel but hopefully they'll also offer it for winter.
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Prices to Canuck land are crazy high this year for some reason. Air Canada and United want way over $700 for terrible flight times and prices jump over $1K for the better stuff... in the middle of January, when flying is quite low. Vs ~$450-ish the past two years in mid-winter. Scratching my head on what is going on this year.

Haven't looked for Euro trip yet. Hopefully not something insane. But I have time to book that.

jamesdeluxe said:
Clawing back unfair charges by complaining to your credit card issuer can put you on a "do not rent" list across all of the various agencies owned by the parent company (I find it hard to believe that there isn't some consumer protection law against this).
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I've been surprised at how little attention the rental car market consolidation has gotten (vs airlines for example). There are only a few actual companies renting cars despite the large number of supposed brand names.

Also be sure to take pics at pic-up of a rental car of even tiny imperfections or scratches...
 
EMSC said:
I've been surprised at how little attention the rental car market consolidation has gotten (vs airlines for example). There are only a few actual companies renting cars despite the large number of supposed brand names.
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Thanks for pointing this out; I wasn't paying attention.

EMSC said:
Haven't looked for Euro trip yet. Hopefully not something insane.
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I just checked Newark to Zurich nonstops at the end of January with no FF sale. 70K miles (on principle, I'd only pay that with a bulletproof powder forecast) or $570 cash (to quote the Chernobyl series: not great/not terrible).
 
EMSC said:
I've been surprised at how little attention the rental car market consolidation has gotten (vs airlines for example). There are only a few actual companies renting cars despite the large number of supposed brand names.
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The ownership of the different brands can be very obvious at smaller airports. Might be five brands with signs at a rental center desk but only 2-3 people covering all of them.

Turo may be having an impact for ski trips. Especially if you want to guarantee AWD is a location like Albuquerque. While prices are very high at the Denver airport, it's possible to pay extra for AWD. At ABQ they usually only have a few AWD on the lot so it's hit or miss. A few years ago I got an 4WD for free. The next time an AWD was available there was an upcharge. The road up to TSV can be driven without AWD almost all the time. The people who need AWD are those who rent houses on the mountain.
 
EMSC said:
Prices to Canuck land are crazy high this year for some reason. Air Canada and United want way over $700 for terrible flight times and prices jump over $1K for the better stuff... in the middle of January, when flying is quite low. Vs ~$450-ish the past two years in mid-winter. Scratching my head on what is going on this year.
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What sites are you using? Google Flights search: SFO - Calgary rt direct Sat-Sun, WestJet or United.

United's stranglehold on Denver - especially for international - likely inflates your prices.


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Most SFO-Geneva flights were 40k miles in March - a decent deal for United! Same with Den-Geneva.
 
jamesdeluxe said:
I just checked Newark to Zurich nonstops at the end of January with no FF sale. 70K miles (on principle, I'd only pay that with a bulletproof powder forecast) or $570 cash (to quote the Chernobyl series: not great/not terrible).
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This is not a close call: the $570 cash is the obvious better deal.
Most SFO-Geneva flights were 40k miles in March - a decent deal for United! Same with Den-Geneva.
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It has been ages since Delta ever offered that.:icon-evil:
 
jamesdeluxe said:
The 40K listings that I'm seeing on the website -- both from EWR (below) and SFO -- are each way, not roundtrip.
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Oh, I didn't even click on anything. It blows my mind if a winter Europe flight costs 80k on United.

There are no good deals for France, Switzerland, Germany. I saw a few OK deals for Innsbruck.

The only good gateway city is Milan—even a week out. The going rate seems to be $700 for an economy seat plus luggage, even at short notice. Few tourists fly in the winter, but airlines must maintain gates/capacity.

Italy is a good gateway for any resort in Italy, the Southern French Alps (2 Alpes, La Grave, Serre Che), Chamonix, most of Switzerland (Verbier, Zermatt, Andermatt, Davos, St. Moritz), and perhaps even parts of Austria.
 
A somewhat shocking update about my former standby airline American, which I had to take out of less convenient but still doable JFK or Philadelphia. AA continues to offer award flights to Europe at a good price (45K); however, they've eliminated all nonstops from any of their U.S. hubs (JFK, PHL, ORD, DFW) to major skiing gateways (Geneva, Zurich, Milan), which means that you have to a) change to partner airlines inside Europe/UK and b) pay hundreds of dollars in airport fees/taxes.
 
jamesdeluxe said:
I just checked my former standby airline American, which I had to take out of less convenient but still doable JFK. AA continues to offer award flights to Europe at a good price (45K); however, they've eliminated all nonstops from any of their U.S. hubs to major skiing gateways (Geneva, Zurich, Milan), which means that you have to a) change to partner airlines inside Europe/UK and b) pay hundreds of dollars in airport fees/taxes.
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Well, AA is the only airline that still uses a mileage map. Therefore, I used them for most of my last-minute and advanced foreign travel.

I don't know when the switch from the map to a $ $-based FF award will be. It was supposed to occur this year.
 
ChrisC said:
It blows my mind if a winter Europe flight costs 80k on United.
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All of the prices for air travel seem wildly inflated for this winter. But yes I just clicked through and United wants 80K miles plus ~$80 in fees for flights to Geneva for example. Very insane. Especially since United lists the 40K miles each way as 'discounted since you have our credit card'. First class seat they want 200K miles each way... Just way out of normal pricing IMO.

I probably will try pricing on incognito browser or something to see if they are using new AI style targeting software per user or something.

I did find a not-particularly-great price on Alaska flights to Kelowna in Jan but even that was just over $500 and not the $400-ish of prior years.
 
EMSC said:
All of the prices for air travel seem wildly inflated for this winter.
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The only thing that explains it is that their passenger load factors to Europe must be high and they don't need to give away the seats at a discount. On the airline-geek forum that I visit, several people have mentioned that the true profit center for major airlines is overseas flights, not domestic.
 
jamesdeluxe said:
The only thing that explains it is that their passenger load factors to Europe must be high and they don't need to give away the seats at a discount. On the airline-geek forum that I visit, several people have mentioned that the true profit center for major airlines is overseas flights, not domestic.
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Yeah - the entire legacy airline hub-spoke system exists to ferry domestic passengers to profitable international flights from the hubs.

You see that Southwest, Spirit, and Jetblue are bumping up against the limits of profitable domestic aviation. (Aside: Southwest is so expensive these days, and you must get to the airport early to line up!)
 
EMSC said:
All of the prices for air travel seem wildly inflated for this winter. But yes I just clicked through and United wants 80K miles plus ~$80 in fees for flights to Geneva for example. Very insane. Especially since United lists the 40K miles each way as 'discounted since you have our credit card'. First class seat they want 200K miles each way... Just way out of normal pricing IMO.
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Yes, American and Delta had widespread European Winter Sales last year at this time ....for Winter 2024. Not sure what is going this year - capacity cuts, demand, etc? Not sure - it seems like every American went to Europe this summer.

Link

Example Fare for Winter 2023/24
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Tony Crocker said:
$628 SFO - GVA is not far off the good deals of recent years and definitely lower than 2018 and 2019.
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I'm holding off for now as DEN to GVA is currently ~$980 for any flights I would want to take (economy class) for the march time slot. Either that or $80K miles +$80 which is stupid level expensive for miles IMO.
 
It's really interesting....

The airlines know Europeans will not pay the same amount as Americans to visit their respective continents. Therefore, airfares originating in Europe are far less expensive—likely a reason that one-way tickets are not affordable.

Look at:

GVA - (EWR or DEN) vs. (EWR or DEN) - GVA Almost a 50-100% markup.

Maybe you can play around with spoofing and VPNs

I know this can work for flying around Latin America - even just typing in a foreign web address.
 
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