Thread: Non-Rev Tips

some tips:
when booking a cruise, go to dargal.com and pick out your dates and cruises (it's the easiest way to find a cruise on any line) then, when you find one that is the $ you like and the dates you like, call the actual cruise line, sometimes I find their interline pricing is better priced.

When booking hotels, always find best pricing on expedia, then call the hotel, see if they offer employee discounts with your airline ID - if not, check their rates against expedia's... if expedia is less expensive, ask if they will honor that price. It's always best to book directly with the hotel... easier to cancel or change if you are flying in on standby

sign up on Twitter and facebook fan pages for your favorite hotels - we get specials all the time from there.

go to tripadvisor, Frommers or lonely planet.. always look for your city you are going too, then check the top rated hotels... usually I find a few really high priced ones, then the best rated value ones, I read the first ten or so reviews and pick from there.

check the FAQ's for each city on any of the above sites as it will give you the answers to most of your questions

All great tips, and a good thread...thanks all.

I did want to make sure that everyone understood, however, that the "best post" contest applies to the "best post" anywhere on nonrev.net during March/2010.

You don't have to post in this thread to win.

I have found that flights look wide open. You show up at the gate and people crawl out of the woodwork from other cancellations or misconnects. Always have a back up plan. If you don't make the flight that your trying for, then plan via another city.

Carry a netbook/phone with internet access. You can easily relist and this prevents you from wasting time by trying to find an agent, because agents are already overwhelmed with assisting paying passengers.

Originally Posted by MRSDS1DONNA

Tips, hmm. Okay here are a few:

Have a printout of the schedule for any airline you are even considering flying in your carry on. This means you don't have to bug the airport personnel with questions about which flight is next and that options you have. They are busy. I know someone who brings cookies for the airport personnel every time she flies. A winning smile and cookies will get you a lot of helpful advice if you get stuck!

Speaking of which - Buy ZEDs or back up tickets. You never know when you'll have to reroute.

If you are flying with others, decided in advance if you can split up. You won't have time to discuss options if the gate agent only has 1 seat left - at least not if you actually want that seat.

Check with the locals regarding best places to eat/stay. There are a lot of correspondents on nonrev.net who are happy to give you the low down on their area or who have been virtually everywhere and have excellent advice.

Always be prepared to scrap the trip entirely if it looks like you can get there but can't get back or if things just look crazy. Heck, you can always go next weekend!

The schedule thing is a good idea. I used to use printouts, then for a short while I signed up to the trial version of OAG and that was really helpful.

http://www.oag.com/travel-guides/air-route-info/ is very handy to find out:
- Which airlines fly from a to b
- Where you can fly direct to/from a particular airport
- Terminal finder

I also look up the wikipedia page for airports quite a bit, most often it is very updated with the airlines serving it, their destinations and respective terminals.

When I was at WN my friend always took biscuit burgers... what are they breakfast sandwiches or something? We have nothing like it here so I don't recall the name.. but he used to take them on board each time to give to the flight attendants. They really seemed to like that. I never did it cause I thought they might think I was a bit odd...

I try my hardest to be nice and do the basic things - remove old bag tags people! Not hassling them every 5 minutes and showing up with your RLOC and proper listing usually seems appreciated.

Oh and a phone.... I keep a US prepaid cell topped up just for my trips to the US because non revving in the USA sans phone is mission impossible!