If a man be gracious and courteous to
strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no
island cut off from other lands but a continent that joins to them.” – Francis Bacon
I loved my job as a travel agent.
I had travelled a lot even before I got my first job as
an agent and then with the travel industry comes some pretty cool perks (which
you need as the job is not that well paid) and I took advantage of them
whenever I could. I had a wonderful
boss, lovely work colleagues and I think after being with the same company for
10 years, it shows that I really did love where I was and what I was
doing. I also had magnificent clients, a
lot of them repeat business and it was incredibly sad to leave all that behind
when I started my World Odyssey in 2011.
But as life has taught us, it moves on-and change is inevitable and with
that in mind I will remember my 10 years as a travel agent with fond memories
and memories that will never be forgotten.
In saying that it was great to use my ‘travel-agent-ness’,
my experience, my 10 years of knowledge pay off as I sat down this morning to research
my cheapest options for my next round of flight bookings.
I had to book a flight to Addis Ababa to connect onto my
London flight
I had to book return London flight and my internal West
Africa flights
And lastly I wanted to book my flights back to Australia
in November….
I had a busy morning ahead and I wanted to get it all
done today since my tour was now guaranteed.
I have been sweating on the flight bookings for a few reasons. One is the price of the flights. I had found great fares for all of the above
sectors and I didn’t want to lose them as I had with my fare to Canada. I was hoping to go to a friend’s wedding in
July and found this great fare for 1600AUD and keeping an eye on the prices the
actual fare with the same airline I had looked at went to 4100AUD and the now
cheapest option was 2300AUD and I had to let Amy know due to the price that I
wasn’t going to be able to make her wedding.
I know that flight prices are very volatile and this was a very good
case in point. Especially with the new fare
being so high, for that same amount it gets me 5 weeks on my West Africa
overland trip and when I thought about it like that, as disappointed as I was
not to be going to see Amy get hitched, she totally understood (being a fellow traveller)
and hence I am now not going to Canada.
But first thing’s first.
I needed to book a flight to Ethiopia.
I have a current ticket that I booked back in July last year from Addis
to London. It was booked with the
thinking that I was going to be living in Addis. Well that, we know, fell through, and I was
now left with a ticket that originates in Addis and finding myself in Kenya. So I needed to buy a ticket to connect with
this flight. There are only 4 flights a
day, 2 with Ethiopian Airlines and 2 with Kenya Airways, 2 in the morning and 2
in the evening, so there isn’t a lot of choice and on that route they can
pretty much charge what they want. I had
checked the flights, late March and now when I went to book 4 weeks later, and
3 weeks before travel and the one way prices had tripled. Bloody hell, and I know better than anyone
that the later you leave the flights the more expensive they get. It served myself right. This is where my travel agent skills kicked
in and in the end after exhausting all avenues, well, all 4 of them, and an a
very tempting option to travel Yemen Yemina, (not) that turns a 2 hour flight
into a 22 hour journey to save 50AUD…… it was cheaper to buy a return ticket
than a one way (by 150AUD) and I have picked a date in August which I will
actually be able to use if I have to go to Ethiopia to get my Senegal
visa. I was going to travel on the early
morning flight giving me all day in Addis to see Minalu and David and with the
possibility of seeing Zeme, but I think the boys are now out of town and I have
no interest to see Zeme at all, I paid an extra 60AUD to travel on the
afternoon service and now have a 4 hour layover in Addis rather than the 16
hours I was going to do too save 60AUD, plus having to pay the 20AUD visa worked out
to be a 40AUD saving and counting on people to be around-it wasn’t worth it in
the end. Ticket one done.
Now I had to book my flight out of London, which was
imperative for me to even be allowed INTO the country in 2 weeks’ time. I could also now secure my internal Africa
flights into Ghana and out of Senegal.
Again after doing a whole bunch of homework (hours) and checking out all
my options it was cheaper to add my London flight onto my West Africa ticket
and not just the flight to get me out of the UK in May, but I had to book a
return flight back to London to complete the ticket and the country of origin,
making the ticket cheaper again. So I
have picked a date, actually it was the last possible date I could book due to
the reservation system capabilities (as it is nearly for travel over 12 months’
time) and trying to line up an actual date to coincide with my 3 month ‘get out
of Kenya to reset my tourist visa’ date, it actually worked out not to shabby
and it is hard to believe that I now have a flight booked for March 2014!!!!!! AND the other great thing about adding the
London ticket to the West Africa flights is that if I was to do the tickets separately
the cheapest options were with Ethiopian Airlines travelling via Addis Ababa adding
additional travel time, connecting flights and time with the chance of possible
delays and connections, to now travelling with Kenya Airways and I am now on
direct services minimizing all the above mentioned and at the end of the day,
the less amount of time spent sitting on a plane and in airports is a
plus. I’ve travelled to Nairobi 4 times
from London now and have never been on a direct service, so it will be a
welcomed change. I did all the leg work
and then made the booking through my travel agency back in Australia-try and
give them what I can.
My last lot of bookings was to fly back to Australia for
my birthday in November and also to be there for Christmas. This was a little tricker to start with as I
had to try and line up the Elkins as to what they had planned for Christmas and
New Year’s Eve to work out a return date back to Kenya. This sounds easy, until you know the
Elkins. They are lucky to know what they
are doing for their September school holidays (which they are still yet to
book) let alone December and into January 2014.
As the dates and the cost of the tickets worked out anyway, they pretty
much navigated what dates I would be returning back and I will now be in Nairobi
for New Year’s Eve this year. There is a
big chance that I may spend New Year’s on my own, as 99% of the mzungu’s will
head back to their home countries for that period, but I am saving 450AUD and
if I will be on my own I think it is worth the saving in my books. These flights took a few hours to work out
and it was cheaper for me to purchase 2 separate tickets rather than using the
one airline and booking on the one ticket.
A saving of 620AUD-yes definitely worth 2 tickets, having to collect my
bags in Hong Kong (I have 4 hours both ways to do this-also allowing some snafu
time) and definitely worth the saving. So
I have booked tickets from Nairobi to Hong Kong (via Addis Ababa) return and
then a fare from Hong to Brisbane (via Singapore) return. You really need to be paying attention with
the time changes and arrival times/departure times as some of the flights are
midnight flights and you need to make sure you have the right connecting day as
it can be quite confusing, and I checked this like 6 times before hitting the
final ‘charge my card’ button. I also
checked the baggage restrictions before finalising my bookings. I had also learnt my lesson booking my flight
out of Australia last year using Malaysia Airlines. They only permit you to have a 20kg of
checked baggage, which is no big surprise, most airlines are around the same
allowance BUT if you are over this allowance their excess baggage costs are 110AUD
PER KILO!!!!!!!!! As I hope to bring
some more things from home-this is just a ridiculous cost and even though their
flights were 50AUD cheaper, it would cost me a hell of a lot more than that
with my luggage leaving Australia and they were not even in the running to be
booked. Based on that when I checked
Ethiopian Airlines luggage restrictions, and get this, you can have 2 bags up
to 40kg (very generous) and if I happen to have more than that (god forbid)
then they charge 9USD per kilo (very reasonable) and flying Singapore Airlines
I am only allowed to have 1 bag at 20kg BUT their excess baggage is only 15USD
a kilo and again very reasonable and I will be happy to pay that rate through
to Hong Kong before hooking up to the Ethiopian Airlines rates. 110AUD a KILO IS A RORT MALAYSIA AIRLINES. It still makes me mad when I think about that
ticket and as it works out I will try and get a refund on the $450AUD fare I
paid, which I am doubtful, but there was no point in me even trying to use it
for a credit for the flight back to Brisbane as I would still be in the same
boat with the excess baggage-yes I have to admit I have to just let that ticket
go. See even being a travel agent you
learn new things all the time.
So 3.5 hours later I had booked:
Nairobi to Addis Ababa-4th May
London to Nairobi-20th May
Nairobi to Accra-6th September
Dakar to Nairobi-17th November
Nairobi to Addis Ababa-24th November
Addis Ababa to Hong Kong-24th November
Hong Kong to Singapore-25th November
Singapore to Brisbane-25th November
Brisbane to Singapore-30th December
Singapore to Hong Kong-30th December
Hong Kong to Addis Ababa-31st December
Addis Ababa to Nairobi-31st December
Phew……………………. I’m just getting tired looking at
that. But that is the life of a
traveller and at the end of each flight I know that there is a small pot of
gold and it is worth sitting on planes to get to the final destination.
So today I played travel agent and it is quite rewarding
when you have accomplished something yourself and I KNOW I got the best
possible flight costs, know that I had exhausted all avenues of flights and
routes and I am extremely happy with all
the flights I paid for today. Well
besides the Addis connecting flight, but I should have booked that a month ago
and I just have to suck up the additional cost that I have now paid. It was nice to be back in the old groove,
even if it was only for a day.
“Through travel I first became aware of the
outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into
becoming a part of it.” – Eudora
Welty
No comments:
Post a Comment