Nuggets of Wisdom for Loop Touring

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

    I'm researching plane fares to Europe and back and between cities in
    Europe 


    for this summers' looping tour as are several people on this list. 


    Below is  a good article that I just googled about how to find the
    cheapest air fares.

Any other nuggets of wisdom that people have found regarding things to
make touring less expensive?   

These are mine and they are America-centric because..............well,  
that's where I live.
Please chime in everyone else.   We need to know how to get around on 
the cheap
in your respective countries.  We'd do the same for you if we had any 
kind of decent
public transportation (outside of planes)  but we don't..........that 
sucks!

1)  One from me is that five years ago, touring Europe,  one could just 
go to train station
and buy an inexpensive ticket.    Because of that,   we did not pre-buy 
tickets before
touring in 8 countries last summer and found, to our horror, that the 
British and European
train companies had changed their pricing policies to reflect those of 
American Airlines
(i.e.,  buying at the last minute costs an exorbitant jump in price).    
This was particularly
brutal in London.     I had such a long and ambitious tour that this 
ended up costing me
hundreds of dollars more than I had anticipated:

Buy tickets early...................but not too early  (when they are 
also higher).
I'd say anywhere from one to two months out from your trip

2)  Also, for Americans, the price of petrol in Europe and the UK is 
staggering compared to
what we are used to in terms of subsidized gasoline prices in the US all 
of our lives.
If you are trying to save money,   do not rent a 
car.............period........point................dot!

Additionally,   most Airplanes between cities only allow for 20 kg 
limit  (which is lower
than the traditional 50 lb. limit Americans are used to.
Many extremely cheap flights limit baggage to 10 kg and the per/kg 
overweight fees can be
astronomical.
Flying from Stockholm to Glascow five years ago,  we got a $45 flight 
and paid
$600 of excess fees.

Check your airline's excess baggage fees before you buy your ticket if 
you are carrying gear.
It will save you tons of money.

The high cost of flying (only with baggage overages as otherwise, it can 
be inexpensive)
also precludes flying unless you can't help it or you have extreme time 
constraints.

3)  Consequently,   take trains!!!!!!!!   subways!!!!!!!!   graciously 
accept rides when they are proferred!!!!!
Stay off of planes if you can help it.

4)  Going from country to country,   also look into 
Ferry's................frequently,  they are much cheaper than
going by other means.        Instead of taking flight number two from 
Glascow to Belfast (another $45 flight
with a $600 baggage overage),  we took a ferry that costs $19.   It took 
longer and I was forced to
go live on the air of BBC Belfast from a remote phone out in the ocean 
instead of making a live
appearance,  but it saved mucho dinero.

5)  Don't buy food at train stations if you are trying to save 
money.     When possible,  buy at local grocery stores
or supermarkets before you go to the train station or airport.    It 
just seems like a little bit extra to pay inflated
station or airport prices but it really adds up over the long run (or 
else it  did for Chris and I).

6)   Transformers that will do the job kicking US 110 voltage up to 220 
voltage are not cheap and they
are very heavy to lug around.     If possible,  check ahead of time to 
see if the venue or promoter you are working
with has one.  You'd be surprised at how many places do, but don't count 
on it!   Check ahead and assume nothing.
The Y2K Festival finally went out and bought one and a lot of people 
putting on loop festivals are doing the same thing
to accomodate their foreign guests.       I also have left transformers 
with Paul Marshall in Belfast, Ireland and
Luca Formentini near Lago Di Garda, Italy.     Anyone who wants to can 
borrow those but they need to be
returned or left with an active touring live looper somewhere in Europe 
or the British Isles so I can pick it up later.

7)  Don't buy the MacBook Pro with the bitchen 17" screen!   Those 
suckers are heavy and carrying them around
hurts your back.    You also have problems on many forms of 
transportation because the screen size is not really
designed for travelling (especially on small aircraft).    Save some 
major dough and buy the 13" or 15"

8)  Don't catch this cold I have................it's friggin' miserable.

9)  and now that article I promised earlier:*
*

<http://www.thecanadianpress.com/>


      Here are two words for a frugal flyer: Patience and Wednesday

CP - Tue Mar 03, 11:26 PM EST

By Joshua Freed And Harry R. Weber, The Associated Press

Want to fly cheap? Time to break some bad habits.

Like buying the first cheap ticket you see or waiting until the last 
minute to book a fare. As the economic slump continues and both business 
and leisure travel declines, fares are getting cheaper as airlines try 
to fill seats. A round-trip ticket from San Francisco to Boston, for 
instance, was selling on Feb. 4 for $238, down from $400 on Nov. 1. Even 
with such bargains, however, travellers need to know a few tricks to get 
the very best prices.

First, don't hurry.

Matthew D. Weyer sometimes spends hours researching fares online. 
Knowing what a ticket usually sells for allows him to spot cheap fares 
almost immediately.

Weyer sets up email alerts for prices on the route he's shopping for at 
fare-watching sites like Kayak.com or Farecast.com. He finds out whether 
discount-carrier Southwest Airlines Co. flies a route. He also checks 
the ticket on booking sites like Travelocity or Orbitz.

Weyer recently shopped for a flight from Greenville, N.C., to Chicago, a 
ticket he said commonly runs around $410. He was tempted at $280. He 
eventually paid $180 on Priceline.com. Weyer figures he spent about two 
hours spread over a couple of days searching for the ticket.

Weyer starts shopping as far in advance as he can but doesn't book right 
away. He considers it safe to book between one and three months ahead of 
time. Legacy carriers generally show their schedules for about 11 months 
out. The window is shorter for discount carriers. Southwest's window is 
currently six months, and AirTran's is nine months.

The 24-year-old Chicago college student and software programmer once 
flew for only $9 on Spirit Airlines from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale, 
Fla., and says the most he has ever paid for a ticket is $240.

Having a price in mind is good advice. A sense of timing helps, too.

If you tend to make travel plans during weekend down time, reconsider. 
The best time to shop is late Monday or early Tuesday, some fare experts 
say. Airlines often start fare sales on Sunday night or Monday morning, 
said Rick Seaney of FareCompare.com. Those sales alone are fine if they 
include the flight you want. But other carriers generally match the fare 
sale by Monday evening or Tuesday morning, giving you more choices.

Seaney said Wednesdays are generally the cheapest day to fly. Tuesdays 
and Saturdays are also good days to fly because demand is low and the 
airlines are trying to fill seats.

It's natural for travellers to book their flight when the workday is 
done or the kids are asleep. But the airlines are posting fares on their 
own schedule. They file fares to the computer system that shares them 
among websites and travel agents three times each weekday - 10 a.m., 
12:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern time. It's 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturdays and 
Sundays. That means fares can change at those times, so when you do see 
a fare at the price you're looking for, grab it.

Former New Yorker Jill Gott of Providence, R.I., spent 2 1/2 weeks 
checking American Airlines' website several times a day before snagging 
a $109 round-trip ticket from New York-LaGuardia to Atlanta. She said it 
was only available for about three hours before jumping back up to $250.

"I just decide what I want to pay for something, and I just keep 
clicking away until I get it," she said.

But shopper beware. Fares start to rise again seven to 10 days before a 
flight - sometimes as long as 14 days or more, depending on the airline 
and sale offer. Airlines raise fares closer to the departure date 
because last-minute seats tend to be bought by business travellers and 
others who must fly at certain times.

Roger Johnson, director of revenue management at New York-based JetBlue 
Airways Corp., notes that it can be risky for a flyer to delay buying a 
ticket in hopes it will be even cheaper. He says there's no good way for 
customers to know whether a fare sale will show up in their market.

"They would be gambling that this would happen and would probably lose 
out more than they would win," he said.

AirTran Airways spokesman Tad Hutcheson said his advice is simple: "I 
would follow the Moscow rule of shopping - you see it, you like it, you 
buy it."

Where to buy also matters. For an airline ticket only, your best bet is 
an individual airline's website because you'll skip the extra fees some 
travel Web sites charge. Also, while Orbitz will show you a handful of 
round-trip flights from Baltimore to Austin, Texas, for instance, a key 
option is missing. Southwest doesn't sell on those sites. That means 
checking its website is a must if you're flying near a city they serve. 
For instance, on Feb. 24, Southwest was offering tickets on the 
Baltimore-Austin route for as low as $99, while Orbitz's cheapest 
offering was $193.

If you're packaging airfare, hotel and a rental car, however, consider 
Orbitz and Travelocity, which often discount such bundles.

Like Weyer, you can also try Priceline, where users can bid for tickets. 
A customer may end up with an undesirable itinerary, like flying in the 
wrong direction to make a connection, but the fare can sometimes be 
cheaper. Not all airlines, however, participate in Priceline's "name 
your own price" offer.

Another piece of advice - learn to love St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago 
O'Hare, and other hub airports where you can connect to your final 
destination. Non-stops are convenient, desirable - and sometimes more 
expensive, said George Hobica, who runs airfarewatchdog.com. That's not 
always the case, though, so always compare.

If travel isn't possible or desirable in the near term, don't worry. Tom 
Parsons, chief executive of travel website BestFares.com, said great 
fare sales are possible in the coming months for travel during the peak 
summer period.

"I would keep watching and watching and watching," Parsons said. "This 
is a very fragile airfare system out there."