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Travel Planning Class
I'm calling on my fellow FTers to give me some creative ideas. I am teaching a class for seniors at the local community college about using the internet to do travel planning. I taught this same class last fall and had good response. Most of my students are novice computer users and I'm hesitant to get too complex. I have provided many links to general travel sites.
I would love any creative or unusual ideas from this community of "travel addicts". I will use any appropriate suggestions and gladly give credit where credit is due. :) |
Bump. Please help with some innovative tips.
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I haven't used them, but there are apps you can install that will find fares from multiple sites when you search on just one. If your students are newbies to the Net, might be easier for them than having to go to all the different sites on their own. I can't remember the name of one, but if you search, should be able to find.
And kudos to you for providing such a nice type of education for folks! |
Originally Posted by albie
(Post 7502455)
I haven't used them, but there are apps you can install that will find fares from multiple sites when you search on just one. If your students are newbies to the Net, might be easier for them than having to go to all the different sites on their own. I can't remember the name of one, but if you search, should be able to find.
And kudos to you for providing such a nice type of education for folks! |
Originally Posted by DavidDTW
(Post 7502962)
I haven't used it, but Sidestep is one option. A friend who does use it really likes it.
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I'd introduce them to farecompare.com where they can see fares from all airlines on a city pair, over the course of a year. If they are seniors, they're probably on a fixed income, and I bet they would love to see how you can sometimes get much better fares by travelling in a different month than you'd originally planned.
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I think they'd like a site like fodors.com , can ask questions, read recommendations of others, get reassurance about choices before final decisions.
Sylvia |
If you really want to wow them, create bookmarks for all the sites you will visit during your class, burn them to CD and give a copy to each student along with instructions on how to copy the bookmarks from the CD into their own Internet bookmarks.
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You're probably dooing this already, but if I were teaching such a course I'd start off with a quick discussion of specific opportunities available to seniors (including the big one for us - off-season travel!) as well as the pros and cons of senior rates, AARP, etc. I'd also mention some different types of trips to consider, everything from road trips within the area to last-minute flights to elder hostels to cruises (e.g. relocation cruises).
Ed Perkins on smartertravel.com writes from time to time on topics for "senior travelers." Just writing this is making me eager for our next trip - I'm sure you'll be a great resource for these folks. ^ Cheers, Fredd |
Originally Posted by Sweetone
(Post 7503042)
I'd forgotten about Sidestep. It would be good to include - if they can get it downloaded. ;)
The download/toolbar version, which actually came first, also searches & compares against expedia and travelocity, and it's horribly annoying. Whenever it detects that you are doing any travel search (say directly from Expedia), it takes over to do its own search. That's confusing, and somewhat insidious. I would NOT recommend it to anyone, especially computer-newbie seniors. The point I'd stress to the class is to review penalties and small print carefully. For example, We're all used to most airfares being nonrefundable (though the seniors may not be). Hotels are usually same-day or 1-day cancel. But many times, on the web, the first-listed hotel rates are also nonrefundable, listed first either because they are cheaper or because they are consolidator-priced rooms that the sites like Expedia & Travelocity make the most money on. |
I second the Fodor's recommendation and would also point them to TripAdvisor, where reviewers are able to specify whether they thought a certain hotel was better for seniors (especially those who have mobility issues) vs. Spring Break partiers/families with young children/honeymooners. The advantage of sites like that is that the reviews are constantly being updated and they come from a wide variety of travelers.
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Originally Posted by swag
(Post 7504240)
There are now 2 versions of sidestep. The web version I like a lot, it searches mostly primary providers (airline sites, hotel sites, etc) plus a few discounters (hotels.com), and has nice filtering capabilities (by price, by departure time, by hotel distance to city, etc).
The point I'd stress to the class is to review penalties and small print carefully. For example, We're all used to most airfares being nonrefundable (though the seniors may not be). Hotels are usually same-day or 1-day cancel. But many times, on the web, the first-listed hotel rates are also nonrefundable, listed first either because they are cheaper or because they are consolidator-priced rooms that the sites like Expedia & Travelocity make the most money on. I also recommend sites like Trip Advisor for the armchair traveler. There is so much great info. I'll also have to mention the trip reports on FT. Thanks for the ideas. Why should they have to settle for what I can think up when we have such a great community of travelers to give input.:-: |
Maybe it's too advanced for the 101 class, but I'd get into awareness of playing the elite-status game, as that has the potential to greatly increase the amount of travel they can do. It's pretty easy to get silver, and people who like to go internationally or fairly frequently could have a shot at gold or higher.
If you can get into a groove where earning is lined up on a single carrier and also work some of the sideline things (credit cards, etc.) and get those 100% bonuses on actual miles at gold or higher, in some cases you're looking at trips that can earn 2/3 the miles needed for a free ticket of the same trip. My Asia trips usually get 38,000-40,000 total miles (need 60K lowest for free). Of course, if there's an especially lucrative special offer on the route the earning can be that much more. Mileage sales (UA's 45K to China and 20K to BDA, for example) also help if you can be flexible. If they really want to travel a good bit, I'd also stress the importance of landing the deal and then finding the reason to go there. I had never been to Acapulco, but AA's $0 fare was a good reason, as was DL's $28 to Barbados. Most deals won't be quite that good, but you do save a lot of money if you're open-minded about where to go. There's also the bump game. |
Originally Posted by RustyC
(Post 7504709)
Maybe it's too advanced for the 101 class, but I'd get into awareness of playing the elite-status game, as that has the potential to greatly increase the amount of travel they can do. I've been a 100% leisure traveler maintaining gold level or higher every year since 1992, and I've probably earned and spent around 1.7 million miles or so, all on free travel rather than upgrades. Will do 10-12 trips of 3-4 days for the earning and 2 trips of 1 month+ (often Asia/South Pacific) for most of the burning.
If you can get into a groove where earning is lined up on a single carrier and also work some of the sideline things (credit cards, etc.) and get those 100% bonuses on actual miles at gold or higher, in some cases you're looking at trips that can earn 2/3 the miles needed for a free ticket of the same trip. My Asia trips usually get 38,000-40,000 total miles (need 60K lowest for free). Of course, if there's an especially lucrative special offer on the route the earning can be that much more. Mileage sales (UA's 45K to China and 20K to BDA, for example) also help if you can be flexible. If they really want to travel a good bit, I'd also stress the importance of landing the deal and then finding the reason to go there. I had never been to Acapulco, but AA's $0 fare was a good reason, as was DL's $28 to Barbados. There's also the bump game. For example, on one of the two really cheap UA flights to MUC offered last Fall we just managed our first trip to CAI a few weeks ago, finding a cheap fare on a LCC MUC-CAI. These are good specifics further to my earlier post about describing at the outset of the class different travel strategies. ^ What we do might appeal to a small % of travelers. OTOH we've run into a few others even outside of FT who follow the same strategies and seniors signing up for a class should at least be amused and entertained by our antics, even if they don't want to emulate them. |
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