Category — Ground Travel

USA Today Reports on the Travel Situation

February 11, 2010, Washington   It wasn’t the worst day to travel, but it was certainly wasn’t one of the best.  But these challenging days are useful experience for the traveler.  When things are fine, it is quite easy for an airline to give you good service with a smile, but when there is nasty weather about or some other problem, you quickly see who lives up to the promise of being easy to deal with and who doesn’t.

It’s quite amazing how many companies you find that you are dealing with when you try to get out of a place.  Here are a few of the companies I was doing business with when I left London.  I have given each a grade based on how they dealt with me as a customer in the circumstances.  This does not reflect the quality of their products, which I’ll discuss in other posts.

Hotwire – Hotwire sells “last minute” hotel room, and I’d booked with them to stay at the Holiday Inn at Brentford Lock.  I phoned them to say that it was possible that I might arrive a day late because of the weather and asked them to inform the hotel.  They told me that if I arrived late my whole hotel reservation would be canceled, and perhaps I should talk to the hotel about this.  In any case, I should not call them until my delay looked like a certainty, in which case they said they would help me out.

This raises serious issues with Hotwire.  I had booked two rooms for six nights.  This means that, if there had been a delay, I stood to lose 12 room nights.  I would find it understandable if they did not refund you money for the nights you missed, but the idea that your entire stay might be cancelled is appalling.

If I use Hotwire again – and I am not sure that I will – I will make sure that I split the booking.  I’ll book one night following my arrival as one stay and the rest of my stay as another.

Grade D+

Holiday Inn (Brentford Lock) – If I arrived late, they said, my entire reservation would be canceled.  And since I’d booked with Hotwire, I should talk to them.  Grade F

Budget – My usual way of getting to an airport is to rent a car.  My preferred rental company is Hertz, but I sometimes rent from Budget as the price of a Hertz car is often too high.  I had made my reservation at the nearby Laurel office on the day before my flight.  Because of the snow, that office was closed so I couldn’t pick my car up.  They would not offer “pick up” service without 24 hours notice, and they wanted to raise my price because I did not pick up my car at the appointed time.  After trying to explain to them that the only reason that I had failed to pick up the car was because they had close, I told them to stuff it, and I ordered a car from Columbia Airport Shuttle.  Grade F

Columbia Airport Shuttle – I ordered the car at about 10:30 on this very difficult day.  Yes, they could pick me up at 12:15.  They arrived exactly on time.  The only minor gripe with them is that the driver said he’d prefer cash although they advertise that they accept credit cards on their web site.  Pleasant and safe driver!  Comfortable, large SUV with nice leather seats for $100.  Grade A-

Lufthansa – Cheerful and efficient check in despite a chaotically long line at the desk.  Timely notification about a two-hour delay.  They worked hard to find an aisle seat for me on a crowded plane.  Nice touch – bottled water and snacks at the check-in counter!  Grade A.

TripIt – I use TripIt.com to manage my travel schedules, and, on the whole, I like the service very much.  I subscribe to TripIt Pro, which charges an annual fee.  TripIt was mostly fine.  For a bizarre reason, TripIt thinks I am spending the week in New York rather than London.  And I knew about the delay to my flight before I got the message from TripIt.  Grade B.

I am now also going to continue the topic of surprisingly pleasant and delightfully cheap bus travel, this time from a UK perspective. I experienced my first Megabus journey on Friday afternoon, whilst travelling up to visit friends in Oxford from my home town, Portsmouth. On previous occasions, I have always used National Express funfare tickets, which only cost £6 from Portsmouth to Oxford. These ‘funfares’ are only available for a certain time coach journey each day, and on this occasion I couldn’t make the 07 35 funfare journey time. The regular National Express fare is closer to £20, and so I sought an alternative, more economical option. My Megabus ticket, at £7 plus a 50p booking fee, seemed, for a brief moment of madness, to be unacceptably over-priced compared with my usual £6 National Express deal, but I soon came to my senses and bought a ticket for the 15 10 bus. I am glad I did.

I arrived at The Hard, Portsmouth at 15 00, and was greeted by the unmistakable, albeit mildly garish, bright yellow and blue Megabus. I presented the driver with the grubby and crumpled piece of paper I had quickly scribbled my reservation number on, and irrationally panicked for a second that I should have printed off the whole reservation summary email they had sent me, instead of merely taking note of the number, despite the fact that they informed me in the email that that would be sufficient. The driver didn’t bat an eyelid, however, at my messy piece of note paper, and merely scanned his list of reservation numbers, ticked me off, and allowed me on. The interior was perfectly modern and acceptable and seemed no worse than that of National Express coaches.

The greatest disadvantage of taking Megabus rather than National Express to Oxford was probably being dropped off at Water Eaton Park and Ride as opposed to the central Gloucester Green bus station. I didn’t have to wait long (10 minutes) or pay much (£1.70) for a local bus into the centre of Oxford though, so it was only a minor inconvenience.

On my return journey on Sunday, I took the £6 National Express funfare from Oxford bus station at 17 55. Once back on my old faithful National Express, I took appreciative note of a few familiar, and minor but pleasing, details- they had tucked a plastic bag for rubbish into the basket on the back of the seat in front of me, the toilet was much cleaner (Megabus’ had been pretty much unusable), and the journey time was half an hour less.

All in all, National Express’ small but clear benefits mean that I will definitely continue to use their funfares over Megabus when I can make the specific times. When the times aren’t possible, I will most certainly use Megabus rather than pay the full National Express fare though- I am quite happy to cope with the small inconveniences for a saving of £13 per single.

Megabus

A Megabus approaching new York City

I never thought I would be talking about buses on this blog, but life has changed!

I have lived in the Baltimore/Washington area for almost thirty years, and a delightful treat has always been going to New York.  So what are the options?  Amtrak!  Amtrak can be very expensive.  By international standards, the trains are slow, terribly expensive, and customer service is hardly friendly.  Going by car has its problems too.  Tolls cost a lot of money these days.  You have to consider the wear and tear on the car.   Once my car was broken into in New York, and everything and had to drive home with a broken window.  And, if you park at a New York hotel, you can easily pay as much as $50 a night.

A few years ago, we started considering the idea of taking buses to New York.  One trip worked out well, and another was a disaster.  Click here for an account of that trip.

More recently, a company called Megabus has begun to operate services.  They stop in Washington and at White Marsh area, and we have taken them several times.  I really find them to be excellent, and, in the future, this will be how I’ll go to New York.

They are extremely cheap.  Fares are never more than about $23 each way, and, if you book in advance, can be as low as $1 — plus a 50 cent booking fee.  In my experience, they run on time. They are comfortable, safe, and fast without being dangerous.  What more could you want?

Well, you get a little bit more!  They come with power outlets and Wi-Fi.  So, you can use your laptop while traveling.  Cool!

Our trips to New York last weekend were flawless.  We were booked on the bus that leaves at 8:25 in the morning.  (We arrived at White Marsh in very good time, and they let us go on the 7:55 bus.)  We got to New York by about 11:30.  On the way back (Sunday), we left at 4:00 pm and we were at White Marsh at about 7:15.

The Baltimore stop is in White Marsh (near Ikea).  There is ample parking, but you should print out a parking pass that comes with your ticket.  All tickets are electronic.  All you need is the code sent to you by Megabus when you book.

Columbia is only about fifteen miles from Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, but I frequently need to fly from Washington Dulles or Washington National Airport. Getting there often presents a problem. I dislike using cabs because of previous bad experiences with cab companies. They arrive late and they often tell you beforehand that they accept credit cards but then “discover” a problem with that while you are on the way to the airport. When I travel, I try to use cash as little as possible.

The solution I have often found is to rent a car. I get someone to drop me off at BWI the day before and then I drop the car off at Dulles the next day. I have used both Budget and Hertz to do this and there was no drop-off charge. The price varies greatly, but I have paid as little as $18 (on a weekend) and as much as $60 during the week. Either way, it is cheaper than taking a cab and you can travel on your own schedule, eliminating the anxiety of wondering whether the cab is going to show up and the tension associated with calling the company to ask why the cab hasn’t appeared. I have always booked the cheapest possible car, but I have always been given a seemingly randomly-picked much larger car. I suspect that they give you any car that the rental company wants to move from BWI to IAD.

On my most recent trip I decided to try a local company, Columbia Airport Shuttle. (Telephone: 410 309 0006). The driver showed up at the precise time in a new and clean Lincoln Town Car. He helped me with my luggage, drove efficiently and safely, and he dropped me off right in front of the part of the airport where Lufthsansa has its desk. The cost was $85. This was a good experience.

On short trips, I use the long-term parking at Dulles although this cramps my style when returning from a trip where good wine is served!

I would love to hear from readers to see what your experience has been. To summarize, my favorite (and cheapest) way is the car rental method. Columbia Airport Shuttle was good. Parking is OK if you keep yourself wine-free on your flight!

Sometimes we like to spend a couple of days in New York, but when the whole family (four of us) goes, it can be expensive. We have tried various ways of containing the cost, including staying in hotels in New Jersey, but it is so nice to have a night or two in Manhattan.

In 2004, we went to New York on the day after Thanksgiving. This time we took a bus from a company called Dragon. Everything worked out really well. The cost was only $35.00 per person. We decided to repeat this and spend two nights during the holidays this year. We had a lot of fun, but the bus experience was a disaster!

We found that the Dragon bus was full, but there were seats on a bus run by a company called Eastern. I bought the tickets on line, and I printed them out. We arrived in good time, and the bus was there, but it was absolutely full. After a lot of arguing, the driver gave me $80 back. Then we went and bought tickets from Greyhound. The bus showed up about half an hour late, and it was also full.

At this stage we gave up, and went to New York in the car. I am not going going to use this service again!