I’m off to the home office of FlyerTalk today in El Segundo, California. Wait til you see the view from the office window. I’ll try to get the picture. (Every aviation geeks dream location). It seems so strange to be in a partnership and have others interested in the success of the Frugal Travel Guy blog. That’s why I’m going. What can we do new and better with Frugal Travel Guy and maybe even with FlyerTalk to some extent.
We decided on this meeting about a month ago and set a date and time for our meeting. I was asked if I had any preferences of hotels and airlines and I responded with American and Starwood and suggested, due to the limited flight schedule to Savannah, it may make sense for me to stay two nights. Tickets were $246 each way or $500 round trip roughly. I didn’t hear any more or see any tickets hit my email until last week.
The company has a deal with Embassy Suites which is right around the corner from their office, and as the new guy on the block, I was certainly in no position to insist on the Sheraton Gateway which would have helped my promos best, been about $85 and a short cab ride. I’ll have to check what the rate is they are paying at the Embassy Suites for comparison. I do have status with Hilton so should get a few goodies and I’ll try to plug in my HHonors number.
When the airline ticket arrived it was over $960 outbound on American and return on Delta. The return date, shortened our meeting time and was $400 over when we talked about it originally. Looks like a gotta work with the travel department for future travel.
The point of my story is that you should book when you know for sure you are going. We went from a 30 day advanced purchase price, sailed thru the 21 day deadline of a 21 day and slid well through the 14 day advanced purchase price as well on the return. I’ve never paid this much for a domestic ticket in my entire life. The outbound price stayed close to my original estimate and the entire increase was on the return. The return ended up being at the 7 day advanced purchase price.
When the dates are firm for your meetings, Book the Ticket.
And to top it all off, this big time “Do you know who I think I am” Frugal Travel Guy is booked in the back of the bus in a middle seat, with no chance for an upgrade. All that’s left are middle seats. I gotta laugh about it or I’ll cry.
We work so hard to learn the ropes and get tripped up when we let others book for us. Do you real road warriors suffer from the same thing with corporate travel departments? The home office gang already agreed to let me book my own stuff in the future. I’ll save them tons on my stuff. Remember the owners of FlyerTalk own over 100 other sites as well. Travel is not their only business and again as the newbie, I have no idea how many people they have on the road. I’ll be nosy and find out though.
But for me, now I get to be like a real road warrior using my own credit card to book my tickets and filling out an expense report for reimbursement.
So I’ll miss my upgrade on the return and the EQM’s are gone as well, but I learned something today. I’m grateful for all the knowledge we have gained in this hobby. It makes travel so much cheaper and comfortable as well.
Can I borrow a Delta lounge pass from somebody today 
Deal of the Day
For today’s Deal of the Day AutoSlash is donating a $50 Hertz Gift Card for the best overall travel deal submitted. A great mileage run, mistake fare, partner promo, new card sign-up offer, or the special twist you figured out on a deal today. Add it to the comments section of this post or this afternoon’s Deal of the Day post to be eligible to win.
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