London Travel Photos, October

London Travel, Notes and Photos, October

The Guards rehearse and train
 near  Buckingham Palace for
 the daily changing of the Guards.

A trip to London opened an opportunity to answer these three questions:

1. What is the latest on international air travel?

2. What is the best way for a traveling photographer to travel lightly in Europe and still make marketable Photos?

3.  What's up with Air BnB?

International Air Travel

The web search for a flight from Tucson to Heathrow was not simple; there were too many teaser ads and too many half truths offered by the air travel websites.

A throng of websites offer cheap flights, best flights, last minute flights, student flights, discount flights, etc but they were all the same, same itinerary, same price. 

The problem they all posed was with the itinerary.  They offered so-called best prices but along with that they all offered inadequate connection times.  (layover time)

With the TSA (Transportation and Safety Administration) recommending that you arrive two hours before your flight, how can a web site offer tickets on an international flight with a one hour layover time between connections.

You have been through it I'm sure.  You leave one plane and change terminals from domestic to International.  If your first plane is late arriving, you are running through the airport to make the next plane.   Unless everything goes as scheduled, you could have a problem. 

 If you arrive in Shannon from the US on your way to Paris, for example, and you arrive at the same time that a few airbuses pull in, you will be in long lines with 600 other people passing through security, customs, and immigration.  

Here is a Daily Mail article, (25 percent of flights delayed at Heathrow.)     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208098/Heathrow-named-Britains-worst-airport-delays-quarter-flights-delayed.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

The Flight booking websites didn't quite tell it all either.  Several flights offered a return layover of 12 -14 hours.  Not bad I thought I could take a quick tour of Helsinki.  Then I looked closely and saw that the layover was from midnight until 10 am the next morning.  Now I would need a hotel.  The price of that trip just went up a few hundred dollars.

Other websites offered remarkably low prices and then I saw that they have not included taxes and airport fees.  When I finally reached the punch line, the price had doubled.

Trafalgar Square is reached from Heathrow Airport by
  bus, train, or taxi. See link

On this trip to London I looked for a domestic change of panes and at least two hours layover time.  I found a domestic change of planes with British Airways but the best I could find was an hour and a half layover in Dallas, Fort Worth. 

I wanted at least two hours but there were no flights offering that.   I booked the flight.

I was looking forward to a flight with British Airways but it turned out to be American operating the flight.   Regardless, the flight went smoothly, on time departure, friendly staff,  no problem in security, no hassle with carry-on, and no need to go through security a second time in DFW.

If I had arrived late because of a delay in leaving Tucson, or a delay in finding a gate in DFW, or a second trip through security, which often happens on a terminal change from domestic to international, or if I had made a mistake on the shuttle train at DFW and missed the terminal, I might have missed the flight.  With short layover time there is no margin for error.  (As we have found when our pane was delayed in Mexico City and we had to spend the night in a hotel, late arriving in Chicago: we went on standby for the next flight, fog in San Francisco: we had a ten hour layover, late take off from Boston: no connecting flight in Jacksonville, etc.

The Parliament building along the Themes River
is located in the Westminster area of London,
 a great place for sightseeing. 

Another annoying wrinkle in booking a flight was that the website I did book with wanted an additional charge to assign seats.  They did not reveal this until after the flight was booked.  The website later claimed inability to book the seat in an email a few days later (I did not pay) and I ended up in the next to last row.   I was booking last minute and traveling alone so this wasn't too big a deal but it would be beyond annoying for a family or a couple. 

The website also confused the process with all sorts of add-ons, hotels, insurance, auto rental adds flashing in my face:  you name it, they offered it.  I checked the hotel prices just to compare and found they were higher than what you could book elsewhere with some shopping.

I did arrive at Heathrow as planned.  I did arrive, as we always do somehow, but I will book with a different website next time.  Some sites allow you to choose seating.  Some don't offer ridiculous layover times.  Some even make it simple and quote the true price up front and highlight the layover times.   

I decided after that ordeal that I would research some user-friendly website picks, but truth is, I found no user friendly websites for booking air travel.

For this flight, a competitive price was offered by British Airways directly form their website and they did assign seats with a phone call. 

So our recommendation is to book through the airline.  This is especially true since none of the air travel websites assign seats and they tell you to arrange seating with a call to your airline.  It comes down to this; why bother with the websites.  They are handy in investigating itineraries, however, One Travel being a good site.  For the next trip I will book directly with the airline of choice.    
Stansted to  London

Next: Traveling light